The Unicorn Girl

by Anne McCaffrey

  “You’d best be telling the truth,” one of the Guardians warned her, “Kezdet doesn’t treat impostors and thieves lightly. Maybe you’d rather step off with me and we’ll…ahh…see if we can’t work something out, hmm?” He eyed the long shapely legs, which were by now almost fully exposed by the way Acorna had tucked up her skirts for battle. Strange kind of furry stockings the girl wore under her skirts…some new techie fashion, no doubt. Never mind, he’d soon have those off her.

  “Not without me, you don’t go nowhere!” the stall-keeper interrupted. “I got a right to me damages.”

  Acorna’s prompt willingness to call on Delszaki Li had given him second thoughts. If the girl was telling the truth, he should be able to get more “damages” out of Li than his entire stall was worth; Li was far beyond the need to count credits when appeasing a poor man.

  Nine

  No one had yet missed Acorna when the two Guardians of the Peace brought her back to the Li mansion, one holding Acorna’s left elbow firmly in his right hand, while she supported the waif against her with her right arm, Punja dancing behind this quartet. None of the street children had been able to keep up with the skimmer as it set about on its lawful errand, but they followed as far as they could: right up to the rancid water.

  “Jeesh, how’d she get across this?” the leader of the group wanted to know. “She dint come by the bridge, like.”

  One of Delszaki’s many discreet servants peered through the spy hole before exclaiming and calling for the nearest girl to summon the master. Trouble was on the doorstep. Then he flung the door open, kowtowing before Acorna until his nose nearly touched his knees.

  “Missy, missy, why are you here? You have not arisen from your bed as yet,” he said, bobbing in his consternation.

  “Will you please inform Mr. Li that I am here and not in my bed and need him. If he is in his bed, I am truly sorry to disturb him…”

  Pal and Judit came down the massive stairway as if it had turned into a slide.

  “Acorna!” cried Judit, and then exclaimed more loudly when she saw the bedraggled girl Acorna was protecting.

  “Mr. Li is on his way this very moment, Guardians,” Pal said, gesturing for them to enter. “If you will be so good as to step inside….” and, with a very deft push of his rear against the front door, Pal closed it right in the stall-keeper’s face.

  Oblivious to the howls outside and imprecations which could be heard, if muted, through the thick panels of the door, Pal courteously guided the Guardians of the Peace, who were exchanging bemused and gratified glances, while Acorna was trying to get the child’s arms from around her neck so that Judit could take charge. The child was moaning and weeping in the desperate way of her age: all the more effective since such “lost” noises demonstrated that she had been bereft of comfort for long enough not to expect any to come her way.

  “You know this…this…person,” the first Guardian said, for by now the kerchief on Acorna’s head had been pulled off and the distinctive horn was visible.

  “Of course we know her,” Pal said so stoutly that both raised hands in defense of their query. “She is the Lady Acorna, beloved ward of Mr. Delszaki Li, who is surely known to the Bureau of Guardians…”

  “Indeed he is, and very generous he is to our retirement and the vacation funds,” the second man said, bobbing not unlike the doorman but not as deeply, as much because he couldn’t have folded his paunch as because Guardians are not supposed to show respect to any but their superiors.

  “Are you all right, Acorna?” Pal asked, taking her by the arm and leading her to the nearest chair. She looked very shaky indeed to him. “Where did you go? Why have they brought you back?” he whispered.

  “I wanted to run on the grass,” she said in a very tiny voice.

  Just then Rafik, Calum, and Gill entered the room, having obviously thrown on the nearest clothes to hand.

  “Now, Guardians, just what is the problem?”

  “Well, the…the…female there…said she was Mr. Li’s ward and she got into a bit of a spot, so we thought we’d better check it out.”

  “You mean, you did not believe the word of a gently bred girl who is obviously well dressed and clearly not the sort of person who gets into spots?” Rafik said, but the look he shot Acorna indicated to her, at least, that he was going to have a few choice words with her.

  She got very interested in brushing the dirt off her hands and then her arms. She could do little about the stains on her lovely skirt right now, but she did straighten her head covering. Not that it mattered.

  Delszaki Li appeared in his hover-chair, and so the reception room became quite cramped.

  “Now, Acorna, my dear, why did you go out without someone to escort you wherever you wished to go?” He turned to the Guardians. “Cordonmaster Flik and Constable Grez, what seems to be the trouble?”

  In the background, someone was kicking the door steadily. To the rhythm of the blows, Cordonmaster Flik, who was extremely gratified to realize that Mr. Li knew both his name and that of his partner, explained the circumstances. Since the cameras on the exterior of the house had taken pics of the two Guardians and their identities had been verified by Central Guard Headquarters, the knowledge surprised only the two Guardians.

  The matter was shortly resolved and Punja paid exactly what his merchandise was worth—and the look given him by Pal as he handed over the half credits made Punja very certain that this was not the person to haggle with—and sent his way. A junior servant very quickly appeared to remove the scuff marks of Punja’s plastic shoes on the fine wood of the door so that when the Guardians, invited to have some refreshment, left, there was no mark remaining of the morning’s fuss. They also left with sufficient credits, yet not too many, to ensure that the incident would be “suitably” reported in their log as a “lost child returned to her home.”

  “Whatever possessed you, Acorna?” Rafik demanded when the Guardians had been sent on their way, well, but not overly, paid for their rescue work.

  “I wanted to run on the beautiful grass,” she said, gulping back a sob.

  “Now, now.” Judit was back and slid into the seat beside her. “It’s all right, dear. No one is mad at you. Just terribly upset that you had such a fright.”

  “I wasn’t exactly frightened,” Acorna said, raising her delicate chin, her eyes slits of remorse, “I was furious to see a little child beaten like that for taking damaged fruit.” She had clenched her fists and brought them down so hard on her knees that Calum winced. “Where is she? She was so terribly frightened and hurt and hungry.”

  “She’s fine, dear,” Judit said. “She’s being fed, carefully, because she hasn’t had any food in quite a few days and to eat too much would be unwise. Then we shall bathe her and make sure she sleeps. Although,” and Judit’s delightful laugh eased the tension in the room, “I have a suspicion that once her tummy is full, she will fall asleep before we can clean her up.”

  “So why did you go out? Why so early? Didn’t you know how dangerous it is out there?” Calum demanded. He turned to the rest of them. “She’s not stupid; I’ve never seen anybody pick up the basic concept of Fourier transforms so fast. I can’t understand why she would do such a stupid thing.”

  “How would she know Kezdet could be dangerous?” Gill leapt to her defense. “She’s never been planetside for more than a day or two, and always with one of us.”

  “The park was beautiful,” Acorna said. “It was like the one in my dreams…” She realized that was a lame excuse. But maybe no one would realize that the park was so far from the house that she couldn’t have known about it when she ventured out.

  “Your dreams?” asked Mr. Li in a coaxing voice and waved Rafik and the others away. “You men, stop harassing the child. Will make her more afraid of you than of Kezdet!” While Calum and the other men took the seats he indicated at a good distance from Acorna, he turned his attention back to her. “Tell me about these dreams…while Judit fixes you a
refreshing drink. I think you may need one.”

  Acorna sipped something cool and green and tangy and then told him about the dream, and how the park had seemed so like it.

  “At least the first part of the park where it was truly lovely,” she said, ending lamely.

  “No, we will not try regression, Mr. Li,” Judit said suddenly. “The method produces enough problems with cortices we are beginning to understand.”

  “It was but a thought.”

  “I think her…adventure, though, has proven a thing or two to the others,” Judit said, smiling at her employer.

  “Has it. Well, that is advantage then,” and he leaned over to pat Acorna’s arm, below the mud. “No action without some profit, if the eye can see it. You rest now, later we talk again.”

  Acorna stood. “I am very sorry for any trouble I caused.”

  “Must make errors in order to learn,” Mr. Li said understandingly and pulled his hover-chair aside so she could leave the room.

  “Do you need any assistance, Acorna?” Judit asked gently.

  She shook her head. Distress still narrowed her pupils to vertical slits. “I must think. It is sad…I have never seen such terribly poor people.”

  The two watched her make her way in slow repentant steps up the stairs and to her quarters.

  “Reality has touched Acorna,” Delszaki said with a heavy sigh of regret.

  “Ki-lins must know of reality, sir,” Judit said as gently as she had spoken to Acorna.

  “A rude awakening,” and he sighed again.

  “She had healed the child,” Judit added. “I hope that the Guardians of the Peace did not notice.”

  “They have been taken care of,” Delszaki said. “Their interest has been redirected into useful paths.”

  “So what is next to be done?”

  “Meet with the miners and discuss the Moon Project and this dream world of Acorna’s.”

  It was Delszaki who noticed that Rafik and Gill did most of the talking, while Calum seemed more intent on covering the notepad in front of him with light-pen doodles: most of which were primaries with satellites whirling around them in impossible astronomical patterns.

  “What is it that you see in those patterns, Calum Baird?” Delszaki asked, pausing the conversation on double domes versus linked units.

  Calum sat straight up and pretended he had been listening to every word said. Rafik glared at him, but Gill looked surprised at his inattention. Last night he’d been full of good suggestions.

  “I think we have got to find Acorna’s home world first,” he said, letting the sentence out in a rush, then he colored as redly as Gill could.

  “How can we possibly find what the child only remembers as a dream?” Delszaki asked.

  “But she does remember something. I was just thinking…” and he ran dots on the primaries, “that every star has its own spectroanalysis. And every star throws out satellites, if they do generate planets, that are made up of their constituents. Maybe a bit more metal on that one, maybe just gases on another, but if you knew what metals a primary had to disperse, you could find the right one,” he waved a hand heavenward, “and find Acorna’s.”

  Rafik shook his head. “There’s not enough difference in constituents. Stars are all basically made of the same stuff—at least, all the ones that generate Earth-type planets are going to look pretty much alike to spectroanalysis. Certainly they’ll all have the conventional metals.”

  “The pod Acorna came in,” Calum said stubbornly, “is not composed of conventional metals. Not entirely, anyway. We never did figure out exactly what-all was in the alloy, but it’s not like anything we—humans—use for space and industrial construction. Lighter. Stronger.” He waved his hands. “I’m a mathematician, not a physicist. It’s worth studying, don’t you think?”

  “You have original spacegoing container?” The fingers of Li’s left hand tensed over the com pad on his chair. “And have not mentioned the artifact before?”

  “Well, it scarcely came up in conversation, after all,” Calum said apologetically. “We always meant to study it one day.”

  “Ah, well, it takes but a little arrangement…” and, even as Delszaki turned to Pal, the young man was tapping out an access code, “…to make appointment to discover what we may from it.”

  Actually, it took considerably longer because Rafik, Gill, Calum, and Pal had to bring a collapsible crate to the Uburu so that anyone watching would not see what they were unloading. Of course the vehicle Mr. Li could put at their disposal for the transfer was state of the art and undoubtedly left a number of watchers gawking at its speed and maneuverability so that the precious pod was at its destination before they had managed to achieve altitude in the traffic pattern.

  Delivered to the impressive cube of one of Mr. Li’s business acquaintances, it was taken by grav-lift down to the bowels of the cube, through several alert and noncurious security checks and into the appropriate room for its closer examination.

  “You can call me Zip,” said the white-coated older man who greeted them there. He had an oriental cast to his features and olive skin, but he spoke in an accent that suggested he had learned many other languages before the Basic he now used. He was also minus the first joint of both small fingers and the tip of one ring finger. “Mr. Li says you have a puzzle for me, Pal. I love puzzles.”

  The three miners decided they liked his style and, with Pal, quickly uncrated the pod for him.

  “Ah!” he exclaimed, raising both hands in awe, and his eyebrows and letting his mouth hang open. Then, he prowled around it, kneeling down to see the underside of the ovoid and standing on tiptoe to look over it. “Ah!” he said again, seeing the inscriptions and delicately tracing them with an index finger as lovingly as a mother would trace the features of a child. “And you’ve done nothing to discover if this language is known?”

  Rafik looked at Gill and Cal and they all shrugged. “We’re miners, not linguists.”

  “What about the occupant? Well, there was one, wasn’t there?” Zip said testily. “Or so I was given to understand. I do have Mr. Li’s complete confidence, you know. But I need some clues.”

  “I thought…well…maybe,” Calum stuttered, no longer so sure of his premise.

  “That if we had some idea of what metals comprise this alloy, we might use the spectroanalysis of stars to find out which ones are more likely to have produced satellites with similar material,” Pal said with a polite nod to the tongue-tied Calum.

  “Not very likely,” Zip said briskly. He repeated Rafik’s argument.

  “Then there’s nothing we can do?” Calum looked cast down.

  “How come you believe him and not me?” Rafik muttered.

  “I did not say there was nothing to be done.” Zip looked at them severely. “You must listen more carefully if you wish to be true scientists. The avenue of approach you suggested is not likely to succeed…but there are some other things we can play with. Cosmology has advanced slightly since the days of planetbound observatories,” he said with a slight sneer. “Have you ever heard of upsilon-V testing? Planetary emissions separation? Mass diffusion imaging? Do not tell me how to do my job.” He tapped the pod and ran his hands across the top, around the sides. “Come, come, gentlemen, it is enough of a puzzle by itself without me having to waste time discovering the opening mechanism.”

  “We wouldn’t,” Calum said sweetly, “want to interfere with the expert.”

  “But we would want to cooperate. Wouldn’t we, Calum?” Rafik reached over and showed how the pieces slipped into each other, then the lid slowly opened upward.

  “Ah!” Once again Zip threw up both hands in delight at the furnishings within. He was feeling over every inch of it while the four watched and, bored by his diligence, began to shift their weight from one foot to another. Rafik finally gave a little cough which interrupted the tactile examination. “Ah, yes. This is not something that can be solved in a trice. Or even a nonce. Go,” and he flicked
one hand at them in dismissal while, with his other, he reverently felt the lining in which the baby Acorna had once lain. “I will report when I have discovered anything of interest. My respectful greetings to Mr. Li,” he said to Pal, and turned back.

  They were passed through the various check-points and back to the roof where their vehicle awaited them.

  “Say, I thought the ID was 87-99-20-DS?” Calum said, pointing to the craft. “And I’d’ve sworn blind it was blue.”

  “I smell fresh lacquer,” Gill said as they closed the gap to the machine.

  “It’s the same type,” Rafik said, because he hadn’t noticed the ID nor the color.

  “A little precaution that might, or might not, be necessary,” Pal said as he opened the door. “The color is dry.”

  Calum entered, perplexed. Gill was frowning, but Rafik began to like Delszaki even more. A cautious as well as a prudent man.

  As Judit had predicted, the child Acorna had rescued fell asleep before she had finished eating, clutching a piece of bread so tightly that it could not be removed from her chubby fist without reducing it to crumbs.

  “Maybe we can just sponge her off while she snoozes,” Judit suggested, but Acorna resisted the suggestion fiercely. “Let her sleep! She must be exhausted, poor little thing. I’ll bathe her when she wakes up.”

  Acorna sat over the sleeping child for the rest of the morning, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest under the light blanket Judit had thrown over her. She was filthy, but that could be remedied; too thin, too, but regular good food would take care of that. The bruises and scratches she had borne after the scuffle in the street were slowly fading, encouraged by an occasional gentle nuzzle from Acorna’s horn to heal into clean new flesh.

  “She’s only a baby!” Acorna thought indignantly. “Why isn’t somebody taking care of her?”

  She did not realize she had spoken her thought aloud until Pal Kendoro answered her.

  “Someone is, now,” he said. “You are.”