could it be? This wasn't like EVA from the Uhuru,
where a slight mistake could leave you without air
to breathe or send you spinning dizzily away from
the ship into space. Planets were e<uy; they had
gravity and atmosphere. What more did she need?
But this part of this planet was boring—row
after row of faceless walled houses with metallic
grills across their windows, and the only people
awake -were locked away in their skimmers and
darted past her with no chance for interesting con-
versations. Acorna raised her head, looking to the
horizon for something more amusing, and her
sensitive nostrils caught a -whiff of something
green and growing not too far away. She followed
the scent along stone pedestrian strips, her feet
clacking on the smooth-worked stone, until she
reached its source.
Though Acorna did not know it, the
Riverwalk was Celtalan's glory of city planning—
at its western end—and its shame at the eastern
end, where the river that gave the park its name
had long been allowed to degenerate into a pol-
luted, half-choked stream. She entered by the
arches cut through hedgerows on the -western
side of Celtalan, where everything -was neatly
manicured and controlled to a fare-thee-well. The
view through the first arch gave the illusion of
spacious countryside with rolling hills; it was
only after Acorna had walked through the
entrance-way that she realized how clever land-
scaping and tricks of perspective had made this
park surrounded by city buildings seem so much
larger than it really was. Little streams (carefully
purified before they -were guided into their pre-
formed channels) trickled over miniature water-
falls of moss-covered boulders; half-size gazebos
and follies, perched atop grassy mounds, gave the
illusion that one was looking down vistas of limit-
less space laid out by a landscape architect of
infinite means. Acorna beguiled half an hour in a
flowering maze before the sweet smell of the
fresh green buds next to the flowers became
unbearably tempting. Rafik and Gill had
impressed upon her strongly that it -was consid-
ered a social faux pas to eat other people's gar-
204
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
dens. If she went back to the big house, that nice
Mr. Li would probably find her something she
could eat. But she wasn't tired yet, and at the far
side of the maze she could see that the careful
landscaping of the Riverwalk began to degener-
ate into something wilder and less carefully mani-
cured. Instead of the gravel path that hurt her
feet, there was a path of hard-packed earth, a
perfect surface for running on. . . . Acorna
glanced around, saw no other early risers who
might be surprised or offended by her actions,
and carefully kilted up her long flowing skirts to
above her knees. After all, she assuaged her con-
science, she had only promised Gill that she
would wear the skirt; she was still doing that,
wasn't she?
Two Kezdet Guardians of the Peace, observing
the park from overhead scanners, saw the tall girl
take off at a galloping run down the dirt path that
led to the river on the eastern edge of the
Riverwalk Park. They shrugged and continued
sipping their morning kava. Most members of the
wealthy technoclass -who inhabited the west-side
mansions knew better than to go anywhere east of
the river without an armored skimmer and armed
bodyguards. Doubtless this girl would turn back
before she reached the river bridge. And if she
didn't—well, there might be a reward in it for
them if they got her out of trouble and saw her
safely home. Before she got into trouble, there was
no reason to bestir themselves.
Pounding down the dirt path, her horn-
covered feet landing solidly on the earth, Acorna
Acorna
205
felt more alive than she could ever remember.
Some atavistic instinct deep inside her told her
that thm was what she was born for—not the ster-
ile confines of a ship, but long glorious runs up
grassy slopes and down the other side, effortless
leaps over the ragged brambles that impeded her
way after she left the path, the morning breeze
blowing through her tangled curls. The blood
throbbed in her veins and she increased her speed
until she felt as though she were flying over the
grass and bushes, flying down a long weed-
infested downhill slope. . . .
The same instincts that had urged her into a
run saved her from a fall into the stinking river at
the bottom of the slope. Without consciously
thinking about the obstacle, she shortened stride,
collected her balance, and launched herself from
the bank in a long, glorious arc that carried her
safely over the ten-foot expanse of stinking, gray-
green water.
On the far bank the park ended abruptly and
the expanses of pavement resumed, but with a dif-
ference. Instead of long regular rows of tall, face-
less houses there were clusters of humbler
dwellings, with dirt paths winding off between the
buildings. Instead of businessmen in skimmers, the
main road was full of people: stalls and carts sell-
ing bangles and snacks and fruit and vegetables, a
knife grinder squatting in the corner made by two
mud walls, a huddle of street urchins playing some
game that involved mad rushes in pursuit of some-
thing Acorna couldn't quite see. She grinned hap-
pily. This was interesting. She would explore a
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
206
little, get an apple or some other snack from one of
these stalls, and be back at the house before any-
body else woke up.
Overhead, in the scanner tower, one of the
Guardians of the Peace nudged the other one.
"D'you see that?"
"See what?"
"That girl. She jumped the river!"
"You've been burning too many happy-sticks,"
grunted his partner. "River may be down to a mis-
erable trickle, but it's still too wide to jump.
Besides, why would anybody take the risk of
falling in there when there's a perfectly good
bridge upstream?"
"Maybe she didn't want to detour. Maybe she
didn't want to explain her business to the bridge
guards. This could be interesting. Let's take out a
skimmer and follow her."
The fried meat pies being hawked from the first
rolling stall didn't appeal to Acorna, but the
second wagon held a tempting display of fruits
and vegetables . . . rather more tempting from a
distance, she realized with regret, than on
closer inspection. The apples were soft and
wrinkled, the madi-fruits covered with brown-
ish spots.
"Do you not have anything fresh?" she
demanded of the owner.
"All fresh, gracious lady, picked just this morn-
ing from my cousin's farm."
"Huh!" the meat pie seller grunted, just audibly,
207
"just fell off the back of your cousin's skimmer,
more likely."
Acorna did not wish to get embroiled in the
men's bickering. She pointed at random to a
cluster of ruta roots. They looked slightly limp,
but ruta aged well, and they'd be something to
nibble on while she walked back through the
park. She tasted one -while the stall-keeper
wrapped the others in a scrap of plastifilm for
her; the insides, at least, were still sweet and
crunchy.
"That'll be five credits," the stall-keeper said,
holding out the package.
From the way his neighbor's eyebrows shot up,
Acorna guessed that she -was being charged at
least double the going rate for a bundle of slightly
overage rutas. But that wasn't important. What
WOJ important was that this blasted skirt had no
pockets, and she hadn't been thinking of money
when she left the house that morning.
"Charge it to the account of my guardian,
Delszaki Li," she said.
The stall-keeper's face turned ugly. "Look,
techie, we don't run charge accounts this side of
the river. Credits in hand is my rule."
"Then keep the rutas," Acorna said, "they
weren't that fresh anyway."
"You'll pay me for the one you've eaten! I
been robbed already once this morning by one
of them thieving street brats, I'm not having
some techie come along and make a free meal
off my stall on pretense of sampling the
goods!"
209
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
208
"Hey, Punja, we got the little thief for you!"
called one of the street urchins whose game
Acorna had noticed just before she inspected the
stall.
Now, with a sinking heart, she realized that
the quarry in their "game" was not a youngling
from their group, but a much smaller child,
bruised and bleeding from a cut lip, who strug-
gled madly as the larger boys hauled her bodily
toward the stall.
"And a lot of help that is," Punja snarled, "you
can tell by looking that she hasn't a clipped credit
to pay me back."
"What did the child take?" Acorna interrupted.
"Three of me best madi-fruits. Gobbled them
down on the run, she did. I suppose you'll be
wanting that placed to the account of your
guardian, too, will you?" the man asked Acorna
with heavy sarcasm.
"You could give us a reward for catchin' her,"
one of the boys holding the child grumbled.
"What good's it to me that you caught the
brat? You can give her a good beatin' if you like,
teach her not to steal from respectable mer-
chants," Punja suggested. "That should be
enough reward for you. Have a little fun before
you turn her loose."
The boy's heavy-browed face lit up with an
expression of sickening glee, and he slammed a fist
into the child's stomach before Punja had finished
speaking.
"That's just for starters," he told the gasping,
white-faced child. "Now you can come along wif
me and me mates and see if you haven't got some-
thing to pay us back for our effort."
"Scrawnier'n a bondworker," one of his pals
demurred.
"But free," the first boy pointed out, "or did
you suddenly get rich enough to patronize a bonk-
shop, huh? Now me, I'm ..."
He never got a chance to finish articulating
his philosophy of life. All that had delayed
Acorna's intervention was the need to tuck her
flowing skirt farther out of the way. Now she
executed another leap from her perfectly bal-
anced standing position, came down with one
foot on the first boy's stomach and swung the
other to crunch into his mate's nose. Rather
pleased with the results of her self-defense
classes with Calum, she recovered her balance
and pulled the starving child up by one wrist
while the rest of the gang of boys, seeing what
had happened to their biggest and strongest
members, melted away into the network of dirt
paths behind the main thoroughfare.
"You," she told the child, "had much better
come with me. No one shall beat you again."
The child struggled feebly and tried to pull
away from Acorna's hand.
A skimmer settled in the dusty roadway, and
two uniformed Guardians emerged.
"What's all this?" the first one out demanded.
A chorus of voices informed him, variously,
that the girl was a techie out to make trouble
on the wrong side of the river; that the child was a
thief and ought to be bonded to honest labor; that
210
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
the girl -was a foreigner who had viciously
attacked two innocent boys who just happened to
be standing by the stall.
"And who's to pay for the damage to my
stock?" wailed the stall-keeper, virtuously holding
up a handful of bruised fruit which he reckoned
he could blame on Acorna's part in the brief fra-
cas.
"My guardian, Delszaki Li, will cover all
charges," Acorna said.
"Aye, she keeps naming Li, as if she thought
the sound of his name would carry all before!"
said the stall-keeper virtuously. "Y'ask me, she
ought to be confronted -with Li himself. If, as is no
more than I suspect, she's lying, he'll know how to
deal with impostors. Why don't you make her go
there now?"
"I should like nothing better," declared Acorna,
"but this little girl comes with me!"
"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 dam-
ages."
'A.corna. 211
Acorna's prompt willingness to call on Delszaki
Li had given him second thoughts. If the girl w(U
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.
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
213
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 impreca-
tions 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 distinc-
tive horn was visible.
"Of course we know her," Pal said so stoutly
that both raised hands in defense of their query.
21-4
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
"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 superi-
ors.
"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
215
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 pies 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."
2 1 6 -^-> ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
"Whatever possessed you, Acorna?" Rafik
demanded •when the Guardians had been sent on
their •way, well, but not overly, paid for their res-
cue •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, rais-
ing 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 JtupQ; 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 danger-
217
ous?" 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 real-
ize that the park was so far from the house that
she couldn't have known about it when she ven-
tured 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 under-
stand."
"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.
218
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
219
"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.
"Kl-liiu 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 con-
versation 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 dif-
ference 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 stub-
bornly, "is not composed of conventional metals.
220
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
221
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 indus-
trial 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 spacegomg container?" The
fingers of Li's left hand tensed over the corn 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
Raflk, Gill, Calum, and Pal had to bring a col-
lapsible crate to the Uhuru so that anyone watch-
ing would not see what they were unloading. Of
course the vehicle Mr. Li could put at their dis-
posal for the transfer was state of the art and
undoubtedly left a number of watchers gawking
at its speed and maneuverability so that the pre-
cious pod was at its destination before they had
managed to achieve altitude in the traffic pat-
tern.
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 puz-
zles."
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 stut-
tered, no longer so sure of his premise.
"That if we had some idea of what metals com-
prise this alloy, we might use the spectroanalysis
of stars to find out which ones are more likely to
222
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
223
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 observato-
ries," 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 wouD 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 respect-
ful 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 res-
cued 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.
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
224
"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 wcu 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 indig-
nantly. "Why isn't somebody taking care other?"
She did not realize she had spoken her thought
aloud until Pal Kendoro answered her.
"Someone is, now," he said. "You are."
He had been silently watching for some time,
entranced by Acorna's rapt attention to the sleeping
child and the tender look on her face as she nuzzled
the baby's scratches with her horn. Some people, he
realized, might have found the scene outlandish or
alien. To him it was simply the most perfect expres-
sion of motherly love he had ever seen. It didn't
matter that Acorna was of a different species, that
she might never have children if they couldn't
locate her home, or that those children would be
physically very different from the starving beggar
she had snatched up out of the streets of East
Celtalan. The bond of love was there.
225
"But how could she have been simply aban-
doned to starve?" Acorna smoothed the ragged
curls away from the right side of the child's face.
On the left side of her head the hair had been
crudely hacked short. "She must belong to ^ome-
bo<hf."
"I don't think she was abandoned," Pal said.
"She's a beautiful child. The way her hair was
hacked off, it looks as if somebody was trying to
make her look ugly. Probably the same person
helped her to run away."
"What is wrong with beauty? And what would
she be running away from?" Pal sighed and pre-
pared to recapitulate Delszaki Li's lecture on
Kezdet's system of child labor, bondage, "recruit-
ing," and outright kidnapping. What Li had told
Acorna and the miners had probably been too
much for Acorna to take in all at one time. Calum
went into rhapsodies about the speed with which
Acorna absorbed mathematical and astronautical
theories, but learning emotional facts was some-
thing else again.
"There are many children on Kezdet with no
one to look after them," he said. "Some are
orphans, some are unwanted children from other
planets -who have been brought here to work in
mines and factories, some are bought from their
parents to do the same work. If they don't work,
their only alternative is to starve in the street." He
frowned. "She doesn't look young to have run
away, though. Mostly it's the older children who
have the gumption to escape and the wit to make
some sort of plan. Perhaps when she wakes we
226
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
can find out more about her, at least get some idea
what -workplace she was bonded to."
"Not to send her back!" Acorna said, flinging a
protective arm over the little girl.
"No. We won't send her back. And if. . ." Pal
had been about to say that if the child's bond-
owners traced her, Delszaki Li would surely buy
her freedom. But he decided not even to mention
that possibility in the face of Acorna's fierce pro-
tective instincts.
"If what?"
"If we can find out her name," Pal improvised,
"she might have parents who are looking for her."
Personally he doubted it; most children who ended
up in Kezdet's labor system did so precisely
because they had parents so desperately poor they
had no option but to sell their children. But he
found himself wanting to put the best possible face
on the child's situation for Acorna's sake.
Acorna's eyes narrowed to slits, then she took a
deep breath and deliberately widened them again.
"Yes," she said sadly, "all lost children like to
think that their parents are searching for them. If
this one has not traveled too far, perhaps her peo-
ple may be found."
Pal could have kicked himself for his clumsy
words. How could he have forgotten, even for an
instant, that Acorna too had been a foundling, and
one who did not know even where her race was to
be found, let alone her own parents? No wonder
she identified so instantly and protectively with
this little waif. He stammered, trying to find some
words of apology that would not deepen Acorna's
227
pain, and was saved by the abrupt awakening of
the waif.
"Mama!" she wailed, and pushed Acorna away
when she would have cradled her in her arms.
"Mama Jana. Chiura wants Mama Jana."
"There, you see," said Pal, deftly catching up
the flailing child and carrying her toward the bath-
room before Acorna could realize how thoroughly
she had been rejected, "she knows her own name
and that of her mother. We're making progress
already."
Most of the progress they made in the next
half-hour consisted of transferring large quantities
of warm water from the tub and onto the carpets,
draperies, and themselves. Finally Chiura calmed
down, exhausted by her hysterical sobbing, and
sat quietly patting the remaining few inches of
water in her tub and watching the soap bubbles
that formed and popped under her hands. Pal took
advantage of the peaceful moment to question
Chiura gently. Did she know how she came to the
city? In a skimmer? Who piloted the skimmer?
How did she come to be alone? Where was she
before she came to the city?
Chiura babbled and wandered from topic to
topic while Pal tried to make sense of her words
and kept her going with questions, always sheer-
ing away when Chiura's eyes crinkled up and she
started to look upset again. Acorna wrapped
Chiura in a towel, took her on her lap, and tried to
comb out the long ringlets that had been caked in
mud before the bath and the first three rinses.
Chiura babbled that "a bad man" had piloted the
228
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
skimmer and they had come from "the bad
place". . . and Acorna "was pulling her hair, and she
"wanted Mama Jana now!
"It's no use," Acorna said despairingly.
"Oh, I •wouldn't say that," Pal said. "You don't
know enough about Kezdet to -work out the clues,
but I'm getting a pretty fair idea where she -was
before she was brought to the city . . . and why she
was wandering the streets alone." It was as he had
suspected when Acorna cleaned her up and he
saw how lovely the child was.
"Kheti ,faQ," Chiura piped up. "Said when she
made Didi Badini busy, run, run away, hide.
There was a little fire." She thought it over.
"Maybe big fire. Didi Badini was mad, but Chiura
hid quiet-quiet under the stinky sacks." Her eyes
crinkled and a tear plopped down her cheek. "Didi
Badini hit Kheti, but Kheti didn't tell. Then Kheti
jumped on Didi Badini and they roll around and
get all muddy and Chiura ran, long way, got lost.
Chiura bad?"
"No, darling," Acorna said, hugging her and
kissing her tangled curls. "Whoever this Didi
Badini was, she does not sound like a nice person
at all and I am sure Kheti would not have wanted
you to go back to her."
"You see," said Pal, "we're getting somewhere.
It's not as hopeless as it seems. And I'd like to meet
this Kheti," he added. "Anybody who'd set a bonk-
shop on fire to give a kid a chance to get away ..."
"Hopeless? Oh—I meant her hair," Acorna
explained, ruefully lifting a rat's nest of tangles in
one hand. "It will all have to be cut."
'A.c.orna. 229
"Would have had to be anyway," Pal pointed
out, "to match the other side. Or did you want her
to go around looking lopsided?"
Acorna managed a smile at that. Chiura
bounced up and down on Acorna's knee and cried,
"Lop-side! Lop-side!" until both adults were
laughing helplessly. And Pal managed to put off
explaining what he had deduced of Chiura's fate
until after she had demolished a bowl of sweet
patts and beans and had fallen asleep again.
"The name of Didi Badini is a dead give-away,"
he explained then. "Didi" literally means "older
sister" in the original language, but in Kezdet chil-
dren's slang it means a woman who procures young
girls for . . . um ..." He blushed under the unblink-
ing gaze of Acorna's wide silver eyes. "For immoral
purposes," he finished in a rush.
"You mean, so that men can have sexual
intercourse with them?" Acorna translated
calmly. Then, at Pal's look of surprise, "Calum
and Rafik and Gill have an extensive library of
vid-cubes on the ship, and I have watched many
of them—and not only the interactive training
cubes on mining techniques! I do not think I was
supposed to know about the others, but some-
times it was very boring when they were all
working outside and there was not yet any
crushed ore for me to run through the refining
processes. Those vid-cubes that Calum kept
behind his bunk were boring, too," she added
reflectively. "I do not understand why anybody
would want to do such uncomfortable and
undignified things—and over and over, too!
230
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
231
Except that I gather from the EncycL) that it is nec-
essary to make babies. Still, some of the actors in
the vid-cubes seemed excessively enthusiastic
about their •work."
"The enthusiasm is something that . . . um . . .
develops as one matures," said Pal, making a men-
tal note to tell the miners that their charge had a
rather more extensive education than they real-
ized. Then he had to explain to Acorna that, yes,
some men were so enthusiastic they paid females
to partner them in this undignified activity—and
some •were so perverted that they preferred the use
of very young females.
"But Chiura is only a baby," Acorna protested.
"It would hurt her!"
"The men who buy the use of children," Pal
said grimly, "don't care if it hurts them. Mercy—
He stopped. Mercy had made him promise
never to tell Judit what had happened to her
after Judit won the scholarship to get off-planet.
Neither Pal nor Mercy wished to burden her
with unnecessary guilt about things she couldn't
have stopped anyway. "Well, this little one seems
to have been lucky. Apparently this Kheti went
to a lot of trouble to give her a chance to run
away. It probably wasn't as easy as Chiura makes
it sound, either."
"Lucky? To beg and starve on the street!"
"Better," Pal said. "Believe me . . . better."
"Then we have to find this other girl, this
Kheti, and get her free, too."
"And what," Pal inquired, "do you plan to do
about the hundreds of others in like situations?"
"Saving one is better than saving none," Acorna
said firmly.
Pal could hardly disagree -with this statement,
but neither could he believe that Acorna would
accomplish much by starting a crusade against the
Didis of East Celtalan and that mysterious power-
ful figure, the Piper, who was said to support the
brothel industry and to be supported in wealth by
its proceeds.
Delszaki Li had been trying for years to iden-
tify the Piper, and when Pal joined him he had
brought the Child Labor League's network of gos-
sip and spies to bear on the problem. But not one
of their covert sympathizers had turned up a whis-
per of the man's identity. Even Mercy, ideally situ-
ated as she was in a Guardians of the Peace office,
had been unable to give them a clue; even the
Guardians, it seemed, did not know who the Piper
really was. All they knew was that he was wealthy,
powerful, and absolutely ruthless in crushing any
opposition. There were rumors that he reserved
some of the children bought by the Didis for his
personal use, and that these children were the
ones found strangled and floating in the river from
time to time . . . unable to bear -witness against
him. Pal imagined Acorna's long silvery body
mangled and tossed into the polluted water, and
felt physically sick.
All things considered, it was almost a relief
when Chiura woke up crying for "Mama Jana"
again and Acorna was distracted into trying to
identify Chiura's mother. To take her mind off the
plight of the children in the brothels. Pal enthusi-
232
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
233
astically tackled the task of decoding the clues
they could extract from Chiura's baby recollec-
tions ... a little too enthusiastically, he realized, as
they neared success.
"This Jana can't be her real mother," he said
after another lengthy questioning session, inter-
spersed with games of stacking vid-cubes, rolling a
"wheel that had fallen off a household trolley, and
other improvised amusements. "Look at what she
played with the vid-cubes." Chiura had built a
completely enclosed space, then went around the
room putting all the small objects she could find
inside the space and naming each one. "Lata. Faiz.
Buddhe. Laxmi. Jana. Chiura. Khetala."
"She was telling us that all these people were
on the same level, all trapped."
Chiura had reacted vigorously when Acorna
tried to lift the little bronze box representing Jana
out of the enclosure.
"No, no, no!" she shrieked. "NO, run away!
Siri Teku beat!"
Then, in an abrupt change of mood, she had
swiped at the stacked vid-cubes, scattering the
"walls" she'd built all across the room, and moved
every one of the figures out onto the open floor.
"She was confined with a group of other chil-
dren, probably all bonded laborers," Pal inter-
preted. "Jana must have been one of the older
ones, like Khetala, who tried to take care other."
He tried to get some idea of where Chiura had
been kept, but she had only the vaguest notions of
place. There had been a big hill -with no trees, only
rocks. The sun went down behind the hill. Chiura
had not been sent to work with the other children
and had no idea what they did, only that they came
back dirty and tired. What had Chiura herself
done?
"Stupid Chiura," she said, her face puckering
up. "Laxmi hit Chiura."
That night Pal consulted Delszaki Li's exten-
sive atlas of Kezdet.
"I think it must be someplace relatively close to
Celtalan," he explained his reasoning to Acorna,
"because Chiura says they were not very long in
the skimmer—and anything over an hour's flight
would be 'long' to a child that young."
He drew a line out from the depiction of
Celtalan on the screen, representing the distance a
skimmer could fly in an hour, and requested
detailed overlays of the region. Then he narrowed
the search by looking for treeless mountains "with
factories situated on the eastern side of the moun-
tain. There was only one. "It has to be the
Tondubh Glassworks," he concluded, "Unless . . .
no. That's the only mountain that fits her descrip-
tion. "
"Then we will go there tomorrow?," Acorna
said, "and find Jana."
"I don't think that's such a great idea," Pal
demurred. "Mr. Li is working on his own plans for
freeing the bonded children. We could mess things
up for him by going out and making a fuss at the
glassworks."
Acorna gave him a disgusted look. "Naturally
we will tell Mr. Li. But he will not stop us. That
child has already lost her home, her parents, and
234 ——- ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
her trust in the rest of humanity. Now you want to
deprive her of the only person who cared for her
and completely destroy her? I know -what it feels
like to be separated from the people who take care
of you," she said, remembering the terror of the
barren, chemical-scented corridors of Amalgam-
ated space base and the mean lady who would not
take her back to Gill and Calum and Rafik. But
they had come for her. Who -would come for
Chiura? They haS to find this Jana.
After the beating Siri Teku gave her for trying to
hide Chiura, Jana lost her position as dragger on
Face Five. Her partner Khetala was gone, and
anyway she couldn't drag. That last kick Siri Teku
gave her had crunched something in her right
knee; she could no longer put any -weight on that
leg at all, and she certainly couldn't crawl up the
narrow shafts dragging a full corf of ore behind
her. Buddhe and Faiz took over the lucrative Face
Five work. By way of apology for taking her
place, Faiz appropriated a slat from the roof -which
he -whittled into the shape of a rough crutch, so
that at least Jana could drag herself outside to the
sorting slopes and the latrine trench. She sup-
posed it was kind of him, but she didn't much care
any longer. She hurt all the time since Siri Teku's
beating, and the weals were hot and swollen and
not healing properly. Kheti -would have fussed
about bad food and dirt, would have made her
-wash the -wounds and choke down nauseating
stews of the -weeds growing on Anyag's mountain-
'A.corna 235
ous slag heap to supplement the unvarying diet of
patts and bean paste. Without Khetala to nag her
into it, though, Jana just couldn't bring herself to
take the trouble. She was tired and achy and there
didn't seem to be much point in making herself
even more miserable with cold water and weed
stew.
Siri Teku had cursed when he saw that she was
temporarily crippled, but her unfeigned wince
•when he drew back his foot to kick her bad knee
again restored his good humor.
"Knew I'd break that cheeky spirit of hers
someday," he exulted, not even troubling to
address her directly. "She can take Chiura's place
sorting ore until she can walk again."
Laxmi grumbled that Jana -wasn't much more
use sorting ore than "that baby" had been, and it
was true. She -wasted long hours just sitting on the
ore heap, watching clouds drift across the sky,
watching the evening shadows lengthening in
front of the slag heap that blocked off half the sky,
desultorily turning over bits of broken rock in her
fingers from time to time. Laxmi made a point of
separating her work from Jana's so that Siri Teku
would be in no doubt about who had done what at
the end of the day.
"You can be lazy and starve if you -want to," she
warned Jana, "I'm not -working double for both of
us. Hafta move fast if you -want to earn your
dinner."
"Who cares?" said Jana.
Choking down the gritty patts was just another
pointless thing that seemed more trouble than it
236
Acorna
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
237
was -worth. She had to concentrate harder than
she liked to make the connection between missed
dinners and the constant, gnawing knot of pain in
her middle. It wasn't the worst pain anyway, noth-
ing near as bad as the throbbing of the infected
whip marks on her skin, or the sharp pain when-
ever she dragged her bad knee somewhere. She
knew, somewhere in the back of her fever-ridden
mind, that if she didn't eat she would get even
weaker and die soon, but that didn't seem to mat-
ter anymore, either. Without Kheti to bully them
all into taking care of themselves, the whole gang
wouldn't last long; already Faiz had a festering
sore on one hand, and Laxmi's cough was worse
than ever. Anyway, what was the point of working
so hard just to keep alive? Nobody cared whether
Jana lived or died, and since they took Chiura
away there was no little soft warm kitten-girl to
cuddle and love. If Jana had been given to putting
her thoughts into words, she might have told
Laxmi that without someone to love, there was no
reason to live. But talking was too much trouble.
She listlessly pitched another ore-bearing rock
into her sorting box, to shut Laxmi up, and went
back to her dreamy contemplation of the clouds.
Pal had half hoped that Delszaki Li would flatly
refuse Acorna's request to visit the Tondubh
Glassworks in search of Chiura's "Mama Jana," or
at least would insist that she go surrounded by a
small army of House Li servants and bodyguards.
Acorna had in mind to go unannounced and
unescorted, except by Pal, and pointed out that
bringing a large group would almost certainly
cause the supervisor of the glassworks to treat
their visit like an official inspection, hiding all the
children.
"I think he will do so anyway," Delszaki Li
said, his eyes twinkling at Acorna, "but if you
wish, shall go with only Pal and one other." He
tapped one of the buttons on the corn pad of his
hover-chair.
"One?" Pal began in outrage. "But that's totally
inadequate to protect—" He stopped and took a
deep breath at the sight of the woman who had
answered Li's button.
"I think you will find Nadhari adequate to any
emergency," Li said dryly.
Pal nodded, dumbstruck. Nadhari Kando was
an all but legendary figure in the Li household.
Rumors said that before coming to work for
House Li, she had been one of the infamous Red
Bracelets of Kilumbemba, or possibly a comman-
der of one of Nered's elite shock troops, or maybe
she had personally created and led the Army of
Liberation that freed Anrath from its despotic
rulers. Logic said a woman who looked no more
than thirty could not possibly have done all those
things, but when Pal looked at Nadhari, he could
never decide which stories to discount; she
appeared capable of having done all three before
breakfast. Whatever she had once been, though, it
had ended in an episode whose truth was
unknown to anybody in House Li. She had been
dismissed in disgrace for a savage combat action,
238 —— ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
or she had been sent to assassinate Delszaki Li
and instead had fallen under the spell of his
uniquely personal charm, or Li had saved her
from summary execution at the hands of the
Kezdet Guardians. Again, all three stories seemed
perfectly possible.
Five feet six inches tall in her bare feet, lean
and as tough as a length of braided leather,
Nadhari Kando was expert in three forms of knife
fighting and six forms of unarmed combat— none
of 'which she had many chances now to use in the
line of duty, since she went everywhere armed
with an arsenal of miniaturized state-of-the-art
weapons that could appear in seconds from her
tight black braids, her gleaming skin-tight red
boots, or ... Pal gulped and tried not to think
about the other places where she probably con-
cealed weapons. Rumor also said that Nadhari
could read minds and that was -why she always
appeared somewhere where her opponent was not
expecting her, just outside of his blows or behind
his laser fire. But of course, nobody could read
minds. That was just a superstitious story.
He hoped.
"I shall be honored to accept Nadhari Kando's
escort," Pal said through lips suddenly gone dry.
"If . . . that is ... if you are sure you can spare
her?" Nadhari's primary duty was to accompany
Delszaki Li on all public appearances.
Li waved his good hand. "Nadhari is bored. Do
not go out often enough or encounter enough
assassins to amuse her."
The silent, black-braided woman in the door-
way nodded once in confirmation of this state-
ment.
"Mission?" she queried tersely.
"Ah . . . the Tondubh Glassworks," Pal said.
"Acorna will tell you all about it as we are going
along."
Acorna's sunny mood gradually dimmed as they
moved into the gray, dry industrial district east of
Celtalan proper, and by the time they reached
Knobkerrie Mountain she was hardly talking at all.
The desolate landscape, spoiled by decades of
dumping industrial waste and punctuated by walled
compounds enclosing factories and housing, seemed
uglier and more barren to her than any airless aster-
oid.
"Does it have to be like this?" she -whispered as
the skimmer banked and hovered over the com-
pound bearing the Tondubh Glassworks logo.
"Kezdet," said Pal, "is ruled by the bottom line
and the quarterly balance sheet. In any given
quarter there is more profit in spoiling the land
than in preserving it, just as there is more profit in
buying new bond laborers than in keeping those
you already have happy and healthy. If you don't
care whether your workers live or die, and if they
are too ignorant and frightened to complain, then
why bother to give them decent lodgings or attrac-
tive surroundings?"
The skimmer settled gently into the space set
aside for official visitors to the Tondubh facility,
and Pal jumped out, ready with the story he had
prepared to cover their interest in the facility. He
spun the security guards a story about an off-
240
Acorna
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
2A\
planet vid-artist who wanted to feature Tondubh
as one of Kezdet's success stories, a concern that
had contributed to giving this resource-poor
planet one of the higher gross planetary products
in the sector.
"No vid equipment allowed in the plant," the
guard said.
Pal gave in on this point after minimal arguing,
since he had no idea what he would have done if
they hadn't insisted on this restriction; there
hadn't been time to procure the kind of recording
equipment an intergalactically known vid-artist
would expect to use. The guard reciprocated by
unbending slightly and allowing as how they could
arrange a brief guided tour for the lady, if she and
her companions would just wait an hour or so.
"No time," Pal said, "her time on Kezdet is
measured in hours. Of course, if it's not conve-
nient for us to see this facility, I'm sure the
Gheredi Glassworks would do just as well. If
you'd just give me a note of your name and num-
ber, so that I can explain to InterVid exactly why
Tondubh proved unsuitable . . ."
The mention of Tondubh's biggest competitor
on Kezdet, plus Pal's veiled threat that he would
see the guard took blame for letting this publicity
opportunity go to the competition, got them inside
the glassworks without more ado. As they passed
the second security wall, Pal caught sight of a pair
of slender, scarred bare legs winking out of sight
around the corner.
"Damn kids," the guard said genially, "they're
all over the place, bringing messages to the workers,
begging a bite of the hot meals Tondubh provides
to the hands, generally getting in the "way." The
roar of the furnaces within the main manufactur-
ing facility almost drowned out his words. They
picked their way over a floor covered with shards
of broken glass. The heat from the open furnaces
was like a blow? in the face; all the signs pointed to
a factory in full production, yet the immense room
was curiously empty. Only a handful of emaciated
adults squatted in front of the furnaces.
"Do you not employ children, then?" Acorna
asked.
The guard looked shocked. "'Deed, no. Why,
that would be in violation of the Federation Child
Welfare Statutes! Mind you, I'm not saying an
occasional one as is underage may not sneak onto
the payroll; these people breed like flies and don't
keep no records. But Tondubh has always done its
best to abide by Federation standards, madam.
Get out of the way, there," he roared at a boy who
trotted into view with an iron rod taller than him-
self, the end covered with a blob of molten glass.
"P-please, sir, I was just bringing the glass to
my gang leader," the boy stammered, the end of
his sentence all but drowned out by another out-
raged roar from the guard. "Don't you know you
kids aren't allowed to do anything but carry
water? Now put that glass down! You could get
hurt, messing with hot glass!"
The little boy dropped his rod with a clang.
Molten glass spattered into the air; Pal and
Acorna had to jump back to save themselves.
"Sorry about that, madam. You see why it
2-42
Acorna 245
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
-would be better for you to -wait and take a proper
tour," the guard said. "It's hard enough to enforce
proper safety regulations here at the best of times,
and with these brats infesting the place for what
they can pick up, well, it's no place for a lady like
yourself, and that's a fact. I'll just escort you back
to the skimmer now."
Nadhari glanced at Pal and raised one brow
inquiringly while she shifted her weight in a man-
ner he found ominous.
"No," Pal said under his breath. "We will go as
requested."
Looking disappointed, Nadhari relaxed
slightly.
The guard watched while Pal took off and
cleared the factory airspace.
"That," Pal said grimly, "is just one of the prob-
lems we have to solve. Not employ children,
indeed! That factory is ninety percent child-oper-
ated, and everybody knows it. But they have
guards and gates and delaying tactics, and the
children are trained to hide when any strangers
come. I had hoped that a party of three would not
be enough to alarm them. I was wrong."
"/ could have alarmed them," Nadhari said in
her gravelly voice, with a smile that sent a cold
breeze along the back of Pal's neck.
"I am sure you could take on the entire security
force ofTondubh Glassworks," said Pal tactfully.
"Piece of cake," Nadhari confirmed. "Soft
slugs. Poor defensive position."
"But I think Mr. Li might be annoyed if we
started a private war."
Nadhari nodded sadly.
"I do not understand why the children hide,"
Acorna said. "Don't they want to come out and
ask for help?"
"They do not have much experience with
strangers who make their lives better," Pal said.
"Usually its the other way."
"That poor little boy. The guard was lying
about his not working there. Did you see his feet?
They were covered with burns and scars. If he
hadn't run away, I could have healed them."
Acorna sighed. "I suppose, if they do not admit to
hiring children at all, it is useless to ask if they
have a bonded child laborer named Jana?"
Pal agreed. He could have predicted this out-
come to the trip, but it had appeared the only way
to convince Acorna of the enormity of the task
was to let her see for herself the kind of obstacles
they faced. Now, however, he felt her disappoint-
ment as keenly as if it were his own.
"There is one other place we might try," he
said. "I've been thinking . . . it's true that
Knobkerrie is the only treeless mountain this
near Celtalan that has a factory beside it. But to a
little girl like Chiura, who's to say what counts as
a mountain?"
"There isn't much else that couQ be considered
a mountain," Acorna said, looking down at the fea-
tureless landscape below the skimmer.
"Some of the pit mines have pretty high slag
heaps near the sorting bins," Pal said, banking the
skimmer slightly. "And one of the oldest mines—
with one of the biggest slag heaps—is not too far
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
244
245
from here. It wouldn't hurt to pay a visit to Anyag.
This time, though, -we're going to think up a better
story."
"We are?" Acorna had been tremendously
impressed by the speed and fluency with which
Pal had spun his tale at the Tondubh Glassworks.
"We'll have to," Pal said. "The children at
Tondubh had plenty of time to hide while I was
convincing the guard that they couldn't afford to
alienate a galactic vid-artist. This time we're going
to use a story that will make them want to keep
the children for us to inspect." He glanced at
Acorna. "Good thing you dressed up this morning.
But you need to be a little gaudier." He guided the
skimmer down toward a walled compound of
courtyards and gardens, brilliant in the surround-
ing near-desert as an emerald in the sand. "Wait in
the skimmer," he said over his shoulder as they
landed.
A slim, pretty girl with long black hair ran out
of the nearest arcaded passageway, calling excited
greetings to Pal. He met her too far from the skim-
mer for Acorna to hear what they said, but there
was no need; his exuberant kiss of greeting and
the way he picked the girl up and spun her around
in his arms told her all she needed to know about
their relationship. They disappeared together into
the maze of buildings and Acorna slumped in her
seat, feeling remarkably foolish. Of course Pal had
a girlfriend. She'd seen enough story-cubes to
understand that this was the normal arrangement
of human society. They spent twenty years or so
growing, and then they were ready to mate. Gill
was showing every sign of preparing to mate with
Judit, and that didn't bother her; why should she
feel so depressed at seeing that Pal was in the
same situation? Probably because there was
nobody for her to mate with. Not that she had the
least interest in the kind of sexual acrobatics dis-
played in Calum's secret vid-cube collection, but it
would have been nice to have somebody to share
secrets and jokes with, somebody who came run-
ning out with a joyful face when you came to their
house, somebody who would hug you and spin
you around like that.
Ridiculous to feel sorry for herself, just because
she was the only one of her kind, when so many
people had worse problems. Acorna glanced at
Nadhari, who was sitting upright and watchful in
the backseat. Nadhari was alone, too, and it didn't
seem to bother her. She didn't even need to talk to
people except about her work.
Acorna shivered. She didn't -want to be quite
that self-sufficient. How lucky she had been to be
found by Gill and Rafik and Calum, instead of by
somebody who would have sold her to a labor fac-
tory on Kezdet! Acorna sat up very straight and
concentrated on remembering how lucky she was
and what a good life she had. She managed to
such good effect that when Pal reappeared and
climbed into the skimmer, the first thing he said
was, "What's the matter?"
"Not a thing," Acorna said. "Not a thing. I
don't need to know what your plans are. I just do
what I'm told."
Pal tightened his lips to conceal a smile. So
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
247
Acorna could take a huff, just like any other young
girl, -when she felt left out and ignored! She might
look different, but she -was completely and glori-
ously female. And that thought pleased him inordi-
nately. He couldn't quite figure out why he should
be so pleased to see her displaying signs of jeal-
ousy, but . . . well, it was nice to know that at least
emotionally she was very human, indeed.
"Irodalmi Javak's family is very wealthy," he
said, "and her father would not approve if he knew
that she was a secret sympathizer with the Child
Labor League. He doesn't approve of me either,
but pretending to be a penniless and unacceptable
suitor for her gives us an excellent cover for an
occasional secret meeting—even if anybody found
out, they'd just think I was sneaking into the com-
pound to steal a few kisses."
"Oh." Acorna digested this. "Then it's just . . .
pretense? You two certainly looked happy enough
to meet!"
"I am very fond of Irodalmi," Pal said truth-
fully. "She is a good, brave girl and she risks a lot
for the movement. But she has no use for
boyfriends; she wants to get off-planet and study
to become a starship navigator."
"That must be very sad for you."
"Nothing to do with me," Pal said so cheerfully
that Acorna began to feel much happier. "She's got
her life planned out, and I am developing plans of
my own. Our 'courtship' is a convenient cover,
that's all. I didn't want her to see you because the
less she knows, the safer for all of us. But she lent
me enough of her jewelry to deck you out in the
necessary style." Both his hands were fully occu-
pied now with lifting the skimmer and piloting it
back toward Anyag. He nodded at the dark green
case he had brought out of Irodalmi's house.
"Open that, will you, and put the stuff on."
Acorna was dazzled by the sight that met her
eyes when she lifted the lid of the case. A profusion
of rings, bracelets, chains, and stick pins glittered
in the sunlight that filtered through the skimmer
windows. Most of the jewelry was in a heavy,
ornate style of gold work that would suit neither
the slender Irodalmi nor Acorna with her silvery
coloring, but there -was one ring of blue starstones
set in platinum, and a matching chain with a very
large starstone pendant. She put these on and
longed for a mirror in which to check the effect.
"How do I look?" she demanded of Pal.
He glanced sideways and grunted. "I said, put
it on. All of it."
"I do not know much of fashionable dress,"
Acorna said, "but I think that to wear all this gold
at once would constitute a vulgar display of
wealth, as well as being mwt unattractive."
"Yep," Pal agreed, "that's Javak Seniors style, all
right. Irodalmi doesn't care for the stuff herself. Says
that if she -wore her father's gifts, she'd look like the
senior Didi in a high-class bonkmg-shop. Which is
what made me think of her. That's precisely the effect
we're after. Now put the Jewelry on. Please."
Acorna did her best to follow his instructions,
but most of the rings designed for human fingers
would not fit on her less-supple digits, and she ran
out of room for bangles on her arms.
248
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
249
"The larger bangles are for your ankles," Pal
instructed without taking his eyes from the skim-
mer's instrument panel, "and can't you thread
some of the rings through that turban kind of
thing you wear on your head?"
"Try not to crash this thing in a lake," Acorna
said after following his instructions. "I'd sink like a
stone. I'm not even sure I'll be able to walk with
this much jewelry hanging off my body."
"Excellent," Pal said. "We want you to look
extremely rich and extremely vulgar. Too bad you
don't wear scent. A heavy dose of musk and jas-
mine essence -would finish off the picture nicely."
" What picture?" Acorna demanded.
"Just came to me," Pal said, "in a sudden flash
of inspiration. We geniuses often work that way. If
Did! Badini is welcome at Anyag to inspect the
children, why not Didi Acorna? Explains
Nadhari, too," he added. "Any Didi as rich as
you're pretending to be would naturally travel
with a bodyguard."
"You want me to pretend to be a Didi!" Acorna
exclaimed. "That's a truly revolting idea."
"It's a truly brilliant one," Pal said. "Just leave
the talking to me, and nothing can go wrong this
time."
Acorna regarded him with some suspicion.
"Sometimes," she said, "you remind me very
much of Ratik."
"Act arrogant," Pal warned her just before they
reached Anyag, "and leave the talking to me."
Acorna had no trouble following either of these
instructions. Shock at the sheer unrelieved ugliness
of Anyag, the gigantic slag heap and the piles of
separated ore and the endless roar of crushers,
kept her silent. The stench of the latrine trench
behind the sleeping sheds kept her nose up in the
air, and the unaccustomed weight of jewelry on her
body forced her to move slowly. The effect was all
Pal could have wished: she appeared to be an
incredibly -wealthy young -woman -with vulgar taste,
slow dignified movements, and too much pride to
speak a civil -word to the mine superintendent. It
was easy for him to believe that she -was a new and
unprecedentedly successful Didi looking for fresh
young stock to build up her expanding network of
houses. He all but fell over himself apologizing for
the poor condition of most of the children in the
mine and issued no orders at all to hide them.
Pal demanded curtly to be shown to where
Siri Teku's gang slept, and the superintendent
showed some relief. He had heard that Siri Teku
had scored a coup from a labor contractor just
last month, picking up a curly-headed, fair-
skinned girl child -who looked like just the sort of
fresh young thing a Didi -would buy off him at
twice or three times what he'd paid for her. He
started to apologize that Siri Teku's crew was on
day shift and would be unavailable right now,
then stumbled to a halt as he decided that Siri
Teku wouldn't have been fool enough to send a
pretty piece like that baby girl Below. He'd have
her working Above on some easy task like sorting
ore or sweeping tailings to not spoil her looks. . . .
250
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
Pal interrupted him. "Just point out the sleep
shed. We won't need your company."
The superintendent was disappointed; he'd
expected a cut of the profits from any sale made
on his shift. A discreet transfer of credits salved
his disappointment and bought Pal and Acorna
privacy while they picked their way through the
debris of the mine to the area where Siri Teku's
gang sorted the ore they had dragged to the sur-
face.
There were only two children on the sorting
bench. One of them was working so fast her fin-
gers seemed to fly as she picked through the bro-
ken rocks and assessed them with an expert eye.
The other stared through them with blank, empty
eyes that made Acorna's own eyes narrow in
anguished sympathy.
"Jana?" she asked, expecting the active child
to answer.
"I'm Laxmi," said the girl who was working so
hard. "She's Jana." She jerked her chin toward the
other child. "She don't talk much, not since ..." A
rattling cough interrupted her •words.
"Get her some -water. Pal!" Acorna said.
" 'S okay. 'S nothing," Laxmi croaked, wiping
her chin. "Don't tell 'm . . . I'm not sick!" There
was desperation in her cry. "Not!"
"Of course you are not sick," Acorna agreed
soothingly. "You are a fine, strong worker."
Laxmi edged suspiciously away from her as
Acorna came closer, until she was on the far side
of the bench with a pile of broken rocks between
her and the visitors. Acorna sat down beside Jana
251
and put an arm around her. Jana winced away
•with a gasp of pain.
"Best not touch 'er," Laxmi warned from a safe
distance. "She ain't healed from that beatin' Sin
Teku give 'er."
Jana's ragged gray kameez was stuck to her
back and sides in several places. When Pal came
back with a bucket of scummy water, Acorna
looked at it in despair, then deftly stripped off the
scarves that swathed her head. Laxmi gasped and
fell into another coughing fit at sight of the small
white horn in the middle of Acorna's forehead.
Acorna dipped her horn into the water for a
moment, then used her silk scarf to dab the now-
clean water onto the worst of Jana's marks. When
she was finally able to lift the kameez without
pulling at the broken skin underneath, she laid her
forehead against each swollen, infected -weal.
Laxmi edged closer and closer, eyes round as she
saw clean new skin replacing the raw stripes on
Jana's back and sides.
"Please, lady," she whispered, "I dunno what
you're doing . . . but could you do her knee, too?
That's what hurts her the worst. Can't walk •with-
out a stick. ..."
Acorna bent her head to the swollen knee for a
long moment. Jana sat unmoving and unrespon-
sive, but the swelling visibly -went down.
"Come to me," she said, and Laxmi, a look of
surprise on her face, slowly moved toward
Acorna.
"If you c'n fix me, too," she said hoarsely,
"reckon I'll go with you. Kheti allus said gom'
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
252
•with a Did! was worst thing as could happen to a
girl . . . but Kheti dint see you.."
Acorna laid her face against Laxmi's throat and
slowly moved the horn down along her chest.
Laxmi drew in a deep breath and hardly coughed
at all; she took another breath and another, and
color crept into her face.
"What you think you're doing, bint?"
The angry roar came from the mouth of the
shaft behind them. A moment later a tall, lean man
in brown robe and turban leapt out of the cage-lift,
brandishing a long, flexible rod in one hand.
Quickly swathing her horn, Acorna lifted her
head.
"I have a use for these children," she said. "You