[Acorna 08] - First Warning: Acorna's Children (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

by Anne McCaffrey

  He unwrapped it, stuffed a third of it into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. She might not know how to argue like a pacifist, he decided, but she knew how to make a peace offering when the opportunity presented itself.

  She stood behind Elviiz and seemed to be massaging his hair, then scalped him, ignoring Hap’s surprised yelp. Placing a finger delicately inside his head, she flicked something, and replaced the scalp patch. “Come on, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she told him. “Marl and Khiindi are both mended, so there is no need for you to be disabled.”

  Slowly, the android lifted his head, and said in a surprisingly level voice, considering the misery reflected in his posture, “But what I did was ka-Linyaari.”

  “Elviiz, you are my foster brother, and as annoying as any blood relative, from what I have seen of such relationships. You are as Linyaari in spirit as I am. I felt like taking Marl apart myself when I saw poor Khiindi.”

  “Thank you, Khorii. That means a lot to me,” the droid said.

  “However, and I do not say this to be unkind, you are not organically Linyaari. You are not descended from the Ancestors except perhaps to some degree spiritually, nor were you formed by the Friends. You are the child of your father, and, like him, are stronger and possess far more knowledge than any of our people. Have I mentioned recently how annoying that can be?”

  “Yes, Khorii. But you see, my position is an ambiguous one. On the one hand I am your foster brother and playfellow, but on the other hand I am your tutor and mentor in matters of data and learning. And I am to look after you—”

  “And protect me, right? And so, to keep me from being hurt, you protect Khiindi, too. Which you did. So now, can we please try to contact the grandfathers or the Condor from here again? It is possible that the bubble was not as conducive to your transmission as it could have been. Let us try from here.”

  “Very well, Khorii, but first I would like to clarify an error in the corollary to your initial hypothesis. I protected Khiindi because he is my friend, too. And there is a great deal of evidence to support the theory that those who harm the small and helpless four-footed beings will also harm two-legged beings when those beings are at their mercy. Therefore, the behavior of those who torture the weak should be corrected when it is first perceived.”

  “By breaking his arm?” she asked. “Perhaps a nice chokehold and a lecture would have sufficed.”

  “Oh, come on!” Hap said. “He had it coming. I’d have corrected the daylights out of his behavior myself if Elviiz hadn’t done it first.”

  “In retrospect my reaction to Marl’s treatment of Khiindi was—excessive, I realize,” Elviiz replied. “I will have to modulate my behavior in the future to ensure that it does not happen again.”

  Elviiz seemed restored to full functionality, and sent hails to both the hospital frequency on Kezdet and the Condor’s private one. There was no answer from either. Khorii sighed and turned to go when the com receiver abruptly crackled to life.

  “Maganos Moonbase, this is Rajan Taj, second officer of the supply vessel Mana of the Krishna-Murti Company subcontracting to House Harakamian. Do you read me?” The man on the vid screen had dark skin but still managed to look pale, a green undertone beneath the deep brown complexion. His eyes were red and he looked as though he had been crying.

  He repeated the hail several times without success.

  “Ooops,” Hap said. “My fault. I’m supposed to be com officer tonight, but it’s been so slow, what with the quarantines and all, I forgot.”

  A man’s brisk voice replied to the hail. “We read you, Mana. This is Phador Al y Cassidro headmaster of Maganos Moonbase. What is it?”

  The officer from the Mana spoke slowly and, Khorii thought, reluctantly. “Mr. Al y Cassidro, two things.” The man paused for a breath, then said, “We came to resupply your base, but I regret that we cannot bring your supplies to the surface. Our crew has been stricken with what is surely the plague. Our captain was the first to die, purser followed him six hours ago, and my wife, who is the ship’s first officer, and the chief engineer are gravely ill. I don’t feel very well myself. I hope you have some food stored away somewhere because we cannot deliver this without bringing the plague to you.”

  “That is most unfortunate. Your parent company has always been reliable in the past. You realize I have many hungry youngsters to feed as well as a staff?”

  “Yes. I realize this. And so I tell you the second part of my message. Our young daughter Jaya is on board, the only member of the crew who does not appear ill, though she is nursing her mother as best she can. But that is no longer her place. Please allow us to send her to you in our shuttle. If you will make a decontamination chamber for her, she will go through it, wash herself thoroughly, cut off her hair if you insist, and change her clothing before entering an isolation chamber of your choice until you can see that she is disease-free. But do not leave her up here with us—with our bodies—alone on the ship. Promise me you will do this.”

  “It’s absolutely out of the question. I’m sorry for your daughter, but we are already on short rations, and since yours are unusable, we will have all we can do to feed the children we have. If you are amply supplied, I see no reason why the girl shouldn’t do better than my students will, as she will have enough to eat.”

  Rajan Taj looked stricken. “Please, sir. It is not her fault that we are ill. She is only a girl. You must care for children to have so many there. Take pity on her, I beg you.”

  “I’m sorry. There is no use arguing. My decision has been made. When the quarantine is lifted, we will contact the Federation Health Authorities to decontaminate your ship and deliver the cargo we paid you for already. If your daughter survives until then, she is certainly welcome until some suitable arrangement can be made for her. That is the best I can do. We have student communications officers running our unit, and I hope that you will not distress them by repeating your futile entreaties. Maganos Moonbase out.”

  “Have I mentioned that we don’t like that guy much?” Hap asked.

  “What is the matter with some of these people?” Khorii asked. “Elviiz, get second officer Taj back.”

  Elviiz was already hailing the stranded supply ship.

  “Mana, this is the space shuttle Crow currently under Linyaari command. Please come in, Second Officer Taj.”

  “I—read you,” Taj said, a cough between the first and second word. His face was streaked with tears, and his cheekbones seemed even more sharply pronounced than a moment before.

  Khorii stepped up so that her face would appear in the Mana’s viewscreen. “Mr. Taj, do you know of House Harakamian’s connection with the Linyaari people?” she asked.

  “Lady Acorna! Is it really you? We have all heard of you, of course, but never…” He broke off, coughing hard.

  Elviiz started to correct the man again. Khorii was surprised that Taj mistook her for her mother, because she didn’t think they looked very much alike. She took after her father’s side of the family. But maybe outsiders couldn’t tell. She said, “Well, perhaps you’ve heard that I’m here to help with the plague. We will board you and, using our people’s special medical skills, heal your crew members of the plague, after which my friend here and I will decontaminate your ship and the supplies for the Moonbase. Permission to board?”

  The man looked incredulous and hopeful at the same time. “What seemed a disaster now reveals itself as the best of luck. Gracious lady, we could not have picked a better place to come.”

  When Taj signed off, Hap asked, “Can you really do that? You’re only a kid, and that guy thinks you’re your mom.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Only two people need to be healed and a relatively small ship—not like others I’ve seen—needs to be purified. My parents are doing a whole planet, maybe a star system! They would expect me to take care of small problems like this by myself. We—our healing technology—is certainly up to that. We—it—can heal anybody.”

  Chapte
r 14

  Elviiz began the countdown and instrument check while Khorii took the copilot seat and Hap the “jump seat,” an anachronistic term left over from inner-atmospheric flights when it was conceivable, with the use of a personal sail, actually to jump out of a craft and survive.

  Before Elviiz finished his countdown, the hull came under attack. Pounding at first, then a horrible screech like—exactly like—claws scratching metal.

  Khorii unstrapped and opened the hatch. Sesseli and Khiindi looked up at her reproachfully for a moment, then Khiindi, tail fully healed and waving majestically, marched aboard. Before Khorii could say anything to either of them, Sesseli darted after him.

  “Wait,” Khorii said, as Elviiz continued his interrupted count-down. “Sesseli, we are going on a special mission to a supply ship orbiting this moon. There are sick people aboard, and they might make you sick, too.”

  “What about Hap? Hap could get sick,” the little girl argued.

  “Thank you for pointing that out,” Khorii told her. “Hap will have to stay in the shuttle when we go up, until everyone is healed and the atmosphere and cargo are cleansed. Even Khiindi will have to stay in the shuttle until Elviiz and I decontaminate everything and heal everyone.”

  “Then I’ll stay in the shuttle and keep them company,” Sesseli said.

  “There’s no room,” Hap said reasonably. “We don’t have another secure seat.”

  “Then I can sit on your lap and you can strap us both in and Khiindi can sit on my lap.”

  “No, Sesseli, that is not safe,” Khorii said.

  But just then another hail came from the supply ship. “Please,” Taj gasped. “Can you give us an ETA?”

  Khorii took a deep breath, and said, “We are on our way. Please conserve your strength and try to hang on.” To the others she said, “Very well, then. We’ll all go. There’s no time to argue. Strap yourselves in. Elviiz?”

  Elviiz had been counting down and checking himself while the others argued, and now he said, “Prepare for launch.”

  This flight seemed much longer to Khorii than the one from the Condor to Maganos. During the trip, another message came, with no video.

  “Where are you?” This was not Taj, and the voice was young, female, and distraught. “Hurry. Please hurry.”

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Khorii promised. “Please, just be patient a little longer. Do whatever you’ve been doing to treat each other. When we get there we can cure you. Just please hang on.”

  Elviiz transmitted their coordinates and an estimated time of arrival but the Mana made no reply.

  Khorii wasn’t worried about being able to cure the sickness once they arrived, but occupied herself with wondering how to do it and hide what she was doing. Elviiz would help, of course. She just hoped Hap, Sesseli, and especially Khiindi stayed out of the way. There was no way to secure the hatch from the outside that could not be undone from the inside. If harm befell either of the human kids, she would never forgive herself nor, she suspected, would anyone else. On the other hand, she thought, brightening, she could always just cure them, too, so it really wasn’t such a big risk.

  She began to feel a little alarmed when they requested docking instructions and received only the computerized voice directing all procedures. She tried to hail the bridge again but got no reply.

  She was out of her seat and through the hatch door while Elviiz was still securing their vessel in its berth. “Hurry,” she said.

  The ship was not very large, and Khorii and Elviiz found their way to the bridge from the diagram on the wall of the landing bay, but when they got there, no one greeted them. As Khorii and Elviiz disembarked from the shuttle, Khorii felt as if she were right back on the Blanca, though the ship was not dark, and there was plenty of oxygen.

  It was, however, very quiet, and Khorii’s sensitive nostrils picked up the smell of human excrement and something worse before her horn purified the air. Passing a door with a yellow biohazard sign on it, and looking through the small viewport set into it, she saw a single examining table which bore a sheet-covered bulk with feet sticking out at one end. On the floor beside the table lay another sheet-draped figure.

  “We can do nothing for them,” Elviiz told her. “They have been without life for some time.”

  Khorii nodded, and they made their way straight to the bridge. On the bridge were three more people, one of them covered with a blanket. Beside the shrouded body lay the man whose face they had so recently seen on the com screen. Rajan Taj.

  Khorii let out an involuntary cry and knelt beside him, lowering her horn to his head. He could not be dead. Not so suddenly. They had just spoken. Hadn’t she told him to be patient?

  “He is without life,” Elviiz said.

  “Maybe,” she muttered, and tried to will him to return. Grandsire Rafik had told her a story once about Mother bringing Grandsire Gill back to life when he was shot in front of them. Grandsire Rafik had been certain that his friend was dead, but Mother would not give up, and she restored his life. It was, as far as Khorii knew, the only time Mother or any other Linyaari had done such a thing, but that single story made it possible. If only she tried hard enough. This was not a “stiff” as Captain Becker had so dismissively termed the people aboard the Blanca. This man was a person. She knew what his voice sounded like and how his face looked when he was worried. Not all blank and waxy like this. He should not be dead. He had a daughter to take care of. He should be here to look after her.

  For a moment she saw her own beloved father lying there and with all her might, all her newfound psychic power, she urged him to return. Spots flew in front of her eyes and vanished, but his closed eyes did not open. His chest did not move. His breath did not cast a breeze onto her skin.

  “Are you praying for my father?”

  Khorii turned away from the body that had contained Rajan Taj. A dark-haired, dark-skinned girl who seemed to be about Hap’s age looked down at her from desolate black eyes.

  “Because I’ve already done that,” the girl said. “I’ve prayed for all of them.”

  “I was—trying to see if there was anything I could still do to help him,” Khorii said, rising. “But there was not.”

  “No, you’re a little late for that, Lady—what did he call you?”

  “He called me by my mother’s name. He used to know her when she lived here, or had heard of her.”

  “She’s not with you?”

  “No, she and my father are fighting the plague on another world. But I have the same skills, and I came to help. I did not take the time to explain that I was not my mother.”

  “Oh. Well, you might as well have done. He died anyway,” the girl said, turning away.

  “You are Jaya?”

  The girl half fell into the command chair, as if her legs could no longer hold her. Her dusky complexion was underlain with a feverish red. Khorii felt heat rising from her skin. The girl’s breathing was ragged, shallow, and irregular. “What’s left of me,” Jaya said.

  Kneeling next to the girl, Khorii touched her, first on the pulse point at her jawline, drawn sharply against the long curve of her neck. She squirmed away and coughed. Khorii gently raised Jaya so she could put her head next to the girl’s chest, as if listening to her heartbeat, but really to touch her horn to it. Jaya coughed once more and sat up, the fever draining from her like an outgoing tide.

  “So if you’re not your mother, Lady whoever, then who are you?” Jaya demanded.

  “I am Khorii; this is Elviiz.”

  “Khorii, Elviiz, what took you so long? I’m sure my parents are sorry they missed you.” The words were bitter and reproachful.

  Elviiz said, “Had our civilization developed teleportation technology, we might have been quicker, but as it has not we were forced to use a space shuttle. That requires some travel time. Your father was no doubt aware of this flaw.”

  “We truly are sorry we could not be here in time to save your father and mother and are very
sorry for your loss,” Khorii said gently, to soften the edge of Elviiz’s correct but unhelpful assessment of the situation.

  Jaya looked from one of them to the other, and her eyes, so dry and hot before that there seemed to be no water for tears, flooded and overflowed with them. Khorii reached out a hand to touch her shoulder and comfort her but the girl shrugged it away, demanding, “Now what am I going to do?”

  Khorii wished she had an answer.

  Commander Ray Alcalde reflected that when it came to keeping the subordinates under your command pacified and happy, the Federation could have taken a lesson from him. He had the best record of any Federation liaison governor of a remote and primitive outpost. That was, for the love of the heavens, why he had been chosen to present his work to the Command Council held this year on Rio Boca. He had been unusually excited because the councils were for the most part dull, dry affairs, administrators instructing and admonishing other administrators. Only the odd recreational tour, generally of the most bland and banal variety, was ever included to break the monotony of the droning lectures and award the attendees for traveling so far to participate.

  Definitely not what Ray would have chosen as his only trip away from the endless rolling waters of LoiLoiKua, the mournful chanting and dreary singing of the whale people, the drumming on the waters that woke him at all hours. It was hard on the nerves. Before the young were transported to that school near Kezdet, Ray had always liked the singing. That was the period during which he established his reputation as a good governor. The truth was, though they were a superstitious lot and a bit too given to passively accepting whatever befell them—otherwise, they would have moved on when the water overtook the land, not just adapted and evolved into water dwellers—they were easy to govern. They had been happy, satisfied, content. And then some idiot told them that a solar catastrophe was damaging their environment. They did not adapt this time. They became whirlpools of anxiety. What would happen to their young? Their beloved children would perish as would all LoiLoiKuans if their sun and their water betrayed them.