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

by Anne McCaffrey

  “In addition to which, Jalonzo,” Elviiz said, “cards or some form of tangible artwork present a marketing opportunity not to be overlooked. Perhaps instead of dice you could employ some more distinctive device?”

  “Sí, sí,” Jalonzo said. “Such as throwing bones—maybe shaped like vertebrae or small skulls—ahh, I have it, dice but with holograms of skulls inside them that glow in different colors, the colors representing the magical properties…”

  “Ahem,” Khorii said, clearing her throat and trying not to roll her eyes. “The laboratory is cleared now, Jalonzo.”

  “Oh, gracias, Khorii,” he said, suddenly all of the enthusiasm turned to awkwardness as he looked down at the slender, silver-maned girl. “Uh, how are Aari and Acorna doing? Are their horns back to normal yet?”

  She shook her head. “I do not think so.”

  “What do you mean? Haven’t you seen them?”

  “No. They wouldn’t let me near them. They think they gave the plague to Captain Becker and RK, and they’re afraid a variety that can attach to them might be fatal to Linyaari even when their horns are fully functional.”

  “Extremely unlikely,” Jalonzo said in an authoritative tone surprising for one so young, “But I can see why they’d want to be careful. I mean, it makes sense, given, the shape that they were in, that they passed it on to their human—I mean, to susceptible beings of other species, since one was a gatito. But I don’t see why that would change the plague.”

  “But Linyaari have always been able to destroy any illness or heal any injury with our horns,” Khorii reminded him. “If those organisms I kept seeing were able to attach themselves to my parents and mutate into something that is immune to our healing abilities, then everyone is really in trouble.”

  “True, but there are still a few things that we don’t know about this plague—like how it infects its victims,” Elviiz said. “I have a theory about that that I have been collecting data on ever since this epidemic began. Jalonzo, besides people, what other kinds of animals died here on Paloduro?”

  “We lost a lot of cats and dogs and horses and many other kinds of animals here, too. Not all of them, but quite a few. But we noticed something interesting. Lots of people died, and their pets didn’t. A lot more feral cats and dogs died than pets, I guess because the pets got good diets and regular visits to the vet and…and a lot of them were neutered,” he finished.

  “As we were coming down, I saw fields with steers in them, but no cows,” Elviiz said.

  Jalonzo’s brow furrowed as he pondered this information. “Aari, Acorna, naturally,” he said, grinning at Khorii, who didn’t quite understand his expression. “Is RK? Neutered, I mean?”

  “No,” she said. “Neither is Khiindi. He got sick, but I healed him.”

  “But all of the mousers we were carrying to Rushima were,” Jaya interjected. She’d been silently watching the boys bat the conversational ball back and forth. Jaya hadn’t always been a quiet person. Her mother used to scold her for chattering so much and singing to herself all the time. Losing her parents had made her feel empty of talk or feelings or even sensible thoughts for a while. But listening to the boys was giving her a lot of new ideas, even if she hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise. “Maybe that’s why they didn’t get the plague.”

  “Oh, what do you know about it?” Jalonzo said without thinking. Anger flared in Jaya’s eyes. The older boy thought fast, needing to backtrack. He didn’t want to make her angry. He only wanted to impress her with how smart he was. This new girl was so pretty, and he knew he wasn’t especially handsome or athletic or anything.

  Khorii was reading everyone’s faces and feelings and thoughts effortlessly now as she had not been able to do on the Mana. Maybe her friends were less guarded out in the open, and without Marl to use everything they said against them. “I’m sure Jalonzo didn’t mean what he said,” she interjected, with a meaningful look at him.

  “Uh, no, I’m sorry, Jaya,” Jalonzo said, recognizing the opportunity she had handed him. Then his eyes widened, and he nodded and apologized again, this time sincerely. “Really sorry because you’re actually right.”

  “Yes, of course—” Jaya said, then realized he meant more than that she knew which cats were sick and which ones weren’t. “You think the neutering had something to do with it? But how could it? None of the people who survived were neutered that I know of, at least.”

  “No,” he said. “Not that. And of course the usual stuff like how healthy they were to begin with made a difference—some of the kids in our group who died had other stuff wrong with them, too. It was part of the reason they got into the game. I’m not sure exactly what the trouble was, but I remember that one of them had a heart problem from birth and there was something wrong with the girl, too. Before the plague, I mean. But when you consider it, we were all exposed because everybody ate the nachos the dead delivery guy brought. And we are all, you know, kids.”

  “Hormones!” Hap said, snapping his fingers as he got the point. “All of the adults say kids going through puberty are a mess of hormones. Either too active or not active enough—that’s probably why I got it, but Sesseli didn’t. Jaya’s younger than we are, but she’s a girl and they—uh—girls are different.”

  “None of us had been eating well,” Jaya said. “There was food, but everyone was too sick to fix it, and the air supply had really become polluted. I’d have had to be made out of plas—sorry, Elviiz, no offense.”

  “None taken,” he said.

  Khorii said, “But Elviiz, if it was hormones, why did your father get sick, too? Droids don’t…do they?”

  “Father had been experimenting,” he said. “Making me instilled in him the joys of fatherhood, and he…wished to experience it again. But you know my father, Khorii. He always thinks the organic way is better than the electronic or mechanically engineered, even though I am living proof…”

  “That’s another thing!” Jalonzo said, so excited by his own idea he forgot to ask where Maak intended to find the hormone-enhanced female android necessary to complete his experiment. “It’s engineered. The plague I mean. That’s how come it selects certain people—or animals—based on hormones.”

  “You mean someone started it on purpose?” Jaya asked. “Why?”

  Before the boys could speak, Sesseli spoke up. “That’s easy-peasy,” she said. “So that there would only be little kids and grandmas and grandpas, but no moms and dads to take care of them.”

  “Or teachers to teach them,” Khorii continued. “Or police to protect warehouses and valuables…”

  “Or Federation officials to investigate the plague itself or anything else,” Hap finished. “Which is why we’re the ones to figure all this out. Everybody who got close enough to study it got zapped. We’ve already seen how the incubation period varies so some people were infected for a long time before they got sick and died and had a chance to infect other people in the meantime. Or maybe it was their general health again that decided when the disease struck, I don’t know.”

  “It worked really well, too,” Jaya said. “Except for people who weren’t in the area like Captain Bates or people lucky enough to have Khorii there to save them when they got infected, like you, Hap.”

  They all looked at each other, then Hap summed it up. “Well,” he said. “That sucks.”

  Khorii said, “With the lab now ready for you to use, Jalonzo, perhaps there is something we can do about it after all.”

  “I’ll help you, buddy,” Hap said. “I want to kick its viral butt.”

  “I should be able to be of assistance, too,” Elviiz said.

  “I can help,” Khorii said. “Definitely. But first I think we should also collect specimens from my mom and dad to see if they are incubating a new Linyaari-specific strain, as they fear.”

  She, Sesseli, and Jaya took the shuttle back to the Mana while the boys ran off toward the lab. Sesseli slipped one of her hands into Khorii’s left hand and Jaya’s righ
t as they walked through the ship. Captain Bates half turned in her chair when they entered the bridge.

  “There’s good news and bad news, ladies,” she said.

  Khiindi, who had opted for the Mana over the Condor where his sire held the ironclad alpha cat position, deserted Captain Bates’s lap for Khorii’s shoulder.

  “The good news is that the communications relays are now open all the way back to the Moonbase and Kezdet. Congratulations, Khorii, you are a great aunt. The bad news is that we’ve had a number of other distress calls from colonies in the next system. The nearest two are moons, Luna Frida Kahlo and Luna Diego Rivera, colonized by a company based on Dinero Grande.”

  “None farther afield than that?” Khorii asked. If the plague was a deliberate attack, as they suspected, it must not have been as thorough as the perpetrators hoped.

  “Not that I’ve heard about so far. The Federation posts were the hardest hit, and the word about quarantine got out elsewhere. But it seems that the moons were infected after every other place. Some of the first victims are still alive.”

  “We’d better hurry then,” Khorii said.

  Chapter 30

  As the Mana left Paloduro space, Khorii watched the speck that was the Condor, then the speck that Paloduro became fade into the distance. Finally, the Solojo sun itself became just a very bright star, but not so bright as the red giant that illuminated the entire Solojo system. The planets themselves were harsh and full of noxious gases, but the twin moons that orbited the third planet, Calaca del Muerto, had been bubble-colonized like Maganos Moonbase. The purpose of the colonies was to cultivate and tend experimental genetically engineered crops, according to the general information the Mana’s crew had downloaded from Federation data banks.

  The com unit beeped, and Khorii saw her mother and father again. “Khorii, we heard you’re on your way to heal some people on two different moons,” her father said. “You know we would never want you to withhold compassionate aid to others, but do not let them exhaust you. This is very difficult to say, yaazi, but even if a few people die while you rest, you must risk it, or you may have the same problem your mother and I have now—and you could infect your human companions.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad, Mom,” she said, again using terms she’d learned on the Moonbase. Although she understood why it had to be, she was still hurt and also angry with them for refusing to see her. “I have it under control. Also, you should know that the boys have a theory, which so far has been borne out by all of our observations. We think that the plague has been deliberately engineered so that it attacks beings with certain hormone levels. We think it has something to do with being able to reproduce. Most of the plague victims aren’t kids my age or elders. The farm animals and pets who were altered also mostly survived. So we think I’m immune. But we could be wrong. So I guess if I come back tainted, I’ll go in with you, and we’ll just have to get Captain Bates to lock herself airtight in the cargo bay or something until we can cure this. Jaya’s already had it, and, if we’re right, Sesseli is immune. But we need you to send blood and tissue samples down to the planet for analysis, so they can work on understanding how the plague in you has been changed.”

  That would show them they should not underestimate her! She had grown up a lot since she saw them last and they needed to realize that. Already she knew more about this plague they were supposed to cure than they did.

  “Yaazi,” her mother said, holding her gaze through the com unit as if she were right beside her. “Captain Becker and RK should have been immune, too. Remember, they were exposed aboard the derelict which, as we all found out from Elviiz’s data, did carry the plague. They had it and we cured them and that should have made them immune if immunity is conferred by recovery from the disease. So Jaya could still catch it again if you become exhausted enough to expose her. We certainly hope you and the boys are right and that you are all immune because of your age and hormone levels, but we were immune as well until we became very tired. I’m very proud to hear you thinking this through, but the things causing these illnesses can mutate, Khorii. They can change the rules on you before you know what game they are playing. Promise us that you will rest when you need to.”

  Chastened, Khorii nodded, and again felt like crying because she couldn’t see her parents when she needed them the most. But she swallowed her tears and gulped hard, then looked out the viewscreen again. She had too many other things to do to sit here and wallow in her misery.

  Captain Bates touched her hand. “It’s time, honey.”

  Khorii had never felt so alone in her life as when she finally got her wish and piloted the shuttle down to Luna Diego Rivera. But she had formed a plan even while discussing the risks of this mission with her parents. A figure clothed in what looked like a helmeted shipsuit waited for her at the entrance to the nearest bubble.

  “Señorita, we are so grateful you have come. Your people are said to be able to work miracles with this disease. We have many afflicted now, and two have died.”

  As politely as she could, she said, “Then there’s no time to waste. Do you have a pool?”

  “Pool?”

  “Um—water—large body of water. A pond, lake, pool, sea?”

  “Sí!” he said. “Oh yes, we have a reservoir for watering our plants and for drinking water for ourselves.”

  “Good. Please take me there and bring everyone else, too.”

  “But we have quarantined the sick ones, señorita, as the Federation ordered.”

  “If you don’t want them to die, unquarantine them. Have the older children—but no one over thirteen Standard years, and any elders who live with you bring them to the water. I’ll treat everyone before I’m done—um, how many of you are there here?”

  “Six thousand, señorita.”

  “And how big is the reservoir? How many people would it hold?”

  “We do not put people in it normally, señorita, so I do not know,” the man said. He was no doubt a senior scientist, and he was looking at her as if reconsidering the idea of having her help them.

  “I suppose we’ll find out. Which way is the reservoir?”

  “Straight ahead, following this street to the last bubble.”

  “Fine. You gather the sick ones and bring them there, and I’ll meet you. Please trust me, and bring them as soon as you are able.”

  Khorii realized her reassurance might not be enough, so she broadcast a silent psychic message and hoped the colony had enough people who were sufficiently receptive that they would not have to rely on word of mouth alone. “Hola, people of Luna Diego. I am Khorii, of the Linyaari race from the planet Vhiliinyar. I have the ability to help cure your colony of the illness, but I must treat many of you at once. That is why I want you to bring your sick ones to the reservoir. When you arrive, help them into the water. Assist the ones who cannot support themselves so they don’t drown.”

  As she broadcast, people came, at first in pairs or trios, then a steady flow from the rows of small flat-roofed dwellings lining the street. Beyond the buildings, to the edges of the bubble’s horizon, were greenhouses and fields, untended and empty.

  When Khorii arrived at the reservoir, she could see two or three hundred people already in the water. She stripped off her shipsuit and jumped over the side of the round sunken pool. She clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “When I dive, duck the heads of the sick people into the water at the same time,” she told them with both her voice and her mind. She saw nods of understanding, heard a few spoken or shouted replies of “Sí,” and many questions from many minds she could not take the time to answer.

  She nodded and dived under the surface. At first she could not see even the nearest faces and bodies, only the countless plague specks that clouded the water around her as if dirt had been poured into it. But almost at once, the specks flowed away and vanished, and she beheld the faces and bodies of a lot of people who were having trouble holding their breath. By then she knew that once the spe
cks were gone, the people would be cured.

  “Up!” she ordered, and surfaced herself.

  Once the others saw the condition of their friends and loved ones, the main problem was to keep them from drowning each other in their hurry to get into the water with her.

  It took about thirty immersions to free everyone of the disease. At the end she felt a bit soggy but nowhere near as exhausted as she had been after purifying the ocean for the LoiLoiKuans.

  “Does Luna Frida have a pool like this?” she asked the nearest convalescent.

  “Sí, señorita, gracias, you are an angel, a saint…”

  Khorii shook her head, water droplets flying from her silver hair. “Gracias. That’s very nice of you, but I’m not. I simply have access to powerful alien medicine that works the way you just saw. Would someone please get on the com unit here and tell the people of Luna Frida I’m coming and what to do? But tell them not to dunk anyone until I get there, okay?”

  Someone met her on the path in a little cart. “Señorita, we do not normally swim in our pool. How can we clean it so we can use it again to drink from?”

  “I think you’ll find it cleaner and more pure now than it was before we went for our swim,” she told him with a smile. “My medicine also has that effect.”

  The healing process on Luna Frida began in much the same way. But it was a larger colony than the one on Luna Diego, with fifteen thousand people, and by her twentieth dunk, Khorii realized that she was too exhausted to continue. More people were ill here because, since she visited Diego first, more had had a chance to become infected or to get sicker. She couldn’t bear just to let people die, but her parents were right. Could she really risk the lives of Captain Bates, Jaya, and maybe even Sesseli, not to mention the people who were expecting to be saved and might not be because of her overextending herself? Also, if she became too tired to finish this job properly, the ones she had already cured could become reinfected if her parents were correct about Uncle Joh’s and RK’s first contact being no protection.