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

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I don’t think anyone from the Federation is home,” Captain Bates said from the Mana.

  Khorii tried to detect thoughts other than those within the song of the LoiLoiKuans, but found none. “Perhaps the plague got them already,” she said.

  “Probably,” Captain Bates agreed. “Which means they’re not likely to shoot us down anyway. Still, proceed with caution.”

  “What’s that on the beach?” Khorii asked, realizing that what she had first thought was heavily flowered foliage was growing in an odd place, right at the high-tide mark on the beach. Insects swarmed around it, and it looked as if they were encased in a low-hanging cloud of some kind, full of tiny particles.

  Elviiz was silent for a moment as he scanned the motionless forms, then said, “The remains of several dozen LoiLoiKuans, the blossoms of some mutant form of bottom-feeding frangipangi, seaweed, mineral deposits—shall I list them?”

  “No, that’s enough. You got good eyes, young fella,” Asha said.

  “Thank you. My father upgraded them for me just before we parted.”

  “I don’t suppose they’re just, you know, sunbathing or something?” Captain Bates asked as the Nakomas’s cameras provided the Mana with a closer look, close enough that the rest of the makeshift crew also could make out the shapes.

  “No, ma’am. They are without life.” Elviiz’s voice was calm as he relayed the information. “Certain aquatic mammals have been known to swim up onto the beach beyond the point where the tide can lift them back into the sea. They do this when they are dying or wish to die, according to my files.”

  “But we cannot be too late!” Khorii said. “I hear them singing. Some are definitely still alive. Quite a large number, judging from the volume.”

  As the Nakomas extruded the pontoons and outriggers that would stabilize it during the water landing, the ocean beneath them swelled into a series of rolling waves that fanned out around the shuttle.

  Once the pontoons hit the water and Elviiz shut down the shuttle’s engine, several heads broke the surface. Round benign faces, older than those of the poopuus at the moonbase, regarded the shuttle with a mixture of curiosity and dismay. Most of the creatures bore strands of white ribboned through their long dark hair.

  She heard them talking among themselves, what they were thinking as well as what they said.

  “Who do you suppose this is, some others fleeing the plague and seeking our help?”

  “I hope not. We’ve little enough to give trying to care for our own. I can still hear the ravings of those young Federation troops as they burned with fever.”

  “Yes, and many tried to cool themselves by drowning in our water before we could reach them. A lot of protection that was.”

  An older female bobbed up to the surface and gestured with a webbed hand, shooing the shuttle. “You there, don’t you know an intergalactic signal for plague when you see one? Go away! If you don’t have the sickness, you could catch it from us. If you do have it, you may bring a mutant strain to finish off what’s left of us.”

  “No, we won’t. Really. I am Khorii, a Linyaari healer. Your children at Maganos Moonbase are friends of mine and are worried about you. They were all well when we left. The plague hasn’t reached them. But they wanted me to come and help you.”

  “You cannot help us, KoriKori. We are dying.”

  “Yes, I can. I’ve already cured several people.”

  The woman looked at the others, who shrugged the water off their shoulders and nodded.

  “Ah,” Elviiz said. “They seem to be accepting you, Khorii. Note how they wave their arms in a graceful welcoming gesture, combining kinetic symbolism for diving and beckoning, followed by arms crossed over their chests to indicate welcome.”

  Khorii was already at the hatch, hearing the spokeswoman as she thought and spoke, though in her native tongue, saying, “In that case, come on in. The water is fine.”

  She took a deep breath and dived into the ocean. Just before she hit the surface, all of the onlookers dived deeper into the water, too. She opened her eyes to see them beckoning to her to follow.

  “Come away from the island where the dead are laid to rest. It is very dangerous to be there.”

  “Yes, I know. Please take me to those who are still sick.”

  “That is where we are going,” the spokeswoman told her. “What do you know of this plague, young healer? Why does it kill my children and spare me? It is unnatural that children should die before their mother.”

  “It doesn’t always affect creatures that way. On the ship in which I came here, only the daughter of two of the crew members survived. All of the adults died.”

  “It is not a natural illness. It goes against the pattern.”

  “That’s why it’s a plague, I suppose,” Khorii said. “Do you know when and how it came here?”

  “Yes. Raealakaldai, the Federation kahuna, brought it with him when he returned from his Federation council. He was very pleased to go and told us all about it. He was to read a paper on how he well he governed us, and the big council was to be on his homeworld. Or perhaps it was the next world over.”

  “Rio Boca, Nanahomea,” said the old man.

  “Yes, Mokilau, that is the name of the place. Rio Boca. Raealakaldai was from Paloduro.”

  “He was? That’s where my parents are. The plague there is terrible, I guess.”

  “He caught it and brought it back to us when we tried to heal his sickness. He died, and so did my daughter and her mate. I hope we will not be too late for you to treat my sister’s children. They live across the reef far from the house of sand. Of the great population that lived near here, all but a few of us ancient ones are gone.”

  “This is a good girl,” an old male said. Khorii knew that he was old because he thought of himself that way, but she saw few of the usual signs of long life. His long black hair bore only a few threads of white, his skin was almost entirely unlined, but his cheeks were no longer round and his eyes were red, as though he’d been rubbing tears from them. How could you tell you’d been crying when you lived in salt water? “Look how our ocean clears an ever-widening path before her, as if strewing her way with flowers. All of the living fish, fry or old creatures like us, rush to meet us, anxious to swim here.”

  “I have on my purifier,” Khorii said. “It’s something our people know how to do. The same thing that lets us cure illness.”

  “A wonderful gift, to clean the ocean. Does your purifier make the dead fish and bodies drift to the beaches, too?”

  “I don’t think so. But if it cleans up the water enough, then you’ll be able to see better what needs to be—uh—put to rest, will you not?”

  As the water cleared, Khorii once more had the sense of many little things fleeing before her, then disappearing entirely. Were those the organisms causing the plague? Surely they must be, since she only experienced the sensation when she was trying to decontaminate something or someplace. It couldn’t be all microorganisms her new awareness allowed her to “see,” or she would be seeing spots before her eyes so much of the time that she might as well be blind. The universe was full of tiny things. Her new sense must have focused itself on the plague in the way that Mother’s had once focused itself on the ore content of asteroids.

  Though the water was wonderfully buoyant and had been refreshing at first, now, even though the LoiLoiKuans swam on the surface or just beneath it to accommodate Khorii’s greater need for oxygen, she was overcome by a lassitude that increased the longer she swam. So tired. She felt as if the ocean was pulling the life out of her, and wondered if she could be catching the plague herself, but that was impossible. Still, the brighter and cleaner the ocean grew, the more tired she became.

  “Don’t know if I can go much farther,” she said finally.

  “We can pull you so you don’t have to swim,” the old woman said. “You just keep up here on the surface, put your hands on my shoulders, and I’ll swim for you. A turtleback ride, like I used to
give my little granddaughter, Likilekakua, before she was taken to that school you come from.”

  “I know her!” Khorii said.

  “Tell her her grandmother, Nanahomea, misses her. How is she?”

  “Well, the last time I saw her. The poopuus—I mean, your grandchildren, have their own facility at the Moonbase with underwater computers, and they’re doing really well. My cat Khiindi made friends with them first because they gave him fish.”

  “If you can help us here, your cat may have all the fish he wants.”

  “Are you hungry, with so many fish dying?”

  “No, actually, we don’t eat fish very often. Seaweed is more nourishing and easier to harvest. Are you still feeling tired?”

  “Getting better, I think. Having my head out of the water helps.”

  A swell of water heaved toward them from the horizon.

  “I’ll leave you for a moment, my dear. I think my sister has come to meet us.”

  Khorii let go, and the lady dived beneath the glittering waters, which had become so clear that Khorii could see her through it, swimming away toward the swell. Khorii could not tell what, if anything, passed between the wave and Nanahomea.

  In a few undulations Nanahomea paused, then flipped over and swam back to Khorii. Her smile was as broad as the horizon.

  “My sister and all of her family come to greet you, KoriKori. In the past few hours since you slipped into our waters, the sick ones in her family have suddenly begun to feel better. No longer do they cough or bleed, or lose their food from their orifices. They feel well. They are happy. All wish to have a great celebration in your honor.”

  “That is very kind,” Khorii said, “but actually, I am not feeling very well myself. I think I had better return to the shuttle.”

  Before I get any worse, she thought.

  Chapter 23

  So how bad is it down there?” Becker asked, as Aari and Acorna trudged from the shuttle onto the Condor’s lower deck.

  “Joh, it is bad enough to make any Khleevi very happy,” Aari told him.

  Becker gave a low whistle. “Whew, that bad, huh? Sorry. You guys were down there for quite a long time. I tell ya, Mac and I have been getting kinda lonesome up here. Hell, we could have been to Vhiliinyar and back by the time you guys made it here.”

  “That would have been a good thing, Joh,” Aari said wearily. “There are far too many sick people for just two Linyaari to take care of.”

  “What’s worse,” Acorna added, “is that in order to prevent others from getting sick or relapsing, we really should decontaminate the entire planet—any of the planets where the illness has run unchecked over the population.” She sighed and stumbled as she stepped up onto the grated metal ramp.

  Becker caught her as she started to fall. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this tired. I wish I could tell you I’ve been able to get a message through to Hafiz on MOO telling him to send in the cavalry, but the relays are down. Everybody’s relays. His, the Federation’s, everybody’s. I thought they might have sorted it out by now, but apparently not. The good news is we’re not getting any more bad news. The bad news is we’re not getting any news whatsoever.”

  “Um,” Acorna said, and she and Aari sleepwalked back to their quarters.

  “They seem to have exhausted their fuel supplies,” Maak observed.

  “Yeah, well, if they don’t wake up in about a day, we’d better wake them and make sure they refuel. Meanwhile we’ll twirl around this planet a few more times.”

  When Aari and Acorna had not stirred exactly twenty-four hours later, Maak said, “I will go pick their favorite vegetable matter and grasses from the hydroponics garden now. Would you care for any, Captain?”

  “No, but I want to talk to them if they’re up to it, so let me take the salad in, okay?”

  Maak returned with a Linyaari-woven basket stuffed with grasses, flowers, and vegetables. Becker knocked on the cabin door and when a sleep-muffled voice called for him to come in, he did, and was almost bowled over by a large furry body streaking to the berth of his Linyaari shipmates.

  RK hopped onto Aari’s lap and sniffed, then sniffed at Acorna, hopped down, and streaked off as fast as he could.

  “I hope Riidkiiyi was not offended because I did not pet him,” Aari said. “My mind is not working very efficiently, and my hands and legs still feel as if we are on a heavy-gravity world.”

  Acorna yawned and stretched, then slumped back against her mate. “Yes. My thoughts exactly.”

  “We just thought you kids ought to eat something,” Becker said, holding out the basket. “Your horns are looking a little perkier, and I can’t see the wall through them anymore, but you’ve got a ways to go before you’re one hundred percent.”

  “Very kind,” Acorna murmured.

  “Thanks, Joh,” Aari said, before stuffing succulent purple bean sprouts into his mouth.

  “Look, guys, this mission really took it out of you. From what you said and the way you look, I think this is a bigger problem than the two of you can deal with. I say we head back to MOO and get reinforcements. It’s going to take a whole bunch of Linyaari to stop this bug that’s going around.”

  “Yes, Joh, but we would need to go back and get Khorii and Elviiz,” Acorna said.

  “And Khiindi,” Aari reminded her, in their daughter’s tone.

  “Of course. Khiindi. That trip alone requires several days, during which more people may sicken and die when we could save them. Not to mention that even with your shortcuts, it is a long trip back to MOO. By the time we returned with other Linyaari, the entire Federation could be infected and much of it depopulated.”

  “Yeah, but maybe not. There were a lot of folks down there on Paloduro still alive.”

  “And many many dead,” Aari pointed out. “It is a very strange disease. Some seem to die almost immediately, others appear to have a very high resistance, while still others take a longer period to sicken with the same exposure as those who have already died. Most of those who are left on Paloduro are elders and children.”

  “Hmm, and they’re gonna be pretty helpless trying to run a planet without sturdy young adults to manage things,” Becker said. He started to scratch his chin and felt a wave of nausea wash over him.

  “Not entirely,” Acorna said. “The elders have much accumulated knowledge of how their city works, and from what we saw the youngsters are very bright and resourceful. We met one very impressive boy who wants us to make the university’s laboratory safe for him to work in so he can begin finding a cure. As soon as we have rested enough that our horns are back to normal, I think we should do that.”

  Becker, one hand covering his mouth, held up his other hand for her to wait and ran from the room with his thighs locked together. Without the benefit of their horns’ air-purifying powers, the Linyaari caught a disagreeable odor from the wind in his wake.

  This dissuaded both Aari and Acorna from finishing the rest of their meal and both flopped back against their berth and fell deeply asleep before their heads hit their respective pillows.

  Khiindi stalked back and forth in front of the viewscreen yowling his head off. He was very upset indeed and didn’t care who knew about it. The screen was filled with the huge blue-green wet planet veined with red-and-black craters and chock-full of fish. How could both Khorii and Elviiz have gone off and left him aboard the Mana? They did know he liked fish, didn’t they? And they knew that they were leaving him with Marl Fidd, who was just biding his time until he could get ahold of Khiindi again when there was no Linyaari girl around to heal him.

  Sesseli was sweet, but she was not big enough to protect him from Marl. She could not pilot a shuttle down to the fishy planet. And worst of all, she had been seduced away from him by the feline wiles of the VES, those sexless and superior-acting animals with whom he could converse, but who had no more sentience in the lot of them than the average turnip.

  Forced to find other suitable company, he had tried Jaya next.
She had petted him initially, but was a little thick when it came to his signals for treats. Now she was upset with him, holding her ears and squinting her eyes tightly shut as if his quite legitimate protests made her head hurt. If Khorii had stayed here where she belonged, she could have fixed that.

  Jaya hailed the shuttle. “Elviiz, any sign of Khorii yet? Will you be returning soon?”

  “Is that Khiindi’s voice I hear?” Elviiz asked. “My auditory sensors can barely read your voice patterns, Jaya, but Khiindi’s are transmitting quite clearly.”

  “I’ll bet! He’s driving me completely nuts. If he doesn’t stop, I’m going to lock him in one of the cabins or in the cargo hold.”

  “Here, Jaya,” Marl Fidd said smoothly. “Pop him into this bag, and I’ll get rid of him for you.”

  Sesseli heard that and jumped up, dumping kittens from her lap. “No!”

  Marl fell back onto the deck as if he’d been shoved, and Khiindi found himself suddenly sailing through the air, though not in his normal jumping posture at all. He landed behind Sesseli in the middle of the senior VCS, who smacked his face and hissed at him, so his position, though improved, was still not ideal.

  Marl gaped at Sesseli in surprise, then grinned, baring lots of teeth in a way that would horrify most well-brought-up Linyaari. “Whattaya know? The infant is telekinetic.”

  “Only when I get really mad,” Sesseli said, jutting out her lower jaw. If she were a cat, her ears would have been flat and her back up.

  “I guess I’ll have to be careful not to let you know if I do anything I think might make you mad then,” Marl said.

  Khiindi decided to stay near Sesseli. Not that he disliked Hap. Hap was large. Hap would protect him. But Hap had discovered the engine room, which was full of smells that offended Khiindi’s sensitive nostrils. So Sesseli had suddenly become his best bet for protection until Khorii returned.

  “This is the Nakomas calling the Mana. Do you read me, Mana?”

  “Jaya here, Elviiz. Yes, we read you. When are you coming back?”

  “We’re preparing to leave now. The LoiLoiKuans swam back with Khorii a few minutes ago, and I just strapped her in.”