Acorna's Triumph

by Anne McCaffrey

  For a while he refined his technique by vivisecting each tree in a similar manner, but then grew impatient and sliced through the entire forest many times. The results were spectacular, since the upper branches of the smaller trees fell into the diced trunks of the larger, bringing them down. The upper branches of the taller trees in turn smote everything in their downward path. In mere seconds, he reduced the forest to a mesa of wooden disks topped by a fretwork of fallen treetops. The mossy foliage withered and crumpled as he watched, and he shot a fist triumphantly into the air before looking for the next target.

  That was all very well, he supposed, but he really wanted to try it out on sentients, preferably people. Perhaps he could find a refugee camp or a pesky guerrilla encampment offending some wealthy government?

  Meanwhile, this lackluster planet could provide him with a place to store his booty. If Hafiz caught up with him, he’d just as soon have his loot stored and safe, waiting for the instant he escaped to claim it. Keeping only the stone in his weapon and one other relatively tiny stone, small enough to fuel a devastating hand weapon, he found another forest like the one he had destroyed, jettisoned his carefully packed cargo into its midst, carefully taking the coordinates of the spot where he’d landed, then sliced away the tops of the nearest trees. They covered his treasure as they fell, but since the branches retained their shape, the forest canopy appeared unbroken from above.

  Satisfied that he could relocate the hoard at his whim, and that no one else would ever find it without his help, he departed.

  But, unbeknownst to him, he left behind the outraged and enraged inhabitants of the planet, a collection of sulfur-based life-forms. They were livid over his unprovoked attack and determined to avenge themselves on the perpetrator. They had been taken so completely by surprise that they had been unable to deploy their own weapons before the flyby massacre of a continentful of their people. But, after assessing the damage and finding the cache of stones left amid the decapitated bodies of an entire clan of Solids, they knew just who had attacked them. They began measures to counterattack.

  Though Hafiz had appeared sanguine about the loss of the stones, he was understandably eager to recover them. The docking bay was almost empty by the time Acorna returned from a fascinating tea with the new security staff. The Condor was still there, however, the robolift still on the ground.

  She saw why when Becker strode into the terminal, and said, “There you are, Princess! Are you going to join this Easter egg hunt or not?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it, Captain. Rafik left not long ago on the same mission, though I think he mainly intended to check the black market on Kezdet.”

  “Good idea. I can check a few other spots, too, but I have a feeling that our boy won’t be showing up in the usual places. He might not have been the brightest star in the cosmos, but he had to know that Hafiz’s customers wouldn’t double-cross House Harakamian. My guess is he has some ideas of his own about where to sell them. And if his potential customers are the kind of characters I have in mind, our thief’ll probably have stashed the stones in a safe place.”

  “A place which a ship with superior sensors and scanners might be able to locate while the thief is elsewhere?”

  “You got it. The Condor’s equipment along those lines may be a bit eclectic, but it beats anything else available right now, even to Hafiz. And your uncle tells me that the stones each have a nanochip embedded within the House Harakamian logo lasered into the girdle of the stones. One homing beacon might be too slight for a ship to detect from space, but if the stones are still clustered together, the beacon’s power is magnified exponentially. If anybody can track it, we can.”

  So Acorna accompanied them on their search.

  “Even with the homing beacons,” she said, “it will be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, although I have never understood exactly why a needle would be in a haystack.”

  “Just leave it up to the Condor, Captain and crew, Princess. This is our kinda job, what we do best. Finding stuff. This time we even know what we’re looking for. Who knows, maybe that’ll make it easier. I’ve narrowed it down already to someplace in the multiverse. Sooner or later we’re bound to find the catseyes.”

  While watching the scanners, Becker kept up a conversation over the com unit with Rafik on his ship Sinbad. Rafik’s course would diverge from theirs as he headed back for Federation space at some point; meanwhile the companionship was comforting for the crews of both vessels.

  While not on watch, Acorna busied herself in the hydroponics garden, with RK’s enthusiastic participation, and caught up on Becker’s log. She had thought that she would be able to forget Aari, since she had been so relieved when he decided to go elsewhere, but she found she was unable to do so. At least there weren’t any active Linyaari telepaths to receive her conflicting thoughts aboard the Condor. On Makahomia, she had developed some telepathic communication with Becker, but it worked only when they were directly attempting to address each other.

  They were several days out from their starting point when, during Mac’s watch, the android suddenly called over the ship’s intercom, “Captain Becker, Acorna, please report to the bridge. There is something on our remote scanners you should see.”

  When they saw the faint pulsing light, took the coordinates, and figured out the approximate location, Acorna said, “We should let Rafik know about this. He’s much closer than we are, but the Condor’s scanners are far more powerful than what he has on the Sinbad.”

  They did so, arranging to rendezvous with Rafik at the coordinates from which the beacon emanated.

  “What’s to be done about this atrocity?” the spokesman for the Solids demanded. “Our folk were attacked during a peaceful assembly and horribly cut to pieces. They even had a permit. And then a perfectly innocent wedding party was also attacked, the bride, groom, bonder, and all of their attendants dismembered before being bombed by that horror from the heavens.”

  “We are aware of all this, of course,” said the Mutable magistrate in charge of keeping the peace, which was by no means easy with such a volatile population. It was usually the fickle Liquids, always into something they shouldn’t be, who started it, but this time they were proving useful. “We sent several Liquid deputies to seep in under the corpses and determine what was dropped. It is an odd collection of stones. They are not sentient, but do carry a signature and a signal, which indicates that the beings who attacked us intend to return for the stones at some point in the future. We have only to leave the bodies where they are for the time being and wait. When the evil creatures who murdered your kinsmen return, we will be ready for them.”

  “We—we will? We who? You’re the magistrate. It’s up to you to see that the peace is kept. I have no wish to be hacked to pieces by some unseen menace.”

  “Nor will you be. Your people who witnessed the massacre will be replaced with Mutables, backed up by Liquids, and we will guard the jettisoned cargo. Our scientists believe the stones are quite valuable. When the owners—this House Harakamian—return for the stones, they will not find such easy targets as those they murdered last time.”

  And so the alliance was formed and the plot for revenge upon the horrible House Harakamian initiated.

  For many turns of the suns and moons, the Mutables stood around the murdered corpses of the Solids, heedless of the stench of decomposition. At their feet and flowing around them were their Liquid underlings, ready to spray into action at the first sign of trouble.

  And now, at last, the time had come. A vessel appeared in the heavens. At first it seemed to be scanning the surface. Then suddenly it homed in on the cache of stones and hovered above the bodies of the fallen wedding party. Trembling Solids watched from what cover they could find, though the force that had beheaded Mount Fumidor and spilled lava over three villages and one ski resort in the surrounding valleys made the idea of cover somewhat questionable.

  The Mutables were really awfully brave. You had to say that f
or them. They gamely stood their ground as Solids, but prepared to dissolve into Liquid before a laser could touch any of them.

  However, the vessel was ominously still. Surely it did not understand their plans! How could it?

  It appeared to be waiting for something. What? A full-scale invasion force? Egstynkeraht had never been invaded before. Were they to be totally annihilated?

  But the Mutables had no intention of staying in one shape any longer than they had to. They considered it degrading, even in the best of causes. They muttered among themselves. Just as they were debating whether or not to turn into vapor and risk dissipating themselves into space by directly attacking the ship, the vessel spawned a smaller vessel, which descended upon them.

  Seven

  I don’t like it,” Acorna said, when finally they were close enough to make out the planet above which the Sinbad and Rafik awaited them. The planet’s shifting surface was the brilliant mustard orange of flitter traffic signs on Kezdet.

  Acorna hailed her foster father. “Rafik, please don’t move until we arrive to back you up. Becker can use his tractor beam to pull the stones into the ship.”

  “Not without moving a lot of foliage,” Rafik told her. “The payload appears to be buried under the forest canopy. We’d have brush scattered from the surface to deep space if you use the tractor beam, and at the end of it the rocks would still be closest to the surface. Somehow we’d still have to wade through all that vegetation to get at the stones.”

  “So what do you suggest?” Becker asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. There’s no place to land a ship near the location of the signal, but I could take the Roc down.”

  Then, suddenly, he said, “Well, if that’s not the durndest thing! Ask and it shall be given! I didn’t notice it before, but there actually is a clear space big enough to set the shuttle down fairly near the area sending out the signals. I just spotted it. Funny. I could swear it wasn’t there when I started talking to you. I’m going to go suss out the situation.”

  While he was on his way from the Sinbad’s bridge to the Roc’s, Acorna tried to get a feeling for the planet. The molecular base was sulfurous. That much was immediately apparent. But although it was still a great distance away, she felt oddly skittish just looking at it. Perhaps they would discover more as they drew nearer, but she felt sure that what she saw on the com screen was not all there was to this particular world.

  “Rafik, I really do think you should wait till we get there,” Acorna said, her voice coming out in a higher pitch than normal. “I don’t like the feel of this place at all.”

  “Ow!” Becker said. RK, who had been sitting peacefully on the back of the command chair, sank his claws into Becker’s scalp. “What?” he asked, then noticed Acorna’s expression. “Rafik, did you read that last message? Belay your landing and return to the Sinbad. Acorna is getting bad vibes. Frankly, I’m not crazy about the place either.”

  But though they were still too distant to see exactly what was happening, and the Roc was now out of visual range, they clearly heard Rafik’s response. “Mayday!” he shouted. “Mayday! The shuttle is under attack. No, Sinbad, you are not to respond until I understand the threat a little better.” Then he groaned. “Everybody stay put. I don’t know how this is happening but something is shooting acid onto the shuttle’s hull. The hull is being penetrated in some areas. Stay the frag away from here.” He started to speak again, but what he was going to say was replaced by a yelp of pain, then the com unit fell silent.

  Before Acorna could react, Becker slammed the Condor into warp drive, shaking the very seams where pieces of various salvaged vessels married on the outer hull. It was a while before Acorna could move freely again after being shoved violently into her seat back.

  But at last the stars quit blurring past the viewport, replaced by a view of the yellow planet with its fungus-crusted, leprous-looking surface relieved by odd puddles and ponds, seas and lakes of thick, polluted-looking liquid. Becker set the com screen for remote magnification.

  Acorna sent out mental runners, searching for Rafik’s consciousness. She found it, and him. She sensed that although he was injured and in pain, he was mostly bewildered about what had hit him.

  The Sinbad hailed the Condor.

  “Condor, there are only two crew members aboard our ship other than the captain. Rafik took the only shuttle. One of us must remain aboard to maintain orbit. Are you in any better position than we are to help Rafik?”

  “Stand by, Sinbad. Maintain your position. The cavalry has arrived,” Becker said.

  “That’s a big relief,” the crewman said, and signed off.

  Acorna knew that, in spite of the attempt the crewman made to sound calm, he was desperately worried and frustrated not to be able to rescue Rafik.

  But flooding across the emanations from the crewmen and Rafik, from Captain Becker and RK, she felt other presences, heard an undercurrent of other unintelligible thoughts babbling on the planet below.

  These consciousnesses were gibbering, gloating, vengeful. And they were closing in on the disabled shuttle, ready to finish it off.

  “Captain Becker, Rafik is surrounded!” she said, grabbing the LAANYE and inputting as many words as she could distinguish of the language used by the vengeance seekers. Their thoughts were expressed in sounds that hissed, sizzled, and boomed through her mind.

  “How can he be surrounded?” Becker asked. “There’s nothing down there but a lot of really ugly yellow trees and scrub brush.”

  “Look more closely,” she advised, glancing at the screen, but mainly relying on the telepathic impressions she was receiving. “Those are sentient ‘really ugly yellow trees and scrub brush.’ ”

  RK jumped up between Becker and the scanner most firmly focused on the shuttle. Backing up to the com screen, the cat, ears laid back, eyes slitted and fur bristling, shook his tail spasmodically at the com screen, coating it with smelly essence of tomcat.

  “RK, you son of a skunk, what are you trying to do?” Becker bellowed, and smote the cat…gently…from the console. RK hissed, then turned and looked at him.

  The look said, as clearly as if the cat was speaking Basic, “Pay attention, stupid. You think I did that for my health?”

  Acorna wiped the screen with a rag. It still appeared cloudy.

  “Jeez,” Becker said. “Cat spray can ruin anything. I’m going to have to locate a new screen somewhere if he’s ruined that one. Can’t see anything through it now—”

  “But you can, Captain,” Acorna told him. “The screen is perfectly clear. The cloudiness is coming from the spray the beings are using to attack Rafik. Sulfuric acid spray.”

  “Sulfuric acid?”

  “The beings on this planet are sulfur-based life-forms. The acid spray is a logical defense for them to use against intruders.” She laid the LAANYE aside. There was no time to learn the language. Mac, approaching the bridge, picked up the instrument and watched his shipmates and the com screen while he nonchalantly connected himself to the LAANYE.

  “Sulfur-based? You sure?” Becker asked.

  “Why should that be hard to believe? You are carbon-based, after all. What’s wrong with being sulfur-based?”

  “Copy that,” Becker joked, but Acorna, who had less extensive knowledge of obscure ancient communications and record-keeping devices than Becker, shook her head.

  “Can we use the tractor beam to pull him out of there, Captain?” Mac asked.

  “That ship is dissolving around him,” Becker said. “If it fell apart as we were pulling Rafik up, he’d have no protection at all from the acid or the vacuum of space.”

  Acorna was no longer trying to understand the language of the sulfur beings, but instead was broadcasting a mental image picture of them backing off, ceasing to spray the ship. Of Rafik standing up, unhurt, and his tormentors allowing him to go.

  In return she received angry images of lightning bolts from above, attacking a joined pair of beings and
the one joining them, cutting them to pieces in front of their loved ones, then dropping something on top of the bodies and dismembering the closest onlookers so that their heads and arms covered the jettisoned cargo.

  Acorna sent an image of Smythe-Wesson doing what they had just described—and of Rafik chasing him, trying to stop him.

  The spray disappeared from the screen and it seemed to her the sulfur people looked upward, as if trying to see her.

  She received an impression that clearly expressed the feelings of the hostile beings.

  “You all look alike to us.”

  She had no trouble understanding the sentiment whatsoever. Maybe because it was such a universal expression of racism, or speciesism, or whatever.

  She sent a picture of herself to them.

  Mac, now disconnected from the LAANYE, was peering over her shoulder. “Acorna, they are saying you do not look like the other two.”

  “Mac, you’re a wonder. You learned their language in a fraction of the time it would have taken a Linyaari. How can I tell them more clearly that Rafik is innocent?”

  “They will not believe you, Khornya. Rafik’s ship bears the emblem of House Harakamian, as do the stones. The sulfur beings believe that House Harakamian is the name of the being who slaughtered their people.”

  “How can I explain to them that the stones were stolen from us by the person who attacked them?”

  “Ahhh,” Mac said, scanning his own data for the answer. Then he gave her a phrase in the hissing, sizzling, booming language.

  She let the phrases flow through her mind, transmitting them to the creatures below. Then she asked Mac, “What did I just say?”

  “You told them that we are honorable and superior Mutables attacked by the same lowborn Solid who attacked them, and we too would like to spray acid on the…I’m afraid the descriptive phrase does not readily translate, Acorna.”