Acorna's World Part 4

Why, of all the people she'd ever met, did she have to be on the ship with himi n.o.body else among the s.p.a.ceport personnel, the techno-artisans, or the s.p.a.cefarers treated her like she was inferior just because she was younger and shorter than they were. In contrast to Liriili and her political friends, the s.p.a.cefarers had, with rare exceptions, treated her with respect.

But she was stuck with Thariinye and supposed she'd have to make the best of it, at least if she wanted to get to Kh.o.r.n.ya and Aari, and maybe, just maybe, her parents. It -was an unfamiliar feeling in her heart, the thought that there was a possibility they -were still alive.

When Maati wasn't arguing with Thariinye, she -watched the tutorials that came with every new ship's complement of programs and she took herself through a simulation of Captain Becker's course.

The human employed unusual navigation methods, diving into unplotted wormholes and through unexplored folds in s.p.a.ce rather than following conventional s.p.a.ceways. If she and Thariinye were going to manage to rendezvous with the Condor, they -would have to do the same. Thariinye confirmed her hunch, -when she asked him point-blank about their course.

Now Thariinye looked nervous as the entrance to the wormhole loomed before them, but then he grinned and got a strange gleam in his eye. He shifted to manual controls. "Strap down, youngling," he said.

"I am strapped in," she said. "Hurry up, will you?"

"Okay. Yeeeeeeeheeee!" he cried, a little anticlimactically. She really didn't notice much. There was nothing to see. One moment the opening -was ahead of them and the next it was behind them. The stars were in different places. That was all.

And-something else.

"Well, look at you, little girl," Thariinye said, when he turned to glance at her and the glance became a stare. "You are now a bona fide star-clad s.p.a.cefarer."

She was! She really was. Her skin had been getting a little lighter since they left, and the pale spots in her mane broadening to overcome the black parts, but now, her hands below the cuff of her shipsuit -were -white! Completely. As white as Thariinye's, or Kh.o.r.n.ya's, or Aari's. She -wanted to run for the nearest reflective surface but got tangled in her safety restraint straps, her fingers fumbling as she tried to release the catch. At last she got free and was able to examine herself in the grooming device. Her face was as pale as the second moon, her mane pure silver, and her horn golden, though still of a childishly stubby length. She frowned at her reflection.

"Does this color make me look plumper?" she asked Thariinye, and immediately regretted it.

He laughed. "Of course not. And even if it did, there's nothing to be done about it. You're star-clad now, youngling."

"How come it happened so fast?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Usually the change is more gradual. Maybe the shift of light inside the wormhole accelerated the process."

"There wasn't any light--was there?"

"Of course there was light. You're confusing your basic physics. That was a wormhole, not a black hole."

"I know that," she said. "I'm just young, not stupid. But I didn't see any light till -we came out on this side."

"You probably blacked out," he said. "Fear will do that. Your first time in s.p.a.ce and all that."

"I Did not," she told him. "I just didn't see any light. Did YOU? Honestly?"

"Well, no, but then, probably I couldn't pick it up. We were ravelling so fast and it~"

"Forgotten your basic physics?" she asked sweetly.

"What's next on the course?"

"Cross this planetary system from here," she put her finger on a purplish planet that -was farthest from its sun, "to over here," this was past the seventh planet from the sun, "and then there's a sort of funny part of s.p.a.ce-b.u.mpy, as if it's pleated. ..."

"You can see that?" he asked, peering at her finger as if it had eyes.

"I did the simulation, silly. Maybe you should, too. Oh. I forgot. Experienced Starfarers don't need to do that stuff."

"We'll have no insubordination out of you, youngling."

"Fine. You asked. I told you."

She left him alone on the bridge and stomped down to the hydroponics area to do some serious grazing. And pouting, if the truth be known. The Condor had been gone for six weeks before the Nlikaavri launched. They had only been in s.p.a.ce for ten sleep periods. Maati tried to think about what she would say to her parents if she saw them again, how she -would convince Kh.o.r.n.ya and Aari to let her stay with them instead of returning to narhii-Vhiliinyar. But even her vivid imagination began to run out of ideas after a while. She thought about it, a.n.a.lyzed the jittery feeling that made it hard for her to sit still. That wasn't all. Her attention wandered at any excuse, and everything Thariinye said was sounding even stupider than usual. She had a thousand questions about how everything on the ship worked, but lacked the patience to listen to Thariinye's lectures on the subject. She wanted to climb behind the panels and see how things worked instead of just sitting and waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

She was bored. Here she was on the greatest adventure or her whole life and she was sooooo bored. She was used to having the run of Kubiilikhan, keeping so busy she was exhausted at the end of the day. To having conversations with people from all walks of life all over the city and surrounding countryside. Here on this ship she mostly sat. And talked to Thariinye. Who treated her like a baby. By the Ancestors, something had better happen soon!

Her wish was granted in seven more sleep periods. She had been using the LAANYE Thariinye brought along to brush up on Kh.o.r.n.ya's language-Standard. She wanted to be as fluent as possible when she saw Kh.o.r.n.ya, Aan, and Captain Becker again. If she could speak the language, maybe they wouldn't fuss too much when she announced she intended to stay with them, wanted to go back with them to that moon Kh.o.r.n.ya had mentioned where all the children lived and learned new skills.

It was her watch and she was tired of studying. If only the Condor weren't still so far awayl Linyaari ships were faster than those of the humans, so they should be overtaking the salvage vessel before long, but she wished fervently that they were there already. She ran the course simulation again, wondering if maybe she could plot a more direct route Instead of simply following Thariinye's extrapolation of the Condor's course.

As she calculated and plotted her various trajectories, she noticed some familiar-looking coordinates among her calculations.

Thariinye?" she said, speaking into the onboard hailing system.

He huffed and snorted, from which she gathered that she'd awakened him.

It we just deviate two degrees from Captain Becker's course for a few hours, we'll be at the point where the Niriians 8aw the planet with my parents' escape pod on it." "Hmm? Oh. Good."

I think we should alter our planned route and find my parents before we go see Captain Becker and the others. Shall we change course?"

"Oh, yeah, okay. Fine, kid. Don't bother me," he said and then before she could draw another breath said, "What? No no, Maati, wait. Don't you <)are touch="" anything!="" i="" -was="" asleep.="" i'll="" be="" right="">

She shook her head when she saw him, rubbing his eyes his mane all flattened on the left side. He stumbled a little when he walked.

"You-didn't touch anything, did you?" he asked.

"No. That's technically your job. That's why I called. But I do think we should try to get my folks since they're sorta on the way." She tugged at his sleeve, and pointed to the screen where the course she had been plotting intersected with the familiar coordinates.

"Absolutely not." He looked again, tapped a b.u.t.ton, compared her course -with the original tracing of the Condor's. "What's this all about?"

"I was trying to make our trip shorter and faster. The Condor is just looking for junk. They are not in any hurry, and they are rambling all over the place while they are looking. They are not trying to take the most direct route through s.p.a.ce. But we do not have to follow their path. We could reach them faster by plotting a more direct course."

"Oh, -we could, could we? I suppose now that you're starclad, you think you know as much about navigation as seasoned s.p.a.cefarers, do you?"

"It's not that. It's just that if those horrible things that hurt my brother are out here too, I don't want them to find my parents all stranded on some deserted planet. I wanted to come with you so that I could help you save them. And if we keep on our present course, it will take forever to reach where the ConSor *was. Then we'd have to try to find it from there and, meanwhile, my parents could die."

"Ummm," Thariinye said again, tracing each route simultaneously with both hands. "If we take this shorter route, we could rescue your parents on our way and still rendezvous with the ConDor in half the time I figured." Maati looked up at him with wide, approving eyes but inwardly she was laughing about how he was making this whole thing sound like his own idea. "Very well then. I'll change course now."

He did, putting on quite a show for her benefit-embellishing his movements with graceful little flourishes, humming to himself the "Hero's Gallop" song. He evidently thought that, instead of being grounded for life when he returned to narhiiVhiliinyar, he would receive a hero's "welcome for the rescue of her parents, his account of which would no doubt be as embroidered as his current implementation of the course change, or maybe even more so. Let him be the biggest fraaki in the pond if he wanted to. Maati didn't care. She would finally get to see her parents again.

Maati was at the helm once more when the ship prepared to enter the orbit of the planet whose coordinates matched those described by the Niriians. The planet was a pretty one from this distance. Overall it was the color of the small lavender flowers that grew in the best grazing grounds. Large pools of deep indigo appeared through the powdery blue clouds that swathed the world. It even had several blue moons. She wondered what they would look like from the surface. She'd find out soon enough. . . .

Maati was about to summon Thariinye when the corn unit Game alive. She heard, not words, but sounds like rocks being ^nged together, "Hick Klack, klick-klick-klickety-klack-klackklack."

Thariinye must have been on his way to the bridge already ecause suddenly he was beside Maati. The color completely famed from his horn and he looked like he was watching something terrible. "What's the matter, Thariinye? We're here!" she said.

"Yes," he whispered, nodding at the corn unit. "And so are the Khieevi."

Captain Becker, look," Acorna said, when he arrived on the bridge for his watch. She pointed out to him their present course back to narhii-Vhiliinyar, and a slightly altered one. "If we deviated here slightly, -we would intersect with the coordinates the Niriians mentioned in their vid. The ones where the escape pod was seen. Do you wish to make that detour? From the looks of the vid, at least one person survived. Even if that's no longer the case, perhaps you would find the pod valuable salvage?"

Becker beamed and patted her on the shoulder. "You're gonna make a junker yet, Princess. That's a great idea. While we re at it, we'll see if there's anybody there who can tell us more about the wrecked Niriian ship, and if so, we'll see if they d like a ride. If not, "we have salvage that looks like something your people would like to have back. Even if they don't, bet your uncle Hafiz knows somebody who would *want to view it as a curiosity."

Slight as the course change was, it had a profound effect on Aari, who stared at the pliyi broadcast continually while he was on the bridge, and particularly focused on the picture of the pod.

He had gone over the broadcast so many times that Acorna *was surprised he could still stand to look at it. He didn't even flinch away from the scene of his own torture anymore. True he went into an apparent trance while watching, but since he could be distracted from it if necessary, Acorna decided he was simply thinking deeply about his experience, trying to face up to it and process it, which surely meant he was growing stronger and healthier and better able to deal with it? She hoped so.

Becker rolled his eyes now whenever he looked at Aari. He had tried some conversational gambits with no success. Aari *would answer a polite "Yes, Joh" or "No, Joh" and return to staring at the screen. Acorna usually met with the same response.

Had it not been for the cat and the KEN unit, the situation might have never been resolved.

Once his initial curiosity about the pliyi had been exhausted, RK paid no attention to it for several days. As the same images playing over and over on the screen meant that Aari, who was one of the cat's favorite people, would be on the bridge, RK started spending more time there. But enough, in RK's opinion, was enough. When Aari refused to focus exclusively on the cat, RK, tail lashing, began watching the screen, too. Acrorna noticed that every time the Khieevi appeared on screen again with Aari at their mercy, the cat -would enlarge himself to twice his already considerable size, flatten his ears, and hiss. The first time Becker had witnessed RK's reaction, he'd laughed until he fell out of his chair. The cat then hissed at Becker, too.

Even Aari couldn't help laughing.

But RK, as his apparent understanding of what he was watching grew, became even more agitated when the scene appeared on the screen. One day, when they -were all on deck and the scene appeared, the cat flung himself at the screen, claws and teeth bared. The force of his collision with the hard, smooth, and totally uninjured surface of the screen knocked RK onto the deck, where he lay for a moment. Then he sat up and licked the fur on his left side as if that had been his intention all along.

Aari picked the cat up, stroked his fur, and laughed. "You got yourself a defender there, Aari," Becker said. Acorna reached over and scratched RK under his chin. The cat graciously permitted her ministrations, though he did not go so far as to actually purr.

During the long hours when she was not on watch and the others were busy or sleeping, Acorna undertook to "educate KEN," as Becker put it.

The android was being underutilized, she told Becker. Though he was programmed essentially as a servant or at least an employee, he had a vast amount of unused memory.

"It would greatly expand your ability to collect salvage, Captain," she told Becker. "If you landed on a world rich in salvage but with an unbreathable atmosphere, for instance, the android could collect your salvage for you long after the limited oxygen supply in your pressure suit forced you to return to the ship."

Becker nodded. "Sounds good to me." I'll need access to the Condor's memory banks." ML ccua e<) ^u.="" ccua,"="" becker="" said.="" "is="" that="">

Only to the Pallomellese," Becker said. "It means 'my house is your house, my ship is your ship.' Go for it."

During most of this programming, the KEN unit was turned ' "ut during the rest, he remained conscious and partic.i.p.ated ln e '^rk. Acorna was surprised at how natural he seemed. He was not, after all, a particularly new model.

Were you originally programmed to feel or display emotlon?" she asked the robot.

"No," he said. And then, half a beat later, he asked with seeming anxiety, "Was that the wrong answer?"

She smiled to rea.s.sure him. It seemed silly to think that someone who was basically a machine needed rea.s.surance- but, on the other hand, she had heard her uncles talk to their ship, she'd seen Becker talk to the ConSor in the same way he spoke to RK, so there was really no reason to think that machines didn't respond in some way to emotional input. Particularly machines -which appeared to be human. "I do not think that there is a wrong answer to that question," she said. "But I'm interpreting your responses as being emotionally motivated. This makes me more comfortable with you."

"I hope you are comfortable with me, miss," the KEN unit said. "You have taught me a great deal these last few days. I know many more things. I understand a great deal more about the people here, this ship, this universe. Kisia Manjari did not wish me to think for myself."

Acorna frowned. "Kisia Manjari -was a very troubled person. And she had the unfortunate habit of pa.s.sing her trouble around to everyone she met."

"She was a very difficult user, miss. I believe I perceive *what you mean. Captain Becker, on the other hand, keeps me shut off most of the time. This recharges the batteries but does not add greatly to my knowledge."

"I don't think the captain realized your potential, KEN640," Acorna said. "I'll ask his permission to leave you on continually while you are a.s.similating the data I have added to your banks."

"Miss, I note that the captain, and you, and the other being like you, and even the fur-bearing creature call each other by casual appellations. KEN-640 is my model number. But it is not the same sort of appellation."

"I'm sorry, KEN-640. You may call all of us by our given names. Although Aari calls me Kh.o.r.n.ya, as do others of my race, my original name is Acorna and I prefer it. Do you wish to be known by a different appellation than KEN-640 yourself?"

"Yes, Acorna. I have scanned the selection of names for humanoids of Terran origin, which I resemble, and have decided it would be appropriate for me to be called MacKenZ. Mac means son of, which sounds more human than modeled by, does it not?"

"It does."

"And although my model number indicates that I was not the latest or most sophisticated unit made to date, I feel that your programming has put me on a par -with the most recent and updated of my series. And if an "A" indicates the first or earliest model in the Standard alphabet, then Z surely means the most recent upgrade. Hence MacKenZ."

"Fine, MacKenZ. If you'll accompany me to the bridge, I will reintroduce you to our crewmates."

She did so. After that, Becker readily agreed to leave the MacKenZ operational most of the time and began some programming of his own, teaching MacKenZ some of the important points to remember in collecting salvage. "I think Mac is selfprogramming to some extent anyway," Becker said, scratching his head. "Otherwise, I don't see how he could come up with some of the stuff he does."

Becker was nonetheless reluctant to trust MacKenZ at the helm alone, although he didn't mind tutoring him in Becker Enterprises navigational methods when he stood his own watch.

MacKenZ spent much of his time on the bridge, when Becker didn't have any other specific a.s.signment for him. Acorna -was glad of the company. She used the time to input more data, using the books that Aari had now abandoned in iavor of studying the piiyi.

She discovered, as she came on watch to relieve Aari, that KEN, too, had taken an interest in the broadcast.

Aari was involved in the liveliest exchange he had engaged in since they recovered the pod. He and MacKenZ were conversing in Linyaari. Acorna had programmed the android for Standard. The Linyaari was either the android's own idea, or perhaps Aan had taught him.

"From observation," MacKenZ was saying, nodding at a frozen frame of the Khieevi torture scene, "I have deciphered the meaning of some few of the utterances Khieevi make by rubbing their legs together, Aari," MacKenZ was saying in a puzzled tone. "But these sounds, while they have a definite pattern and twenty-one thousand four hundred fifty-two distinct combinations which can predictably be determined to have specific meanings, are not translatable -with the use of your LAANYE device, which I find odd. Can you enlighten me as to the meanings of these clickings? Are they the only form of communication employed by these beings?"

Aan sat back in the command chair and closed his eyes, rubbing the area around the cavity where his horn once grew. He looked very, very weary. "They use thought-speak," he told MacKenZ, sighing deeply. "I didn't realize it at first, but they touch their antennae together and thought transference takes place. The audible communication they perform with their leg rubbings is apparently a code for more complex thoughts they are able to transmit in full by antennae contact. This is what has made it so difficult for the LAANYE to make sense of their verbal communication in the past. I suppose I am the only living being who has spent enough time with them to comprehend their mode of data transference." He paused, then added dryly, "I suppose that dubious distinction also means I may be the only Linyaari qualified to try and program the LAANYE to decipher the Khieevi utterances."

"So the Khieevi have to be physically present to employ such a mental means of communication," the android said. "So they use the clickings of their legs rubbing together as an audible means of communication for longer distances, such as ship to-ship transmissions. Fascinating. What else did you learn while you were with the Khieevi?"

"How loudly I could scream. How long before my voice crave out," Aari said. "How I could be reduced to a ma.s.s of searing pain, with no thought, no higher purpose than to make it cease."

"And yet, clearly, from what you say, you were able to withhold the location of narhii-Vhiliinyar, as well as your brother's hiding place. Was that not an act of will?"

"Willful memory loss perhaps," Aari said with a very faint smile.

"What meanings did you attribute to these various click ings "

"Perhaps on my next watch we will attempt to interpret them, Maakinze. Here is Kh.o.r.n.ya, come to relieve me."

He smiled at her, but she was looking beyond him, to the screens that were, as Becker would say, lit up like pinball machines. "Look, Aari! Signals from everywhere! And we are nearing the coordinates of the lost pod. Perhaps we should alert Captain Becker."

"I'm right here, Mac!" Becker called out from down the corridor, his bare feet clanking as he jogged across the grated deck plating. "What's up?"

"A diffuse sonar signal is emanating from the area around the planet where the Linyaari escape pod is located, Captain," Mac replied.

A strange feeling came over Acorna as she looked at the thousands of tiny blinking lights spread across the sonar screen. She had seen this pattern before. "I know what that is, Captain!" she said. "It's the sonar-blocking signal given out by cloaked Linyaari vessels. One of the techno-artisans showed me how it worked recently."

"So," Becker said. "If it's a cloaked Linyaari vessel, what's that?" He pointed to a substantial and solid blip rapidly entering the sonar array.

As if in answer, the corn unit began a "Klick-klack-klickklack-klick-klack" noise.

"Khieevi," Acorna and Aari whispered, while Mac said the same word in a matter-of-fact, almost cheerful tone.

"Those guys?" Becker asked, peering at the dot as if he could make out the shape of the ship from it.