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

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Eeewww!” Hap said, shaking his head. “I was going to start on that area next! Elviiz, you’ve just landed pooper-scooper duty. Funny, I’ve never seen a cat actually smile before.”

  “Khiindi is not like any cat you have ever known,” Elviiz said, before returning to work on his hole. Khiindi strolled off, his tail held high, the look on his face seeming to indicate that he had just blessed the entire area with his offering.

  Khorii nodded as she took it all in, not knowing what to say. Between shovelsful of dirt, Hap continued. “Anyway, we couldn’t just space them. For one thing, it’s kind of gross because you can see the body float off into space from the ship. It doesn’t seem respectful somehow, especially not with the dead person’s daughter watching. And also, I would think that the Federation might worry about bodies in space being time bombs for future epidemics. Say everything gets back to normal and we go about our business. Jaya would be held responsible for the ship and what happened to the bodies by both her company and the Federation. We could cremate them, I guess, if we could land somewhere, but we can’t right now. And it costs too much in power to refrigerate the room all the time to a temperature that would stop decomposition. We’re definitely not storing them in the galley freezer. We don’t know how long we’ll have to stay on this bird or try to keep it flying. So this seems like the thing to do, you know?”

  Khorii smiled and nodded. Only Hap would think something so odd and work-intensive was the logical alternative, but he meant it with a kindness that was almost selfless. She caught a fleeting thought image of him holding Jaya, comforting her, kissing her hair. Boys! Mating was certainly a big part of their thoughts. At least Hap had settled on a girl close to his own age for his fantasies and was doing something nice for her. But she also knew that one reason he was talking so much was that he was afraid it was not the right thing to do. Maybe Jaya would be offended. Maybe her people didn’t bury their dead. Maybe she liked being able to look at the husks of her parents and the other crew members. He tried so hard, and yet he felt like he never quite did the right thing to make other people like him. Under his enthusiasm and outer cheerfulness, Khorii felt a great void edged by intense sadness. His life before Maganos Moonbase lay within it, she thought.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we’ve got the graves about dug now. You want to go get Jaya and let the captain know what’s up?”

  Elviiz said, “I will help inter the remains of the crew members, then take the helm, if Captain Bates likes, so that she may make the gestures considered culturally appropriate in this situation. She did say that she knew Jaya’s parents.” Khorii nodded and trotted down the ramp, heading for the crew cabins. She passed the first cargo bay at a run, half-afraid Marl would jump out and remind her of her promise. She exhaled with relief when she came to Jaya’s cabin, but the smaller girl was no longer there. Khorii found Marl, Sesseli, Captain Bates, and Jaya on the bridge, staring at the viewscreen. A huge Federation ship drifted past, broadcasting the same kind of mayday pulse as the Blanca.

  “What shall we do?” Khorii asked.

  “We can’t do a bloody thing,” Marl said. “They’re done for.”

  “I might be able to help, in case anyone is alive,” Khorii said.

  “No,” Captain Bates told her, the tone of command firm in her voice. “It’s too dangerous, and it would take too much energy. That won’t be the last derelict we see before this is over, is my guess. Let’s save our energy and your skills for one that shows some sign that somebody has survived.”

  To Khorii’s surprise, Jaya agreed with them. “Anybody can use the com unit. If they’re not well enough to get to it to answer our hail, they would not live until you could board, Khorii.”

  Khorii didn’t argue. She closed her eyes and opened her mind and tried to feel if there was any life aboard the ship. Whether there was someone and her psychic skills were unable to perceive them, or whether there was nobody left alive there, she couldn’t tell, but she nodded. If she had been able to sense anyone, it would have been different.

  Jaya looked away abruptly, and Khorii touched her shoulder. “Jaya, Hap and Elviiz have prepared a resting place for your parents and friends in cargo bay two. They’d like you to come and see now.”

  “Me, too?” Sesseli asked.

  “Yes, you, too,” Khorii said, hugging the youngster to her side. “Captain Bates, Elviiz will relieve you so you can come back, too, as soon as he’s finished helping Hap.”

  Captain Bates nodded, just glad Khorii hadn’t made more objection about the derelict. “I would be honored to attend.”

  “Well, I’m coming too. I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Marl said.

  He almost choked on his own laughter when he saw the manand droid-made hillock, but Elviiz took one step toward him, and he shut up abruptly. Khorii felt certain Elviiz wouldn’t attack anyone just for laughing, but she wasn’t sure that she could have stopped herself from smacking Marl if he didn’t stop ridiculing other people’s efforts to be helpful.

  Hap offered Jaya a last look at her family and fellow crewmen before putting the lids on the coffins, then he and Elviiz lowered them into the holes. Elviiz filled them in with such speed and energy it detracted a bit from the somber tone of the event, but Hap helped Jaya place the markers he had made at the head of each grave. She knelt between the graves of her parents, looking lost. Khorii had an idea. She ran back to cargo bay one where she had made her ’ponics garden and gathered some of the gold and orange blooms already growing on the flowering edible species she had cultivated. Returning to cargo bay two, she climbed the hill and handed the flowers to Jaya.

  Jaya stopped crying and looked up at her in surprise. “Marigolds! How did you know? These are the traditional flowers for funerals and weddings for my people.”

  Khorii smiled. “And they’re delicious, too, so they’re the traditional flowers for grazing for my people.”

  As touching as the makeshift ceremony was, she hoped the memorial garden would have little chance to blossom before the ship reached LoiLoiKua, then Paloduro, and she saw her own parents again. Jaya’s grief made her nervous, and she couldn’t help wondering where her mother and father were and what they were doing.

  The gymnasium had been transformed into a makeshift clinic and emergency shelter for anyone well enough to get there. Most of the people were not actually sick, or not very sick, but did need to be decontaminated before they mixed with the others. Finally, after three days of healing, with only an occasional break for one of them to eat or sleep while the other continued to tend the new arrivals, the flow of patients seemed to be stanched.

  Aari and Acorna worked tirelessly until every last person who came for their help had received it. Then they made an announcement.

  “We need to let any other survivors in the city know that we’re here and this is the place to come for help. We also need more supplies to take care of you all. Could we have some volunteers to come with us to try to reestablish the communications systems so we can broadcast to anyone who might be left and also to acquire enough supplies for the people here until we know it is safe for them to return home?”

  “I helped design the emergency broadcast system for the entire city grid,” a thin, older man with a shock of white hair told them. “I can show you where the station is, and I’m pretty sure I can get the equipment going again.”

  “Great. Thank you,” Acorna said.

  “I will help you hunt for supplies,” Abuelita said.

  “We can go to my son’s store,” a woman said. “He sells—sold—camping supplies, sleeping bags, cots, tents, dehydrated food, that sort of thing. It’s quite a large place. He was leading an expedition into the jungle when the plague broke out. I—don’t know how he is. But I know he would be glad to help, even if he has to start all over—if he can, I mean, I—” Flustered, she broke off as the impact of her words sank home.

  “Excellent,” Aari said, smoothly filling the sudden sil
ence. “I will come with you. We will need more volunteers to load and carry things.”

  “I own a fleet of florries. Some of my drivers—died in them. If you can make them safe enough to drive again, we can pick up stuff all over the city.” This was from a tiny bird-like woman. Despite a huge, sculpted, and lacquered wave of blond hair, now a bit bedraggled, and extremely tight skin on her face with eyebrows that looked as if they’d been drawn on with ink, she looked to Acorna to be about the same age as Uncle Hafiz.

  “Yes, that would be wonderful.” Florries, flying lorries with a capacity to haul large loads, would be tremendously helpful.

  “You two are very tired,” Abuelita said. “We have many people with resources here. Let us organize ourselves, determine the priorities, where we need you first and who is to help with what. Both of you need to rest. When we are ready, we will let you know where you should go first.”

  “The emergency broadcast is the most critical,” Acorna said. “We must let people know where to come before they lose hope. While they are making their way to us, we can be readying a place for them and for the people already here.”

  It took three additional days to gather other survivors, heal them, and decontaminate the means to support them. Aari and Acorna were constantly on the move except when Abuelita and some of the other elders insisted that they stop and rest. They grazed in parks and in the vegetable departments of empty supermarkets. Much of the produce was beyond saving, but some could be restored enough to be edible. Once they felt they had done all they could for as many as were able to receive their help, they moved on.

  Corazon contained the largest population on Paloduro, so with help from Jalonzo, Abuelita’s grandson, they flew to more remote portions of the planet. Two of the newest settlements, pioneered by a group consisting mostly of men looking for new frontiers, had been totally wiped out, without a single survivor. Some of the other less recently established had a few middle-aged women and a scattering of children, not so much sick from the plague as starving and suffering from other ailments resulting from living in such a moribund environment. This was where the freeze-dried foods and nutrient bars the parties carried with them were tremendously helpful.

  But they also needed healing and a safe haven to stay at until more permanent arrangements could be made. Aari and Acorna rose to the task, until the last patient was cured and sixteen centers had been organized, staffed, supplied, and decontaminated. By the time all of that was finished, both Linyaari were utterly drained.

  Jalonzo had expected them to be tired, but he was also baffled by the changes taking place in them. He had begun to consider the benign aliens as creatures much like the characters in his games—a constant set of attributes that could be applied in a certain way to achieve a certain result. In real life, he figured, the attributes should remain stable and reliable.

  However, both of his heroes began to falter, despite longer rest periods and more open grazing. “Have you used up all of your secret powers now?” he asked Aari, when they were back inside the flitter, heading back to the place where they had left the space shuttle.

  Near the landing site, two retired heavy equipment operators had dug a mass grave in the city’s center. Using their gigantic tools with the same intricacy as a laser surgeon, they lifted the bodies from the street and took them to the site, where Aari and Acorna had decontaminated the bodies and the soil. The dead were buried, side by side in neat rows, identified when possible by their ID cards, which were attached to markers erected above each mound. Prayers were said for them, and a slow and beautiful song, accompanied by the haunting, clear notes of a nine-stringed guitar, served as a farewell.

  It was an enormous task, and only one of many that still remained.

  Acorna wanted to sleep as soon as she sat down in the shuttle. Jalonzo did not leave them, however, but continued to regard them with studious concern. “Is that why your horns are transparent now and kind of floppy instead of all golden like they were when you first came? Because you used up all your powers?”

  “Who are you calling floppy?” Aari asked in between yawns. “Our horns are simply in their regenerative state.”

  “My lifemate is joking, Jalonzo,” Acorna said, in response to the boy’s puzzled look. “The answer to your question is yes. When we become depleted, it shows in our horns. I feel like I could sleep for weeks, but we cannot afford to do that yet.”

  “Are you going back to your spaceship now?” he asked.

  “Yes, for a time.”

  “Can I just ask you one more question?”

  “Of course.”

  “What if some of the people get sick again? Will you come back? I mean, you couldn’t clean up all the plague from the whole city yet.”

  Acorna smiled in spite of her exhaustion. “Actually, that’s three questions. We’ll try. But we have to hope that meanwhile the Federation will devise a cure for this illness so people can be protected by means that do not require our presence.”

  “Hmm. I think I might have an idea about that, but I’d need to use the lab at the university. You didn’t decontaminate that, did you?”

  Aari shook his head. “No, and I do not think we could at this time. When we are rested and have seen to the other worlds in your system, we will return to check on the progress of the people here. At that time, we will clear a laboratory for you and others to work.”

  “It should be as soon as possible,” Jalonzo said. “I should have asked you before, I know, but I only got this idea while you were curing everyone. What I was wondering was—I know I am not a Linyaari, but could you show me or tell me something about how your techniques work? Maybe until we have a lab I could use some of them to help people here.”

  Acorna shook her head sadly and laid her hand on his for a moment. “If only we could. You have been a great help. But it is something only a Linyaari can do.”

  “I’m really pretty smart,” the teenager insisted.

  “We have seen that. But our—methods—are built in.”

  “I kind of thought so, but I wanted to ask,” he said with a weak smile. “I hope your methods get all solid and gold again soon.”

  So do I, Acorna thought but didn’t say, feeling more depleted than she ever had in her life. So do I.

  Chapter 22

  LoiLoiKua appeared in space as a shimmering ball of aquamarine with a few tiny dots of green. Only one moon orbited it, and the water planet was close enough to its own sun that the star was much larger than Our Star appeared on Vhiliinyar.

  The Nakomas was well equipped to make a water landing. Captain Bates had tried to insist that she pilot her shuttle, but Khorii pointed out that the risk to her from the plague was much higher than it was to a Linyaari and an android alone, and she was needed on the Mana. They would stay in close contact on the com so the captain could monitor their landing and progress.

  As the shuttle set down, bearing only Khorii and Elviiz, the Linyaari girl had the odd sensation that instead of having spent a dozen sleep shifts between Maganos and LoiLoiKua, she had simply closed her eyes and opened them to see the vast ocean below her. The scenery had shifted since the Moonbase, but the melodious chant-song of the LoiLoiKuans almost seemed to flow steadily from the voices in the pool to those on the planet below.

  “We who are about to die welcome you,” they sang. The line was followed by a harsh, staccato phrase that meant “Enter at your own risk.” Khorii heard their message clearly, although they were still too far out of visual range to see any of the aquatic creatures.

  She was glad she had finally started reading thoughts, because the chant was not in the same Standard the poopuus used. They must have learned that or improved it once they got to the school. Elviiz, on the other hand, did not read thoughts but had a very sophisticated processor for interpreting languages.

  He also had a built-in sensor suite that analyzed planetary environments. “The water is perfectly safe,” he told her. “Except for the plague, of course, and the dea
d fish and other creatures. I imagine the atmosphere is quite pungent by now.”

  The poopuus had described their homeworld as having once had landmasses, large islands scattered across the blue-green waters. They spoke a lot of the crater reef, and Khorii saw what she thought must be it as they swooped in to land. Mountaintops poked out of the water in a long line, seeming almost to bisect the portion of the sea-covered planet visible to her.

  Closer in, however, was another island and from it rose a large gold-speckled building, topped with many towers, some capped by square chunks of stone that looked like teeth with gaps between, some tapering to graceful points. Its main door was a huge arch, and its windows consisted of smaller arches. From one of the pointy towers flew a biohazard quarantine flag.

  “I know what that is!” Khorii said, excited to recognize something from Captain Becker’s books. “It’s a big sand castle! Either the LoiLoiKuans or the Federation command here has a sense of humor, or at least they used to.”

  “Sand castle?” Elviiz asked.

  “Children on Old Earth used to take pails and create them on seashores, modeling and sculpting them from wet sand,” she told him. “Adults did it, too. Of course, that one would have to be made of more than just sand and water to do the Federation any good, but the form seems to be some sort of bow to traditional architecture. Are we getting a signal? It sounds weak.”

  “Intruder, you have been detected by the ASP, atmospheric surveillance program, and are commanded to return to space. This planet is under strict quarantine. Failure to comply constitutes an intergalactic criminal offense punishable by death.”

  “If the plague don’t getcha, the Federation will, huh?” Captain Bates said over the com unit. The Mana had attempted to contact the Federation outpost before establishing its orbit around LoiLoiKua and dispatching the Nakomas to the surface, but had received no response. The only reply Captain Bates’s remark drew this time was a somewhat weaker and slower repeat of the previous message.