Acorna's Triumph

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Oh, he’s—er—very shy about that sort of thing,” Aari said. “Modest, you know how it is.”

  Acorna and Becker exchanged looks. From all that they had heard about Aari’s new friend up until now, he sounded anything but modest.

  “Do you suppose he’d be shy with me?” Acorna asked as sweetly as she could manage. “Because I think I’ll go with you. I’d like to meet him, too.”

  “Maybe when we come back,” Aari said hurriedly. “We’ll travel faster without distractions. Not that it matters how fast we go, really, with the time thing but…I’ll just be on my way now. These people do look hungry.”

  Aari edged away as he spoke. Acorna thought he looked more than nervous. He looked downright shifty. She would need to come up with a backup plan about her lifemate very soon. Something was not right about Aari, and the more he used his time-travel skills to be heroic, the less trustworthy he seemed to her.

  “Wait!” she said, and grabbed him for a long horn touch, twining her fingers in his mane as they met.

  He finally backed away, gulping. “I’ll be back before you can miss me,” he said, and headed for his shuttle.

  Acorna turned back to the others. Becker regarded her with one eyebrow cocked. The stones were singing something that sounded suspiciously like a love song with their humanoid agents trying, despite their depleted condition, to join in over the sounds of their rumbling bellies.

  Acorna held out her hand to Neeva and deposited a few white hairs in it. “Would you ask Khaari to run a test on these for their DNA code?”

  Neeva took the hairs carefully. “Did you get those where I think you did?”

  Acorna nodded.

  “Then I think that might just be very interesting,” Neeva said, and walked away toward her ship. She looked back. “Aren’t you coming, Acorna?”

  Mac, Becker, and Rafik began reloading the drill and other equipment. Becker stood up and stretched his back. “I think I’d better hail Hafiz and warn him about all this. I’m not sure how this time stuff Aari does works. But I probably need to explain to Hafiz that his beneficence in providing the chow will earn him the undying gratitude of the sole agents and purveyors of the talents of the Singing Stones of Skarness.”

  Rafik laughed. “Becker, are you sure you’re not related to House Harakamian somewhere way back in your birth family? You and Hafiz certainly think alike.”

  Meanwhile, Neeva, Acorna, and her parents boarded the Balakiire. It didn’t take Khaari long to run the simple test.

  “Hmmm,” she said.

  “Hmmm?” Acorna said. “What do you mean by ‘Hmmm’?” She slipped Aari’s birth disk off over her horn and handed it to Khaari. “This is Aari’s, and those hairs came from his mane just now. Do they—I mean, is he…Is there a match?”

  “I can tell you that without even looking at the disk,” Khaari said. “Though I will, of course. But this DNA can’t belong to Aari. It’s not even completely Linyaari.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Acorna said. “I don’t suppose you can tell which species it does belong to?”

  Khaari smiled at her. “Don’t worry. It’s not Khleevi.”

  Acorna groaned. “Maybe I should wear a horn-hat when I sleep. Of course it’s not Khleevi. But whose is it?”

  “It bears some resemblance to ours—you see these sequences here. But this—these are feline pairings. And there are many other oddities.”

  Acorna shook her head, looking skyward. “All right,” she said. “Who are you really, and what have you done with my lifemate?” But she was already pretty sure she knew the answer to the first question, anyway.

  Somewhere on the Planet Vhiliinyar,

  During the Time of the Khleevi Invasion

  Aari wasn’t surprised that the water trick didn’t work. Mildly disappointed, but not surprised. Very well, there was no help for it but to try to find his way alone, on foot, and in the midst of the Khleevi invasion, back to the underground city. If he remained in this cave any longer, history would show that he, not Laarye, perished there of thirst and hunger.

  As soon as he stepped outside the cave, he found food, of course. The small patch of green that marked the Linyaari burial grounds was kept alive by the energy still residing in the DNA of the horns and bones of the dead. He grazed hungrily, then stuffed as many tufts of grass as he could pull into his shipsuit. It occurred to him that he was being foolish to leave what could be the only source of nourishment left on Vhiliinyar, but he felt an increasing urge to vacate the cave where his brother had once died. The skin along his spine twitched with a desire to be away from there.

  He had nothing besides the grass to take with him, so he took nothing else. He noted how white he looked against the dark and broken ground of his home planet. When he was out of sight of the green cemetery, he found a nice muddy, ashy place and rolled around in it, blackening his suit, skin, and mane, and rubbing liberal amounts onto his horn and face. It was not much, but it would have to do. If he came across a trail of Khleevi slime fresh enough not to be hardened he might rub a bit of that onto himself, too, repulsive as it was. If the bugs had any sense of smell, their own stench should disguise his.

  He was alert, vigilant, always moving, but progressing very slowly, staying close to the ground so he might be below the sight line of a crawling Khleevi. He broadcast no cries for help to Grimalkin, to Khornya in her own time, or anyone else, in case the Khleevi’s own sense for the thoughts of their fellows picked up his alien signal. Yet he tried to keep his own senses attentive for their nonverbal communications. He could recognize it, he was sure, though he detected no trace of it so far. But then, neither did he hear any of the klik-ing and klaking sounds they made with their legs and pincers when in direct communication.

  He couldn’t dwell on that. He couldn’t emit the fear that smothered him every time he let his mind touch on what had happened the last time he was in this situation. He had learned when he fought the Khleevi before that the pheromones he exuded when he was afraid would attract them. They fed on fear and pain.

  His mind kept drifting back to the time he had spent with Grimalkin, wondering why the Ancestral “Friend” who had taken Aari under his wing would betray him and leave him behind here, where his worst nightmares had been born. Now, thanks to Grimalkin, this was no longer merely a nightmare, but reality once again.

  What the frack, as Joh Becker would say, was Grimalkin up to? The creature was an empath. As such, the Friend didn’t merely know what Aari felt; he actually felt all that Aari had felt during their association, unless Aari shielded from him, which he seldom did. Grimalkin had to know how hard this would be for Aari, had to feel for him. So what could have made him do this?

  Aari reviewed all the conversations they’d had. Had he unintentionally mortally offended Grimalkin? So much so that the feline shape-shifter would take such fearsome revenge on him? Surely he’d have noticed something like that. But Aari could think of nothing. Mostly, they’d talked about Aari’s life since the Khleevi, and especially of meeting Khornya and how they had become lifemates, joined in spirit and body. That was a joy so intense that he had never imagined it was possible for himself—especially as scarred and tortured as he had been after his misadventures with the Khleevi. Aari missed Acorna so much, and he hated being separated from her, but even so he knew she would understand that he had to try to free Laarye. Certainly Grimalkin had understood that part of the mission. He had even carried it out while betraying Aari.

  Aari could hardly believe it. Grimalkin had seemed so intrigued by Aari’s stories of his courtship with Khornya. He’d laughed delightedly at the tale of the silly holograms the children of MOO had devised to finally lure the two of them into each other’s arms. He’d seemed touched when Aari told him how he and Khornya helped his little sister Maati rescue their parents. And he’d declared himself thrilled and chilled by the adventures they’d had together ridding the universe of the Khleevi once and for all. But more than any adventures or stories, G
rimalkin had seemed to understand just how much Aari loved his Khornya and she him. He’d understood that she was the most remarkable, brilliant, beautiful, kind, insightful, intelligent, resourceful, courageous Linyaari female he had ever met and how privileged he felt that she had chosen him. Grimalkin had even agreed that she must surely be the best specimen of womanhood of her race. Aari began to wonder if perhaps he hadn’t dwelled on that a bit too long.

  But from the first journey they made together, Grimalkin had urged him to make recordings of all of his memories of the time since his capture. Aari recorded his reunions with family members, his rescue by Joh Becker and Riidkiiyi, his healing, his friendships, his adventures, his part in victory over the Khleevi, and anything and everything to do with Khornya.

  When Aari balked at committing his private memories to recorded data, Grimalkin had said in a patient, purring voice, “I’m only thinking of your own good, son of my sons to be. I am a master of time, but even I occasionally find lapses in my memories from slipping too quickly forward or back. If you miss the synapse in the time-space helix by even a fraction of a nanosecond, you may become disoriented and never recover all of the moments of your life. Recording them is the best way to make sure you have them always.”

  “Is that what you do?” Aari had asked him.

  “Oh, yes, but my device is much more sophisticated. I use it constantly, recording everything as it happens. With visuals, as well as olfactory and other sensory data.”

  “You must have had a fascinating life,” Aari said. “I would like to see these recordings you’ve made.”

  Grimalkin had grinned his sly grin, reminding Aari of RK. “You’re still too young, my boy. Wait until I’ve shown you a few things; then perhaps I will share certain selected passages that might amuse you. Now, this Khornya of yours, when you mate, what sort of sounds does she make?”

  Ugh! Even as a memory, that question was much too personal. Aari had refused to answer Grimalkin, or even to record such intimate information. “That is for Khornya and me to know, no one else,” he said. “To speak of these things to others would be a betrayal of our bond.”

  “No need to get all stuffy, son,” Grimalkin said with a bored-sounding yawn and a stretch. “But if you should by ill chance lose that part of your memory in our travels, you’ll be sorry. It’s your life, after all. I’m just trying to help you, as I have from the start. Does she close her eyes when you touch horns or leave them open, by the way?”

  For an empath, Grimalkin could be appallingly insensitive.

  And he could be worse than insensitive, as Aari knew. In the right circumstances, Grimalkin could be as cruel as a cat playing with a rodent, a personality trait common to most of the Friends. Aari had seen a great deal of that before he and Grimalkin had left Makahomia. It seemed now to Aari that Grimalkin’s empathy apparently extended just far enough to learn Aari’s feelings, but only in order to exploit them. And perhaps to develop a prurient interest in Khornya.

  But Aari knew that his Khornya would never betray him, just as he would never betray her. While Grimalkin had been busy restructuring the gene pool of Makahomia, making over the population, which was mostly from immigrant Terran stock, into his own image, Aari had recorded not memories, but messages for Khornya, to send across time, to let her know he was coming back to her.

  Grimalkin, caught up in a storm of procreation with anything female on the planet, guaranteeing feline shape-shifting offspring among at least some of them, had urged him to do likewise. “There’s room for two superior species here, my boy. And you are a hero to those females since you purified their lake. You could have your pick. They’re a bit scrawny, it’s true, but some of them could be quite attractive.”

  Aari had declined. Later, exhausted from his exertions, Grimalkin had collapsed next to Aari and sighed. “It must be restful, being bonded to only one female. When she’s away, if you wish you can do something else.”

  “We will not be wishing to do anything else for quite a while once Khornya and I are together again,” Aari said, smiling.

  Grimalkin stood up, his face shadowed by the walls of the temple that his new friends had built for him.

  “Leaving again so soon?” Aari asked.

  “I’m suddenly hungry,” he said. “I need to go pounce on something.”

  This time, Aari thought, he was the one who had been pounced on.

  But not by the Khleevi. Not yet. The ground beneath him shook so often that when it stopped he found himself counting silently, waiting for the next quake.

  But, for the time being, he had been spared meeting the Khleevi. As far as he could see in the sun’s brilliant searing light, the world around him was bleak and dead. Nothing moved on its surface, though the surface itself trembled, cracked, heaved, and spewed like someone burning with fever.

  He had that wonderful Linyaari navigational sense to guide him as he inched through the parched landscape toward the underground city. What if the entrance was blocked by cave-ins from the earthquakes? The city had been above ground when he first saw it, but when he brought the sii-Linyaari forward in time, the city had long been buried, abandoned, and for the most part forgotten except in legend and song. But it was a real place. He had been there, and now, if only he could return there and find the time device, he could return to his own time without having to wait for Joh to rescue him again. Or for Grimalkin to reconsider and return for him.

  Meanwhile, he kept very low and tried to move as quickly as possible while still maintaining his alertness and strength for the long journey. He wished he had dared to run at the first, when he still had the energy. He could have covered a great deal of ground. Though his people used spaceships and flitters, they all loved to run and could travel vast distances in the course of a day. But with the Khleevi presence, he knew he couldn’t make himself so conspicuous. So instead he crept, crawled, and sometimes walked cautiously. As his food gave out, he lost strength. And he was constantly thirsty. His throat felt like the land looked.

  He found a place where he and Laarye had splashed in a wide river as boys. The riverbed was now an upheaval of rocks coated with Khleevi scat and husks from the larvae the Khleevi spawned there. Looking at the wreckage from a distance, Aari shuddered. He remembered the voracious Young who frightened even the older Khleevi.

  But now the riverbed was scored and stripped of everything but broken stone, which didn’t surprise Aari at all. The Young devoured anything and everything of nutritional value to any known species, and only then left to devour other areas. He was fairly sure from his later experience with them that the Young probably also devoured each other as well as their elders when other food sources weren’t available in abundance.

  Still, remembering the river of his youth, he found it hard to believe that even in a few months, all of the water had gone. He found one soft place in the riverbed with less rock over it than the rest and no Khleevi slime. He dug with both hands until he ached so badly he had to run his horn over the parts he could reach to keep digging.

  At last he was rewarded by a bubble of stinking, venomous-looking liquid burbling its way into the hole he had made. Cupping some in his hands, he managed to dip his horn into it before it dribbled through his quivering fingers. He drank and repeated the process until he could no longer coax more of the liquid from the ground. Then there was nothing to do but continue his journey.

  Once more he counted himself lucky to have arrived after the Khleevi vacated the area. He just wished he had something—anything—to tell him where they actually were so that he could continue to avoid them.

  He listened with his entire being for their kliks and klaks. Their thoughts had been incomprehensible when he first encountered them, but he now understood a great many Khleevi concepts and preoccupations. He heard no babbling of them anywhere near him and had to hope he was safe for the present.

  Renewing the coating of soil on his suit, skin, and hair every few hours, Aari dared to walk upright down the riverbe
d. It was as good a plan as any. Rivers fed into seas. The city had been by the sea. Perhaps this riverbed would lead him to the place where the city was buried.

  When he was once more too thirsty to continue, he stopped and dug in the riverbed again. He didn’t have to dig as deep this time to find the liquid under the surface. That might mean that he was closer to sea level, he surmised, which was encouraging.

  He walked on and on until he found a shallow cave carved into the side of the riverbank. He crawled inside and carefully scooped rubble and rocks toward him so the entrance was somewhat blocked. After his trek through the blasted landscape, he now smelled as bad as any Khleevi. He lay down on his side thinking he could at least try to rest.

  Before he dropped into an exhausted doze, he wondered what made Grimalkin think he could claim Khornya, even if the Friend had left Aari stranded and alone?

  Eleven

  Captain, we have an urgent message on the com unit,” Mac announced.

  Acorna and her fellow Linyaari were hauling huge sheaves of grasses and flowers harvested from the Balakiire’s onboard gardens.

  Mac, Rafik, and Becker brought out the meager stores of human food remaining on the Condor and four large bags of cat food. RK danced around the bags nervously, as if trying to guard them all at once.

  Mac continued. “Chief Security Officer Aziza

  Amunpul reports that our stones are definitely in the process of being tampered with. She inquires whether or not she and her crew should attempt to detain the suspects.”

  “You didn’t go near the bridge when you picked up your load of cat food, Mac. How do you know all this?

  Don’t tell me you’re establishing mental communication with the hardware on the Condor.”

  “No, Captain. I will not tell you that. However, I do have a surprise for you.” He opened the top of his uniform and pressed a spot where a navel might be found on a human being. Aziza’s anxious face spread across his chest. “You see? I have installed a portable com unit modification. I thought it might be useful for just such situations as the one in which we presently find ourselves. Away from the ship when an important message comes in, that is.”