will be compensated for them."
Siri Teku's eyes narrowed in crafty speculation.
It must be Laxmi the Didi wanted; Jana wasn't
much use to anybody now. She was trying to con-
fuse him by pretending an interest in both children.
"I might consider letting you have that one," he
said, nodding at Jana. "'T'other's too valuable to
me. Last trained sorter I got, see."
"I need them both," Acorna replied firmly.
Siri Teku mentally evaluated the worth of this
new Didi's gold jewelry and decided to take a
gamble. It was true that he needed Laxmi's ser-
vices. He wouldn't have pretended not to notice
her cough for so long if he'd had anybody else half
so good at sorting ore. But a month would give
him time to buy some new children and have
Laxmi train them. And if this Didi was really so
interested in Laxmi, Old Black knew why, she'd
253
come back at the end of that month . . . by which
time he should be able to trade, steal, and buy
enough really handsome children to make her a
constant customer of his.
Besides, he thought he recognized the silent
bodyguard who stood behind the Didi. Was
House Li getting into the bonk-shop business?
And if so, did old Li himself know, or was the old
man so senile that his employees were able to take
off on their own? He needed time to check the
rumors so that he could figure out how to turn the
maximum profit from this situation.
"This un's not for sale yet," he repeated, grab-
bing Laxmi's arm and jerking her away from
Acorna and Pal. "Come back next month, after
I've had time to train some new sorters. And for
the other, it'll be fifty credits."
"Who're you kidding?" Pal demanded, using a
rough accent Acorna had not heard from him
before. "We'd be doing you a favor to take her off
your hands. Ten credits, no more."
"You wish to rob an honest working man of his
livelihood? Besides, I will have to give a percent-
age to the mine superintendent. Thirty-five."
"Fifteen," Acorna said.
Siri Teku hesitated, and Acorna turned on her
heel.
"Come," she snapped to Pal. "My time is too
valuable to spend haggling over one child."
"Seventeen and a half!" Siri Teku cried.
"Very well," Acorna said, "seventeen it is." She
dropped a bundle of credits in the dirt and turned
toward the skimmer.
ISA
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
255
"And a half?"
Acorna laughed and kept walking.
"Remember," Siri Teku called after them as Pal
carried Jana toward the skimmer, "come back
next month! I'll make it worth your while!"
Laxmi's eyes followed the skimmer as it rose
over the mountainous slag heap of Anyag and
banked west, into the afternoon sun, toward
Celtalan.
Pal tarried long enough at Irodalmi's house to
return the jewelry, which Acorna was only too
happy to remove, despite the surprise that it
caused Jana.
"I am no Didi, little one," Acorna told Jana,
stroking her no longer sore back. "I am taking you
to Chiura, who has been crying for her Mama
Jana."
"Chiura?" Jana exclaimed. Miracle upon mira-
cle this day had for her. Not only had her pains
been soothed and she had been taken from
bondage with Siri Teku, but Chiura was at her
destination. Furthermore, her well-honed instincts
told her that this marvelous lady with the funny
horn in the middle of her forehead was good, and
Jana had had so little of "good" in her life, she
wondered that she could believe in any. Yet why
heal her when she wasn't pretty like Chiura or
useful like Khetala? That name sprang from her
lips. "Khetala? You will find and free her from
Didi Badini?"
The man who drove the skimmer groaned.
"One rescue a day is all I can cope with right now,
and there'll be a lot of explaining to be done for
this day's work—that I can assure you."
"But surely. Pal, we must save these children.
The other one who coughed ..."
"Laxmi?" Jana asked hopefully.
"Mr. Li has a large house, but there are limits
to what hospitality he can extend. That is why we
must make the moon colony. Then -we will have a
safe place for all the abused and misused children
in those mines. First things must come first,
Acorna." He spoke as severely as he could, and yet
the melting look in Acorna's eyes over Jana's head
was almost more than he could bear. What amaz-
ing powers this most unusual female had!
In December 1936, the English king, Edward
VIII, abdicated his throne to marry an American
divorcee, Wallis Simpson. Before Christmas of
that year, schoolchildren from Land's End to John
o'Groats were chanting, "Hark, the herald angels
sing, Mrs. Simpson's pinched our king." No one
ever figured out how the song spread so quickly; it
certainly hadn't been part of a BBC broadcast.
The tale of a silver goddess with a horn in the
middle of her forehead, come to Kezdet especially
to heal and help children, spread with similar
rapidity. As with the song about Mrs. Simpson,
the only certainty is that it wasn't disseminated by
anyone in authority.
When the rest of Siri Teku's gang came up from
their twelve-hour shift Below, Laxmi told them
256
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
that Sita Ram, Lady of the Sky and Above, had
visited Anyag disguised as a Didi, had healed her,
and had taken Jana to live with her in the sky. The
other children might have scoffed, but it was a fact
that Laxmi's racking cough was gone; she breathed
as easily and deeply as any of the newest arrivals.
A child sold from the mines to Czerebogar took the
story and the hope of that healing with him.
In the carpet works at Czerebogar, where the
children squatted on hanging benches and tied
knots in the famous Kezdet carpets until their fin-
gers bled, Laxmi's Sita Ram was transmuted into
Lukia of the Lights, and they whispered that the
unicorn's white horn shed a magical healing light
that restored the sight of squinting, half-blind car-
pet weavers. An itinerant teacher from the Child
Labor League, entering Czerebogar in disguise,
found her way made easier by this legend and sug-
gested to her colleagues that they spread it as a
way of overcoming the children's ingrained fear
and distrust of all strangers.
"Should -we try to overcome it?" one of the
other part-time teachers asked. "Most of the time
they're right to fear strangers."
"Not us," said the young woman who'd slipped
in and out of Czerebogar, bringing counting games
and stories and taking away the legend of Lukia.
"If they fear us, we can't help them."
In the Tondubh Glassworks, the story became
part of the legend of Epona, the horse-goddess
who bore tired glass-runners on her back and gal-
loped from furnace to blower with the molten
glass to spare the children's weary legs.
257
Everywhere on Kezdet, where there was a
mine or factory keeping children at work in
cramped, poisoned, miserable conditions, there
was also some legend of a rescuing goddess, spun
out of the older children's hazy memories of a
mother's arms and given strength by the younger
children's need for hope. But never before had one
of the legendary goddesses taken mortal form and
given solid, practical healing to a sick child. All the
legends suddenly took on new life; hope flourished
like an underground stream of pure water running
through all the dark factories; overseers -wondered
why the children had begun to sing and laugh, and
worried about the change.
The repercussions from Acorna's adventure were
less than Pal had feared. Judit was frankly
relieved to have Jana take over the care of Chiura,
who had never ceased wailing for the older child
whom she evidently regarded as a mother.
Delszaki Li and the miners were somewhat
more vocal. "You did what?" Rafik bellowed when
Acorna proudly reported the results of her trip to
him.
"I told you that I was going to look for Chiura's
'Mama Jana,'" Acorna said.
"Yes," said Calum unguardedly, "but we didn't
think you'd succeed, or we wouldn't have let you
go off with just Pal and one bodyguard."
Nadhari Kando shifted her weight slightly, from
one foot to a balanced pose on the balls of both feet.
The slight movement should have gone unnoticed,
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
258
but instead it drew everyone's attention. She looked
straight at Calum until his eyes dropped.
"That is ..." he mumbled, "of course you were
perfectly safe with Nadhari. After all, if Mr. Li
entrusts his own life to her. ..."
"Quite correct," Nadhari said. Her low, grating
voice was almost without expression.
"Don't you want Jana?" Acorna put her arm
around the bewildered child.
"Sure we do," Gill said heartily. He dropped to
one knee before Jana, who shrank back involun-
tarily at the approach of this red-bearded giant.
"We need you here, Jana. Chiura needs you. We
all do. Plenty of room in this house for another lit-
tle girl." He glanced at Delszaki Li and received
an approving nod. "We were just . . . surprised
that Acorna found you so quickly."
"We underestimated her," Rafik said gloomily.
"Probably not for last time," Delszaki Li
chirped. His dark eyes were bright with amuse-
ment.
Pal's private nightmare, that the Guardians of
the Peace would somehow trace him and "Didi
Acorna" back from Anyag to the Li mansion and
accuse him of procuring children for immoral pur-
poses, never came true. He was not sure whether
that was because they had not been traced, or
because the Guardians were too bright to try to
shake down so powerful a figure as Delszaki Li, or
because they simply accepted as a matter of course
that any man who was so inclined might buy him-
self a few girl children for private use whenever he
felt the urge. He suspected the last.
259
Even Acorna, after a few -wistful comments
about the amount of room there was in those
upper stories and how many beds they could fit
into the long parlor, seemed to accept Pals strict
injunction against collecting any more children
before Delszaki Li had started the safe haven of
the lunar colony. She didn't even promise Jana to
go out and look for Khetala— thank goodness! Pal
sweated when he remembered the risks he had
already allowed Acorna to run in their mad
escapade. The last thing he needed was to have
her opening those wide silvery eyes at him and
politely requesting a tour of the East Celtalan
brothels. Especially since he had a terrible suspi-
cion he would give in. The urge to give Acorna
everything she wanted was only growing stronger
the more time he spent in her company.
All things considered, he should have felt
relieved when, after a few? days spent quietly with
Chiura and Jana, her only request was to go shop-
ping with Judit.
"I am sure you must have many more impor-
tant things to do," she apologized to Judit, "but
you see, I have promised Mr. Li not to go out
alone again. There are a few things I need from
the stores, and somehow I do not think that
Nadhari..."
"Of course," Judit said. "You're quite right.
I'm pretty sure Nadhari doesn't have a black belt
in shopping. And I have been quietly going mad
with inactivity while I wait for Delszaki and your
friends to come up with something for me to do.
Really, if he's going to spend all his time locked in
260
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
Dr. Zip's lab or cruising the Lattice on his corn
unit, Delszaki hardly needs one personal assistant,
let alone two!"
"I'll go with you," Pal volunteered, and felt
unreasonably annoyed when Acorna stammeringly
refused his help.
"Don't be silly. Pal," Judit said in her best
bossy elder-sister tones. "One of us must stay here
in case Delszaki comes out of his brown study and
-wants something." Adding, after she sent Acorna
off to get a heavier wrap on the pretext that there
were cold winds coming in from the north, "I
expect the child wants to buy feminine fripperies,
Pal. She'd only be embarrassed to have you tag-
ging along. Nadhari will come, and she'll be quite
protection enough."
Nadhari cleared her throat, and Pal hastily
agreed that no one could want more protection
than she could supply.
Relief though it must be to have Acorna safely-
occupied, Judit could not repress a slight scorn
when she saw the girl counting the credits in her
purse before they set out. Was all the -work of the
Child Labor League to be set aside for Acorna's
convenience? Here was Delszaki Li off on a wild-
goose chase to find Acorna's home planet, instead
of completing the plans for his lunar colony;
Acorna herself, it seemed, was perfectly happy to
go shopping for the latest fashions. It was true that
Delszaki had advanced the credits to her himself,
saying that he wished his "ward" to be dressed as
befitted the House of Li, rather than continually
washing and -wearing the same three outfits the
261
miners had casually picked out for her. And it was
true that the plans of the Child Labor League
were in much more danger from hasty enterprises
such as Acorna's rescue of Jana than from a few
days of neglect. Still, Judit could not keep from
fretting over all the problems remaining: the lunar
colony yet to be designed, let alone set up; how the
children -were to be gathered together -when every
factory owner had trained them to hide whenever
strangers approached; "worst of all, how to neutral-
ize the shadowy, malevolent figure known only as
the Piper, whose fortune derived entirely from the
worst forms of child labor and who was supposed
to be behind most of the official and unofficial
bedevilment the league members had suffered.
The Piper would surely find some -way to stop Li's
latest and boldest plan if he got word of it, as he
•was sure to do sooner or later in Kezdet's spy-
riddled society.
She was further surprised when Acorna first
proposed that they should walk, then stopped not
five minutes from the house and hired a skimmer,
directing the pilot to take them to the Gorazde
Bazaar.
"Acorna, are you sure that is where you wish to
go?" Judit remonstrated as the skimmer rose and
hovered over the heart of Celtalans wealthiest dis-
trict. "The Gorazde is not at all fashionable.
Respectable, yes, but it is the sort of place where
Delszaki's servants buy their daywear. It is not
equipped to cater to a young lady of fashion."
"I am not a young lady of fashion," Acorna said
calmly, "and I inquired of the house staff before
262
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
263
making my decision. I am confident that I shall
find exactly -what I need at the Gorazde."
"And -why rent a skimmer?" Judit -went on.
"We could have used one of the House Li skim-
mers."
Acorna hung her head. "I -wanted to do this
myself," she said, "with my own credits from the
work I have done for Calum and Rafik and Gill."
"Do "what, for heavens sake?"
"That little boy at Tondubh," Acorna said, "his
feet were all burned and cut from running over
hot and broken glass. I thought ... he could use a
pair of sandals."
"What a nice thought!" Judit approved.
"And all the other children there," Acorna said.
"That is why I thought of the Gorazde, you see.
They say it is a good place to find cheap but
durable clothes."
She proceeded to occupy the few minutes
required for the skimmer to cross the city by ask-
ing Judit about her brother. Judit played down
the misery of the first years on Kezdet, when she
and Pal and Mercy had been bond-laborers with
no hope of freedom, by saying truthfully that they
had all three been sent to different places and she
really knew very little of Pal's life during those
years. Instead she concentrated on tales of Pal's
progress through technical school and the stories
he had told her about his work with Delszaki Li.
It -was a pleasure to talk at length about her
beloved little brother to such an attentive audi-
ence, and Judit was almost sorry when they
reached the Gorazde. She had been meaning to
ask Acorna a few things about Gill . . . subtly, of
course, so as not to betray how much more inter-
ested she was in him than in the other two miners
who composed Acorna's foster family.
Once the skimmer pilot had set them down and
had been requested to wait, Acorna changed from
passive audience to taking charge of the expedi-
tion once again.
"I think thLf is exactly the place I have been
looking for," she said, walking past a handful of
clothing stalls to enter Sopels Sandalarium -with
its flashing lighted sign proclaiming, WHOLESALE,
DISCOUNT SALE, AND GOING-OUT-OF-BUSINESS
SALE EVERY DAY.
A clerk hurried forward to serve them, every
line of his demeanor announcing that he had never
hoped to see two well-dressed young ladies from
West Celtalan in Sopel's Sandalarium. When he
offered to measure their feet, Acorna informed
him that this would not be necessary, as she knew
what sizes she wanted. Judit gave a small internal
sigh of relief; they really did not need the kind of
attention that a close inspection of Acorna's
unusually shaped feet would draw. Acorna speci-
fied a range of sandal sizes that would fit anything
from a toddler to a child of ten and selected a
cheap and long-wearing style in recycled syntho-
foam. When the clerk mentioned a price that Judit
thought far too high, Acorna glanced at her and
immediately counter-offered for little more than the
wholesale cost of the sandals. She pointed out the
advantages of good relations with someone who
was prepared to buy in bulk, gave the impression
264
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
265
that she might be a buyer for some large consor-
tium -who could be enticed back by a very low
price on this first order, and eventually acquired
the Sandalarium's entire stock in the requested
sizes at less than half the price originally men-
tioned.
"You see," Acorna said -when a slightly dazed
clerk left to order porters to carry their purchases
to the waiting skimmer, "I told you I would
require some help with my parcels."
Almost as dazed as the clerk, Judit said the
first thing that came into her head. "Where did
you learn to bargain like that? "
Acorna gave her an impish smile. "I have
spent two years listening to Calum selling pay-
loads of ore and drone buckets of iron all over
this quadrant. The basic principles are not dis-
similar—and I have always liked working with
numbers."
"Working with numbers is hardly an adequate
description," Judit said with feeling. "Anybody
who can juggle all those prices and quantities in
her head ought to be looking at a career in gam-
bling."
"Seven to four," Acorna murmured, smiling at a
private memory, "'Nobble' the favorite ... I think
we had better watch the sandals being loaded, don't
you? Mr. Sopel is not making as much of a profit as
usual on this transaction; he may try to redress the
balance by making a few slight mistakes during
loading."
In fact, Acorna discovered no fewer than three
"minor discrepancies" between her receipt and the
goods being loaded on the skimmer in the first few
minutes. With the discovery of the third shortage,
she instructed the porter to inform Mr. Sopel that
any more discrepancies would cause her to lose
faith in his ability to conduct a business and would
force her to take her credits elsewhere. Thereafter
all proceeded smoothly.
When the skimmer was fully loaded, Acorna
directed the pilot to take them to the Tondubh
Glassworks, with a sidelong glance to see if Judit
would countermand her orders.
"You promised Delszaki not to collect any
more children," Judit murmured with a warning
shake of her head.
Acorna lifted her long chin slightly. "I did not
promise not to help them. Surely no one can object
if I give a few things to make their lives easier?"
And in fact, when Acorna swept into the
Tondubh compound with the imperious air she
had been practicing, she met with almost no oppo-
sition from the startled overseers. Judit was rather
surprised to find that the Tondubh staff suffered
from the illusion that Acorna was a galactically
famous vid-star come to film a complimentary doc-
umentary on Kezdet's "economic miracle," but she
said nothing to dispel the idea.
"We do not film today," Acorna said loftily, "so
I amuse myself by bringing a few gifts for the chil-
dren I saw here the other day."
The manager started his practiced spiel claim-
ing that no children worked in the glass factory,
but Acorna cut him off.
"Of course, I understand perfectly, they do not
266 •--—' ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
work here," she agreed -with a complicitous smile
and wink at the manager.
"Exactly," said the manager, returning the
wink. "They are only hanging about here to run
errands and beg meals from the generosity of the
management. As long as that is understood, there
can be no objection to the lady's kind gifts."
"They will perhaps 'run errands' more swiftly if
their feet are protected from the hot glass and bro-
ken shards in the factory," Acorna said. "Let them
come to me here and select sandals to fit each
one."
The manager frowned. "I think they will not
come. They are shy of strangers, gracious lady. It
would be best if you left the sandals here for me to
distribute."
Already he was calculating how much he could
get from Sopal's Sandalarium if he returned the
merchandise still in its original wrapping — not full
price, of course, but even a percentage of the dis-
counted cost would make a nice little addition to
his salary.
But, although the child workers in the factory
had scattered as usual when Acorna's skimmer
arrived, they were not that far away. A few of the
braver and more curious ones had lingered to
learn what they could of the new arrival, and they
spread the word to the others that the whispered
rumors were true: the Lady Epona had come to
Tondubh! Who else would care to bring sandals to
protect their burned and blistered feet?
At first slowly, by ones and twos, the children
crept out of concealment to receive their gifts from
267
the Lady Epona. At the sight of the first boys'
burned feet, Acorna's eyes narrowed to silver slits.
"Distract that man," she murmured at Judit,
nodding at the greedy manager.
Judit smiled sweetly at the manager, flirted
shamelessly, and persuaded him to take her inside
for a restorative cup of kava. The other overseers,
not to be left out, crowded after her, and Acorna
was left alone with the children for a few precious
moments.
As soon as the adults were gone, Acorna pulled
off the scarf wound about her head. At the sight of
the white horn rising from the tumble of silvery
curls on her forehead, the children murmured in
awe. A few of them dropped to their knees, all
doubt removed; the younger ones clung to her
skirts and begged her to take them away.
"I cannot take you now," Acorna said, her eye-
slits narrowing until they were almost invisible. "I
have promised . . . and I have no place for you yet.
But I will come back. And when I come, you will
not hide? You will come to me?"
The children were awed into silence as Acorna
knelt before the first boy to claim his sandals and
touched her horn to his scarred feet. When they
saw the blisters and infected cuts disappearing
under the touch of the horn, they were momentar-
ily frightened. But little Donkin jumped and
shouted in happiness.
"They doesn't hurt! They doesn't hurt any-
more ! Come on, noodle-tops, get yours!"
"Shh, shh," Acorna cautioned Donkin, and the
children quieted immediately.
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
268 -
They were so pale, so quiet, so obedient! There
was hardly any pushing and shoving as they lined
up to receive their sandals and, an even greater
gift, the healing touch of the Lady Epona's white
horn.
By the time the last child had been cared for,
Acorna was exhausted and shaking. She was
relieved by Judit's prompt reappearance from the
manager's quarters and hardly noticed Judit's
disheveled, flushed look.
"Take me home," Acorna whispered to Judit,
"I am so tired."
"With the greatest of pleasure," Judit said
between her teeth. She gave Acorna a hand into
the skimmer and leapt in after her, accidentally
stepping on the manager's hand as he reached in
to wish them farewell. "West Celtalan Riverwalk,"
she told the skimmer pilot. That would put. them
within an easy walk of the Li mansion—or a hun-
dred other wealthy homes, so anybody question-
ing the skimmer pilot later would not be sure just
where they had gone.
But Acorna fell into an exhausted slumber on
the flight back, and with resignation Judit altered
her orders and told the pilot to take them to
Delszaki Li's private landing pad.
"With pleasure," said the pilot, "and -won't
nobody find out from me where you went, nei-
ther! I thought as it must be somebody from the
CLL."
"Delszaki Li has no connection with the Child
Labor League," Judit said.
"Righty-ho," the pilot said with a cheerful
269
wink, "and I'm the president of Kezdet. Don't you
worry none, little lady. Truth to tell, I was just
fixin' to go in and get you, claiming some kinda
emergency, when you come on out of the offices.
Nice girl like you hadn't ought to be alone with
the kind of scum they use to run those factories."
"You're telling ine," Judit said with feeling. She
straightened her tunic and twisted her hair back
into its usual severe knot.
"Pulled you about some, didn't they? Like me
to go back and beat 'em up?"
Judit chuckled. "If you want to be helpful, my
friend," she said, "let's not start by getting you
thrown into a Peacetower. An anonymous skim-
mer could be useful from time to time."
"Here's my call sign," the pilot said. "Any time
you want me, just take the nearest public corn
unit and put out this sign. Double the last two
digits and I'll know it's you, see; then I'll be there
soon's I can. If it's an emergency, triple the last
two digits and I'll ditch my passengers and be
there sooner."
The children were not the only ones to hear about
Sita Ram, Lukia of the Light, and Epona: Didi
Badini did, too, and she was livid. She asked a few
questions of various informed sources and learned,
to her astonishment, that no, there was no new
bonk-shop opened with a Didi named Acorna. She
was even more annoyed to learn that' In fact, she
became obsessed with this Didi Acorna personage
and traveled all the way to Anyag to question Siri
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
270
271
Teku at length. He knew only that she had come
in a rented skimmer —
"To keep us from knowing her location, no
doubt!" Didi Badini said, tapping her elegant foot
and forgetting that the mud -would get between
her painted toes, done only that morning in silver:
a color she intended to take off the moment she
got back. Silver was definitely "out."
"Quite possibly, Didi Badini," Siri Teku said,
bobbing continuously in his desire not to alienate
one of his better customers—although in the back
of his mind -was the thought that if the mysterious
new young Didi could, indeed, heal his sickly chil-
dren, it would be worth more to cultivate her
patronage than placate this old fiend.
More aggravated than ever, Didi Badini paced her
apartment, ignoring the cool drinks and tasty tid-
bits offered to her. Only the news that a new
patron awaited her inspection diverted her from
her annoyance.
The customer introduced himself as Farkas
Hamisen, an off-planet merchant who had, he
said, been told that Didi Badini's house would
show? him the best Kezdet had to offer.
He was a handsome young man, if one over-
looked the ears that sat rather oddly on his head
and did not seem to quite match the cafe-au-lait
tone of his face. Didi Badini was far more inter-
ested in Hamisen's expensive clothes and the jew-
eled ring that twinkled on his hand; she had no
problem at all ignoring the ears, especially when
he initiated the conversation by flattering her
shamelessly. He could well believe that an estab-
lishment with such a lovely proprietor was the
finest on Kezdet, he said, but it was hard to
believe the owner did not outshine her merchan-
dise. Perhaps she would do him the honor of an
evening's conversation, just to get acquainted,
before they discussed business?
Didi Badini smilingly agreed. Surely she could
serve him better, she agreed, if she knew his tastes
and personality.
A few more fulsome compliments gained him
entree into her private rooms, where poufs of silk-
covered cushions invited visitors to relax at their
ease. Hamisen praised the room as well and said
that surely no establishment on Kezdet could
boast such a lovely lady and such luxurious set-
tings. He almost dared to confess the secret fan-
tasy that had never yet been satisfied.
"On Kezdet," Didi Badini said, smiling, "any-
thing is possible . . . for a price."
Hesitantly, almost shamefacedly, she thought,
Farkas Hamisen confessed to a fascination with
unusual girls. After some beating about the bush
Didi Badini established that "unusual" meant
deformed rather than very young.
"You have come to the right planet, my friend,"
she said, searching her memory for the children
she'd recently rejected as too odd to appeal to her
customers. There was that one-eyed child at
Anyag...
Still acting shy, Hamisen said that there was a
particular deformity that had always excited him
272
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
beyond measure, although he had only seen it in a
dream. A Didi in the next street had attempted to
satisfy him by offering a girl with an obviously
false horn pasted onto her forehead, but of course
he had been revolted by the trickery.
"You -want her7" Didi Badini gasped unguard-
edly. "I don't believe it!"
"You know of such a girl?" Farkas murmured.
"Truly I was well guided by those who recom-
mended your establishment." In fact he had been
touring the bonk-shops of Kezdet in no particular
order, amusing himself with a girl at each one -while
at the same time he pursued this inquiry for
Acorna, who -would lead him to Rafik. "Do tell me
about her."
"There are rumors of such a one," Didi Badini
said, thinking quickly. If she told Hamisen that the
horned freak was setting up as a Didi on her own
account, he would go straight to Didi Acorna and
she herself -would lose the lovely profits promised by
his clothes and ring ... as well as the pleasurable
caresses -with -which he -was entertaining her -while
they talked. She never "went" with clients anymore,
but that didn't mean she -was averse to affectionate
fondling of the kind that knowledgeable men and
women exchanged. Just now he was stroking her
hair, which she felt was her best feature: soft, silky,
curly, and without a single -white hair. He knew just
how to do it, too, -without catching his fingers or his
nails, -which she had noticed he kept properly mani-
cured.
"Only rumors?" he repeated, withdrawing the
caressing hand.
273
Then again, Didi Badini thought, if she pro-
fessed too much ignorance he might leave and
pursue his interests elsewhere. That must not be
allowed to happen! Not only would she lose the
money and the pleasure he promised, but the half-
formed plan which was floating in her mind would
never come to fruition.
"Only rumors to most people," she said, "but /
have seen her, and I ... might be able to find her
again." The thought ,of delivering her impudent
new rival to Farkas Hamisen, drugged into a state
of compliance, gave her far more pleasure than
anything Farkas Hamisen could do with those ele-
gant, long, brown hands.
"Really? You must let me know if you learn
anything else," Hamisen said in a bored tone. The
underlying message -was clear: she would have to
do better if she -wanted to retain his interest. Didi
Badini searched her memory for some scrap of
information that -would intrigue Hamisen and keep
him close to her, -without giving him enough of a
clue to actually locate this girl.
"Her bodyguard used to -work for the Li con-
sortium," she said reluctantly. "There may be some
connection there . . . but you -would be well
advised not to pursue it, my dear. Delszaki Li is
powerful, corrupt, and utterly ruthless. It -would
be too dangerous for someone who does not know
the -ways of Kezdet to inquire into House Li
affairs."
"A man does not shelter behind a -woman's
skirts," Hamisen said firmly. "How are you going
to find out about the girl?"
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
27 A
Didi Badini smiled and stroked his arm -with
one long, elegantly oval fingernail. "I have my
friends . . . here and there. Amuse yourself -with
some ordinary girls tonight, Farkas—on the
house, of course," she added hastily, "and come
back to me in a few days for more information."
She treated him to the sleepy smile that had
beguiled the elder Tondubh into parting with more
jewels than the glassworks could afford, back in
the days when she still did her own work. "You
will come back . . . won't you?"
He answered her question with one of his own.
"You will find the unicorn girl for me . . . won't
It was Gill who brought home news of the legends
that permeated Kezdet through kava shop to
bazaar and even to the sacred rooms of the
Miners' Guild. He had all he could do to keep
from pounding a few faces in for the smutty sug-
gestions about horn-nuzzling that went on. What
had Acorna done to generate such speculation?
Well, it would have to stop right now! Mr. Li's
house was impregnable, but Acorna had lately
been given to such bizarre . . . escapades . . . even
when she was supposedly being guarded and/or
chaperoned by Pal and Judit.
Then it occurred to him that maybe he had best
join any more outings, to guard Judit as well as
Acorna.
The high-pitched laughter of happy children
greeted him as he palmed his entrance to Mr.
275
Li's mansion. He stood for a moment, listening to
the enchanting mirth. Laughter was a lovely
sound and suddenly he realized that he could not
make Acorna suspend her lifesaving activities.
But the sooner they initiated the Moon project,
the better . . . the safer.
Rafik was busier than he had ever been in his life
in the spacious office which Mr. Li had given over
to him, and the use of state-of-the-art communica-
tions devices that allowed him to speed messages
to an incredible number of destinations. He was
not a member of his particular family without hav-
ing an innate natural instinct for trading. He often
wondered why he hadn't gone into that
respectable profession as his mother had wanted.
Not that he felt himself at any loss in the bargain-
ing and badgering that were part and parcel of
making successful deals. In the odd moments he
had, he decided that as a callow youth he had only
been kicking over the traces to go a-mining. And
yet, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to do
this now if he hadn't done that. Kismet!
He had managed to make contact, again
through Mr. Li's amazing network of contacts,
with a lunar engineer: an elderly man, one Martin
Dehoney, now retired, who had been responsible
for the ingenious structures that were almost com-
pulsory on moon mining installations for their
high safety factors and low budget requirement.
He was also said to be a treasure chest of innova-
tive ideas which conservative agencies, such as
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
276
large corporations and governments, -would not
consider. So, when Rafik contacted him, at first
the Architect Dehoney had demurred by virtue of
his age and debility, but Rafik's gentle persua-
sion—and the explanation that the plan would
ruin the system of Kezdet's child-bondage sys-
tem—won him over. He allowed that he had quite
a few novel ideas for moon installations which he
felt might be eminently suitable, and which some-
one of Rafik's breadth of understanding might
appreciate more than bureaucracies. To know that
some of his best work would see the light of a sun
would be very nice indeed before he slept. It took
a moment for Rafik to realize he meant the "long
sleep" of death.
To his and Mr. Li's intense gratification, a veri-
table harvest of plans, complete with specifications
(although some of these were improvements and
annexes to some of Dehoney's existing lunar facili-
ties—fascinating in themselves) arrived by special
courier three weeks later.
"It's not just the innovative design for integrat-
ing living facilities and life-support hydroponics,"
Calum marveled. "The man has an incredible
instinct for mining engineering problems! Look at
this bootstrap proposal. It's so elegant it's beauti-
ful!" He was looking at Dehoney s projected Phase
II of the lunar base. In Phase I the lunar regolith
would be raked for metal grains, which would then
be reduced to their component elements by the
gaseous carbonyl process. At the same time, a
related chemical vapor deposition process "would
be used to fabricate large-sized, ultra-hghtweight
177
mirrors from the carbonyls of iron and nickel. In
Phase II, when the regolith had been raked down
to the underlying rock, these mirrors could be used
to concentrate solar heat and break up the rock
without the use of explosives, which would have to
be imported, or mechanical drills, which as Calum
knew all too well were subject to frequent dust
clogging and friction wear in near-vacuum condi-
tions.
"And he uses by-products of the regolith benefi-
ciation to provide shielding from solar flares in the
first habitats," Gill pointed out, "then, in Phase II,
we can construct extensive living quarters in the
rocky areas we excavate. So there's very little
added cost for habitat construction and radiation
shielding." They were poring over the doubled-
domed, lock-connected habitat and hydroponics
design when Judit interrupted them to turn on
Universal News and the report of Dehoney's
demise: in his sleep.
"He must have just sent the plans off to us,"
Rafik said, awed and chagrined. Had his urgency
contributed to a fatal fatigue?
"I wouldn't have thought you could care about
such things," Judit said, giving him an odd look.
"You malign me," Rafik said, though he knew
that she had overheard him dealing rather ruth-
lessly with some suppliers. He laid one hand on
his heart, allowing his hurt to show. "I would be
callous indeed to work an old man to death. Even
if children are being done so daily here, until -we
can get this underway."
Mr. Li regarded Judit over his nose as he had a
279
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
278
habit of doing when he wished her to do some-
thing that she did not wish to do.
"My apologies, Rafik."
"We will name the main dome 'Dehoney' after
his inestimable contribution to the project," Rafik
announced, though he looked at Mr. Li for confir-
mation of this sudden •whimsy. Then, with a deep
sigh, which could be interpreted in any way she
chose, he unrolled the rest of the plans and studied
them.
With such detailed plans, even to the environ-
mental shifts as the population increased, Rafik
was able to send out tenders to the construction
firms which Gill had been checking out for
integrity and the reputation of finishing jobs on
time and within budgetary parameters. They sent
the tenders out -with a return address of the Uhuru,
so that Mr. Li's privacy -would not be invaded by
the importunate. When word of the size of this job
got out, they would be besieged by every penuri-
ous subcontractor looking to make more than his
•work was worth. Better that the office of record
be a space ship so that dock security could be
tipped to see that the worst did not gain entrance.
That meant that Rafik and Gill would have to
have a discreet and secure modem link to Mr. Li
so he could supervise affairs.
"Rafik has the energy this project has needed,"
Mr. Li said, smiling beneficently at Judit and pat-
ting her hand, "-while I can still supply the wisdom
of experience -which his young head has not yet
had time to accumulate."
Judit had just discovered the packet of disks,
part of the consignment, and, exclaiming with
delight, loaded them into the computer. Almost
instantly, the sketches became three-dimension
drawings, moving as the strained voice of Marty
Dehoney added explanation to his vision of a
lunar mining station that could also vie for use as a
holiday resort, so complete were the amenities.
"And look at this!" Gill exclaimed as Dehoney
went into his expansion plans. "To cut down the
hazard of fire, he suggests we capture small car-
bonaceous asteroids and release their nitrogen."
"Not to mention we can get sulfates and phos-
phates from the same source, if needed, to supple-
ment the lunar minerals," Calum pointed out. "If
you hadn't been so single-minded about collecting
valuable metal payloads, you'd have thought of
that yourself. We passed up plenty of carbona-
ceous chondrites in between E-types."
"I didn't notice you coming up with the sugges-
tion, either."
"Didn't need it to support a crew of four,"
Calum said smugly. "If we'd been trying to sta-
bilize life-support and atmospheric systems for
an entire colony, naturally I would have men-
tioned it."
"Oh, naturally," Gill drawled with heavy irony.
They were still viewing the comprehensive
disks when Pal came to announce that dinner was
ready. On noticing their intent faces, he very
quickly called down to ask the butler to hold the
meal for at least half an hour.
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
280
Tapha's tongue stuck out between his pinched lips
as he -worked his -way through the cipher program
built into his personal corn. His father was so
stupidly old-fashioned, requiring all his operatives
to use a cipher that depended on recalling large
chunks of the Books of the Three Prophets from
memory. He'd probably have a fit if he knew that
Tapha had reprogrammed his personal corn to gen-
erate enciphered messages automatically, always
using the First Verse of the First Book as the key . ..
and even so, there was more hands-on labor
involved than Tapha cared for. When he took over
the organization, one of the first changes he'd make
would be to modernize the communications sys-
tem, using an automatic encryptor instead of this
cumbersome system. Hafiz was overly concerned
about security, anyway. Why, Tapha had been
using the same encryption key for every message
he sent from Kezdet, and there was no sign that
any of them had been broken.
Nor was there any sign that any of them had
been received, though he knew they must have
been. Hafiz was just being mean and petty, refusing
to advance the credits necessary for Tapha to live in
the style befitting the heir to the Hafiz Harakamian
empire, forcing him to sell off one by one the jewels
he'd collected when he fled. Well, all that would
change now. With satisfaction Tapha completed the
encrypted message telling his father that he had
located his prized unicorn girl and would return
her . . . for a price. He could not resist adding the
cryptic comment that he had also found the way to
solve another family problem here on Kezdet.
281
Without help! Well, without very much help, any-
way. Didi Badim's mention of House Li had been
enough of a clue for Tapha to locate Acorna and
Rafik on his own. He wouldn't need to go back to
her for information . . . though he might go back for
his own amusement.
After handing in his message at one of the
public comsuites on the main streets of Celtalan,
Tapha went on his way to arrange the solution of
that nagging family problem. How proud his
father would be when he learned that Tapha had
not only recaptured the unicorn girl but had also
revenged the trickery practiced on their house by
Cousin Rafik! More to the point, with Rafik safely
out of the way, there would be no more plots to do
Tapha out of his rightful position as his father's
heir apparent. This time Tapha did not intend to
make any stupid, impulsive moves, such as the
attack at the restaurant . . . although that dhouQ
have worked; he still couldn't figure out how
Rafik could have moved fast enough to avoid tak-
ing even one blast of laser fire. No matter. This
time his disguise would allow him to get close
enough to make absolutely sure that Rafik was
quite thoroughly dead.
And once that little matter had been cleared up,
he had only to wait until his father's emissaries
arrived with enough credits to make it worth his
while to tell them where the unicorn girl was. No
need to put himself to the effort of capturing her;
that was work for subordinates. He, Tapha, was the
mastermind behind the plan, and that was quite
enough. No, he would simply relax at Didi Badini's
282
283
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
until Hafiz responded to this latest news. The old
bat would give him anything for a few kisses and
sweet words . . . and when he was ready for some-
thing fresher, he would offer to help train this new
acquisition, the scarred girl from the mines. An
enjoyable way to wile away the days of waiting, and
one advantage accrued to this child, since she was
already marked, was that presumably the Didi
•wouldn't care if she acquired a few more scars dur-
ing "training." There'd be no need to be careful as he
had been ever since that unfortunate accident with'
the joy-toy girl on Theloi.
As was routine on Kezdet, Tapha's latest message
and all other messages with off-planet tags were
routed through a Guardians of the Peace office on
their way to their final destination. Ed Minkus
browsed through the day's mail list with a casual
eye out for any interesting anomalies or potential
profits, stopping at the obviously encrypted mes-
sage purporting to concern differing religious
interpretations of the First Verse of the First
Prophet.
"Hey, Des," he called to his partner, "here's
some more crap from that Tapha guy. You know?
The one with the funny-looking ears who keeps
writing home for money and uses the same
encryption key every time."
"So?" Des grunted. "Unless he actually geU
some money, he's no use to us."
"This one is something different." Ed activated
the decryption program and scanned the cleartext
as it appeared on the screen. "He's found some-
thing valuable . . . might be worth a cut of the
action . . . oh, and it looks as if he's planning to
assassinate some guy named Nadezda."
"Nadezda?" Des rolled out of his chair and into
a standing position over Ed in one savage move-
ment. "Nadezda! He can't do that! That triple-
timing, two-tailed miner is mine! Nobody kills
Nadezda before I get mine back on him!"
Delszaki Li's payment of the "fines" owed by
Calum, Gill, and Rafik to Kezdet had left Des
"without official excuse to persecute the miners,
but with none of his original lust for vengeance
diminished in the slightest.
"Well, then," Ed replied mildly, "we'll just have
to stop this Tapha before he gets there, won't we?"
The vid-screen in a corner of Didi Badini's luxuri-
ously furnished sitting room transmitted only a
jagged pattern of neon flashes that made the Didi's
head hurt.
"Drop the bloody scramble, can't you? It hurts
my eyes—and it's not as if I'd never seen you
before." Immediately she made that last comment,
the Didi regretted it. It was not wise to remind the
Piper that you were one of the few people on
Kezdet who had seen his face . . . even if you had
no idea where in the ranks of Kezdet's techno-
aristocracy he led his "real" life.
"I have already been careless enough," a dry voice
whispered from the speaker grill surrounding the
screen, "accompanying you to that mine. And for
284 --—^ ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
what? First sight of a pretty girl-child whom you
managed to lose before she was back in your house!"
Didi Badini cringed at the anger in the whisper-
ing voice and forbore to remind the Piper that he,
too, had been in the skimmer when that little beast
Khetala distracted them and gave Chiura her chance
to run away. Never mind. She dared not express her
anger at the Piper, but she could take it out on
Khetala later. The brat had been locked below long
enough to take the fight out of her; now she would
turn her over to Tapha to break her.
"A thousand apologies, master," she said, swal-
lowing her rage at this unfair criticism. "How may
I serve you now?"
"There are rumors—" the voice whispered,
while neon-green and bile-yellow stripes crawled
and writhed across the vid-screen, "rumors that
the goddess of some children's cult walks the soil
of Kezdet. She has a thousand names but only one
face, long and narrow, with a horn like a unicorn's
sprouting from her forehead."
"Didi Acorna!" Did! Badini sat upright on her
pile of cushions. "I knew she was no true Didi, for
none of the sisterhood knew of her!"
"Didi, goddess, what does it matter?" the Piper
interrupted her. "The tales they are spreading of
her healing powers are gross exaggeration, but that
does not matter, either. What matters is that the
children believe. The Child Labor League and that
malcontent Li are stirring up enough trouble now;
•we do not need some goddess cult serving as the
focal point for more resistance. This horned freak
must disappear. And I must not be seen to be
285
involved in it. I will not have my official position
compromised."
Didi Badini's plump, powdered face creased in
an unpleasant smile. "Nothing," she assured the
Piper, "would give me more pleasure. And there
need be no hint of politics about the removal,
either. For impersonating a sister without paying
dues to our guild, she has already earned punish-
ment. And there are those who would pay well for
that horn of hers; powdered unicorn's horn is an
aphrodisiac of unparalleled power."
"But will removal of the horn kill her?" asked
the voice, like dry leaves rustling.
"I think we can be sure of that little point," said
Didi Badini, smiling as the vid-screen display
abruptly went gray.
Then her face sagged with relief. She might not
be able to see the Piper, but she knew he could
watch and interpret every change of expression on
her face. A little longer, and she might have been
rash enough to let him find out exactly how she
proposed to locate this Didi Acorna. She saw no
need to tell him that she counted on young Tapha
to lead her to the girl. The Piper might think that he
could more profitably deal with Tapha directly . . .
and Didi Badini had not been lying when she
mentioned the resale value of a unicorn's horn.
She had customers whose natural powers were
failing, to be revived only by some special treat
such as a very young virgin or the whipping of a
recalcitrant girl; they would pay handsomely for
this by-product of Acorna's death.
Tapha gave his borrowed dock
workers coveralls a last nervous
hitch and strode through the
workers' gate to the spaceport, giving the security
guard a jaunty wave as he passed. He could
scarcely conceal his jubilation. The disguise had
worked! The coveralls were a gift from Didi
Badini, who had bought them from a lower-class
Didi whose establishment of aging ladies was
patronized by the poorer dock mechanics and by
transients who knew no better. It had been a sim-
ple matter for Didi Hamida to slip a trank into one
of her clients' drinks, remove his uniform while he
slept, and subsequently remove his unclothed
body to a gutter some distance from her establish-
ment.
Women helped him, Tapha thought as he
paced down the cavernous hangar where ships in
for repairs were being disassembled and worked
on. He definitely had a way with women . . . and
Acorna 287
once this little job was taken care of, he looked
forward to returning to Didi Badini's establish-
ment to have his way with the new girl.
Experienced women were all very well, but there
was nothing quite like the young and untouched . . .
and if they were frightened as well, that added
spice to the encounter.
"Hey, you!" a real mechanic bawled at him.
"Get me a hydraulic splitter! Not that way, you
idiot," he went on as Tapha sauntered on his way.
"Stores are the other side of the hangar!"
Tapha waved and mouthed something intended
to be totally unintelligible. The mechanic shrugged
in disgust, said something to his mates about
fardling idiot foreigners who didn't even speak
Basic properly and what was the Guild coming to,
and went to get his own hydraulic splitter—-what-
ever that might be. Tapha neither knew nor cared,
but he quickened his pace so as to reach the
Uhlirus, docking space outside the hangar before
anybody else could delay him. It would be a real
pity if the fiendish cunning of his new disguise and
improved weaponry were spoiled by encountering
somebody who expected him to actually know
about mechanicals. Tapha patted the sagging
pocket of his coveralls and grinned. This time
there would be no possibility of a miss.
From a borrowed office high on the hangar
wall, Des Smirnoff and Ed Minkus watched
Tapha's sauntering progress. "Idiot thinks he got
through the security check by dressing up like a
mech," Ed commented. "He doesn't even guess
that we had the weaponry and retinal scanners
288
Acorna 289
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
turned off and told the guard not to check IDs
when the little guy with the funny ears showed up.
Why 3Q we let him through the check, anyway?
Would've been easier to've picked him up there.
Or did you change your mind about letting him off
Nadezda for you ? "
"Hell, no," Des replied, "but he hasn't done any-
thing illegal yet. He hasn't even cheated the scan-
ners, since they were turned off. It would be
exceeding our charter as Guardians of the Peace to
stop a man who, for all we know, is paying an inno-
cent family visit."
"And very nice that'll sound if there's an
inquiry," Ed applauded. "Now what's the real rea-
son?"
Des gave a wolfish grin. "It won't hurt to put a
bit of a scare into Nadezda before we take this one
out. Besides, if we stop a suspicious-looking char-
acter at the gate and Find unlawful arms on him,
we're just doing our duty. If we shoot him down
just in time to prevent an assassination attempt,
we're Heroes of the Republic."
Ed sighed. "You already got your money back.
Now you want revenge on Nadezda a,n3 a Hero of
the Republic medal? Ever hear the story of the
fisherman's wife who wished to be pope?"
"Pope who?"
"Never mind. He's coming into range now; let's
see if the scanners can pick up just what he's car-
rying in that bulging left pocket." Ed activated the
beams, focused them, and gave a long, low whistle.
"Holy Kezdet . . . we shouldn't have disabled the
weapons scanners at the main gate."
"We didn't want him stopped for carrying a
pocket laser or something like that," Des reminded
him.
"Pocket laser! Ha! The idiot's got a tungsten
bomb in there!"
"You're kidding!"
"Wish I were. Here—take a look at the read-
ing."
Des glanced at the scanner screens and
blanched. "He didn't mention this was a suicide
mission. If that thing goes off, he won't only get
Nadezda. He'll blow up the bloody ship!"
"He'll blow up the •whole bloody hangar," Ed
corrected him.
"Maybe the whole spaceport."
"A chunk of West Celtalan."
"Hero of the Republic," Ed said, "is not what
they're going to hang around your neck for letting
this one through, boyo."
"If we don't stop him," Des said tersely, "I
won't have a neck left for them to hang me by.
And if he sees us, he might panic and set the thing
off prematurely. . . . Hell, he's so dumb he might
set it off by accident anyway!"
Both men were jogging down the internal secu-
rity hall by the middle of this conversation, so well
attuned to each others' thoughts and reactions that
they didn't even need to discuss what to do next. If
they could round two sides of the hangar and cut
off Tapha before he reached the Uhuru, if one of
them could get a clear shot at him, they just might
be able to save themselves and a largish chunk of
West Celtalan from molecular disintegration.
290 --~' ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
"Alarm?" puffed Ed as they passed a security
station.
"Nope. Don't "want to startle him." Des was in
no better shape than his colleague, but his
adrenaline high was enough to keep him from feel-
ing out of breath yet.
They made it to their target corner with sec-
onds to spare, Ed leading. He drew his stunner,
peered around the wall, and swore. "Too many
fardling workers in the way. I can't get a clear
shot."
"Screw? the workers," Des said. "They'd rather
be shot in passing than disintegrated by a tungsten
bomb, wouldn't they?" He leaned over Ed's
crouching form, utilizing every advantage of his
superior height and reach, and squeezed off a
series of narrow-band stunner shots without even
seeming to pause to take aim.
"Got him," he said with satisfaction, and
sprinted for Tapha's fallen form to defuse the
bomb, Ed close behind. "Let's hope it's a standard
arming device," he said, reaching into the baggy
pocket they had spotted as containing the •weapon.
"Be a damn shame to lose the hands that have
such perfect aim to a misfired tungsten bomb."
"This thing goes off," Ed said sourly, "you'll
never have time to miss your hands." He knelt
over Tapha and watched, breath held, as Des
twirled the combination detonator on the tungsten
bomb without a trace of nervousness. Three clicks,
an agonizing pause, and then the bones of Ed's
skull registered the cessation of the almost sublim-
inal buzzing that had signaled an armed tungsten
291
bomb ready to detonate on signal. Now for the
first time he noticed the people around them; the
crowd of mechs shouting misinformation at one
another, and two of the miners pushing their way
through the crowd. Rafik Nadezda was the first to
reach them.
"Hey," Rafik said, looking down, "that's—"
"A tungsten bomb," Des Smirnoff said, rising
to his feet with the dismantled halves of the bomb,
one in each hand. "Whoever this was really didn't
like you, Nadezda—even more than I don't like
you. You owe me one. Another one," he said •with
heavy meaning.
"I was about to say," said Rafik with dignity,
"that's my cousin, Tapha."
"You got the tense -wrong," Des said with a
tight-lipped smile. "That w<u your cousin Tapha. I
set my stunner on max when I got a maniac with
an armed tungsten bomb wandering around the
port, Nadezda, and he took half a dozen shots to
the head. Fried his brains." He thought that over.
"His hypothetical brains."
"How did he get past security?" somebody
wondered aloud.
"These terrorists are fiendishly cunning," Des
said, raising his voice to roar over the noise of the
crowd.
"Terrorists?" Gill repeated. "I thought it was a
personal — "
"The Guardians of the Peace have been watch-
ing this man for some time," Des said loudly. "We
have reason to believe he is closely associated with
the Child Labor League, those notorious terrorists
292
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
293
who are doing their best to •wreck the economy of
our happy, peaceful, and productive planet."
Gill's face turned as red as his beard. Rafik
stepped backward and landed heavily on his toe.
"A happy end to an unfortunate situation," he
said over Gill's rumblings of anger. "Allow me to
congratulate you on your prompt handling of the
crisis. Guardian Smirnoff. And—er—that little
episode on the asteroid was a mistake. We had no
idea you would be marooned there for any length
of time. I owe you an apology for that incident."
Smirnoff's face darkened. "You owe me more
than an apology," he said under his breath, "and I
still intend to collect, Nadezda. Later!"
"How about a formal report and recommenda-
tion that you be nominated as a Hero of the
Republic?" Rafik suggested in equally low tones.
"You've definitely earned it today."
Smirnoff paused, visibly undecided.
"And no inquiry as to how this . . . terrorist . . .
made it through security," Rafik added.
"You can pull that off?"
"An off-planet miner may not have that much
influence," said Rafik, "but the heir to the
Harakamian Empire has."
"You?"
Rafik stood looking down at Tapha's body, his
face expressionless. "I am now. You'll permit me to
collect his personal effects?" he added after a
moment's silence. "I should have something to
send to his father."
"Go right ahead," Des offered. "And—"
Rafik's lips curved slightly. "I won't forget the
report, no. Congratulations—Hero of the
Republic!"
Calum missed the excitement of Tapha's second
assassination attempt, as he had missed most of
what was going on around him since Dr. Zip pro-
duced the results of his study. Zip had concen-
trated on the sector of space nearest where Acorna
was found and had been downcast to report that
the upsilon-V studies of stars in that sector
showed a very low chance of any primary produc-
ing planets rich in the precise mix of metals used
in the pod, a report that was borne out by the
mass diffusion imaging of the nearest JM-type stars
and their planets.
But Calum rather thought Zip, in his pride at
being able to report the constituents of distant
planets through new technology, had overlooked a
few things. The one sure thing they knew about
Acorna's people was that they had a sophisticated
space-faring system. If he and Gill and Calum
could take rhenium from the asteroid Daffodil to
make solar thermal-thrust chambers on Theloi,
why couldn't Acorna's people also have mined a
number of systems to collect the metals for this
alloy?
That concept turned the problem of locating
Acorna's home world from a straightforward task
of astrophysical analysis to a complex optimization
program requiring sophisticated operations
research techniques.
"You see," Calum had explained to Gill when
294
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
he started working on the program, "we are also
going to assume, going from what we know of
Acorna, that her people are not stupid or wasteful.
They wouldn't go farther than necessary to get
their metals. So first I have to use Zip's data to
design a program to find all the subsets of stars
within a given volume of space that would, collec-
tively, provide the necessary substances, then, for
each such subset, find the M-type planet that most
nearly approaches an optimal location for all the
required mining missions."
"Hey," Rafik said, "if Zip can come up with
planetary emissions studies for all these systems,
why don't we use him to locate good mining areas
for us?"
"Costs too much," Calum said. "You wouldn't
believe what Li has spent on this problem already."
He quoted figures until even Rafik reluctantly
agreed that it wouldn't be cost-effective to retain
Zip's services as a prospector.
"But," he said, brightening, "he has already
produced all this data in search of Acorna, has he
not? Surely there would be no objection to our
using it for other purposes?"
"Probably not," Calum agreed. He was rather
annoyed at the way his friends kept missing the
point. Who cared about mining? He wanted them
to appreciate his elegant approach to the problem
of identifying Acorna's home. "I'm treating the
entire collection of stars as overlapping subsets,
each containing one or more M-types. By the
Axiom of Choice, there must be — "
Rafik had left abruptly then, muttering some-
295
thing about mad dogs and mathematicians.
Calum was a bit surprised that Rafik didn't share
his joy in the beauties of applied linear program-
ming, but then it took all sorts, didn't it?
Whistling under his breath, he commandeered
one of the parallel-processing units used by the
banking branch of the Li consortium, raided
another branch for statistical analysis software
that could be perverted to serve his ends, and
proceeded to put together his very own astro-
nomical and mining optimization program. For
the past weeks his conversation at mealtimes had
been limited to cryptic statements such as, "I'd
have it done if I didn't have to put the data struc-
tures from all these different bloody star charts
into canonical form first," or, "No, the fact that
it's in an infinite loop doesn't mean the program
doesn't work; it just entered a state with which I
was previously unfamiliar." And whenever Judit
would let him get away with it, he skipped meals
altogether in favor of a quick snack that he could
eat one-handed while gliding through visual dis-
plays of his program in the windowless room
dedicated to the project.
Now, at last, he was getting results. Inconclu-
sive, maybe, but results. He barely heard Gill's
excited account of the assassination attempt and
its aftermath. "Tapha's dead? Good, that's one less
person after us."
"And I think Rafik's squared Des Smirnoff. So
the Guardians of the Peace won't be bothering us,
either. Calum, you should have seen Smirnoff
defusing that tungsten bomb! The man may be a
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
296
corrupt cop, but he can take a place on my bomb
squad any day. Talk about nerves of steel!"
"Mmm. Good job he defused it," Calum said,
nodding over the latest printout. "A bomb like that
could've caused a power outage as far as here,
couldn't it? I could've lost a lot of data."
Gill suggested that Calum take his data and do
something anatomically improbable -with it, then
stomped off to find a more appreciative audience.
Calum barely registered his disappearance; he was
thinking about ways to narrow down the long list
of possible planets to check out. The trouble with
his brainstorm was that they'd gone from zero
possibles to over a hundred, none of them conve-
niently close. Of course, they wouldn't be clwe. He
snorted at his own na'i'vete. If they were nearby weVve
met Awrna J people by now. And he might not be able
to rule out any of this long list of possibles, but he
could rank them for the search by running a sec-
ond optimization, this time minimizing the total
travel time and distance required. It would be a
simple variant of the classic traveling-salesman
problem.
The only trouble was, then what? Calum
longed to test his results, and the only way he
could see to do that was to go and look for him-
self. Delszaki Li would probably be willing to
retrofit the Uhuru with superdrives that would
minimize the travel time. But it would still be a
tive-year project just to check out the nearest
group of possible planets. How could he abandon
his buddies and take their ship for five years?
Rafik and Gill nee3e3 him; neither of them was
297
enough of a mathematician to manage subspace
navigation on his own.
Calum came out of his particular haze when he
realized he had not seen Rafik and, at breakfast,
asked if Rafik was living aboard the Uhuru.
Acorna giggled. "I told you that eventually he
would notice," she said to Mr. Li, who was smiling
benignly on her.
"Well? Is he?" He addressed this query to Gill.
"In a manner of speaking, he is," Gill replied
around a mess of kippered herrings which Mr. Li
had imported especially for him. Though Calum
was as British in origin as himself, the mathemati-
cian did not like kippered herrings.
Waiting for Gill to continue, he even wrinkled
his nose as the reek of the delicacy wafted in his
direction.
"He's on a sorrowful mission," Acorna said,
giggling again.
Calum wished she wouldn't giggle. It wasn't
like his Acorna. She had never been silly, but
maybe it was part of the girlish things that Judit
was teaching her. Although he couldn't remember
Judit giggling.
"What?" and Calum addressed this inquiry to
Mr. Li as the only sensible member at the dining
table.
"His cousin, Tapha," Mr. Li supplied.
"Can no one give me a straight answer?"
Calum complained.
"Considering that all we've had out of you
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
298
recently has been either statistical probabilities or
astronomical variables," Judit said, a touch pee-
vishly, "a straight answer is improbable, isn't it?"
Then she relented as Calum did indeed look hurt
and had been trying so hard to locate Acorna's
home world. "He decided he'd better take Tapha's
ashes back to Uncle Hafiz and explain how he met
his death."
"Oh!" Calum digested this along with several
mouthfuls of a delightful breakfast omelet before
he let his fork fall from his hand. "But he's now his
uncle's heir."
"We know," Judit replied.
"Will he come back at all? Gill said something
about Rafik Rnally finding his element in all the
trading he's had to do for the Moon Mines."
Gill glowered at him. "He won't leave us until
he's finished that, because that will prove to
Hafiz that he's really sown his wild oats and is
ready to settle down and represent House Hara-
kamian."
"Oh!" Calum said, digesting that before he
picked up his fork. "Yes, it would rather, wouldn't
it? But Rafik wouldn't do that, would he? Not yet,
when we haven't finished the moon base or found
Acorna's planet."
"I don't think he would," Gill said, half his
mind on getting the last flake of kippered herring
onto his fork and into his mouth.
Pal entered, looking concerned. "I just heard
that Hafiz Harakamian's fastest ship docked here
this morning, in fact, in the berth the Uhuru •was,
using."
Acorna
299
"Uh-oh," Gill said, looking at Acorna. "That
idiot son of his must have told him you're here."
"How could he know?" Acorna was dismayed.
"How could he know?" And Gill went falsetto
in mimicry. "Because you've been doing your Lady
of the Lights and the healed -wounds and purified
water act all over Celtalan is how he knows. How
many unicorn horns are there on Kezdet?" He
stood, throwing down his napkin, the bristles of his
beard trembling with sincerity. "And I'm going to
stick as close to you as your shadow."
"Oh, good, when Calum goes back to his com-
puters, we can go out. I have just a little errand to
do. I would have asked Pal, but he's doing some-
thing for Mr. Li, and I have a call in to Pedir," she
spared a glance at the elegant antique carriage
clock on the mantelpiece, "and he will be here
shortly. Do say you'11 come?"
"You better go," Calum said, "because I haven't
spent hours, days ..."
"Weeks?" Judit put in, grinning from him to
Gill.
". . . trying to locate where you came from, to
let Uncle Hafiz get you first."
"So Pedir found out where she is?" Judit
asked.
Acorna nodded. "He's been so helpful."
Judit looked as if she were about to add some-
thing, then saw the belligerent look on Gill's face.
"I can't come this morning." She turned to Mr. Li.
"We have that appointment with the head of the
Public Works about proving the moon base design
meets code."
ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
300
301
"That sounds like an engineering problem,"
Gill objected.
"It's politics," Judit said. "He knows the base
design is safe, and he knows -we know it. At this
stage, Delszaki doesn't need an engineer to reiter-
ate the facts and get red in the face. He needs a
psycholinguist to maneuver the talks the right
way."
"You mean, Kezdet's objecting?" Gill asked, for
he'd heard rumors which Rafik had discounted.
"Nothing that can't be discreetly settled, my
boy," Mr. Li said, and moved his hover-chair back
from the table. "Come along, Judit. Gill, I'd rather
you accompanied Acorna and Nadhari since Judit
cannot."
"As you wish, Mr. Li," Gill said, but he wasn't
looking forward to it. Nadhari Kando wasn't his
idea of a pleasant female companion for an excur-
sion. "You'll be safe with me." Actually, he didn't
think they needed Nadhari at all, but it was better
to be safe than sorry.
He could add that to Calum's list of famous last
words. Climbing into Pedir's skimmer—he'd met
the man previously, since his vehicle seemed to be
constantly in use by Judit and Acorna for their
"shopping trips"—he had no idea where they were
going. Pedir started right in telling Acorna about
some very useful items he heard were going for
nothing in the market which he thought she
should check out. That ought to have warned Gill,
but he was thinking about Tapha and Rafik and
worrying that Rafik's wily uncle might somehow
hold him on Laboue, and the Li Moon Mining
Company Ltd. might grind to a halt. Rafik had so
much in his head and not on paper that it would
take Gill months to catch up if Rafik didn't return
in a timely fashion.
He was roused out of his contemplation when
Pedir landed the skimmer, and Gill was astonished
to find themselves in the very -worst possible
neighborhood.
"You will wait in the skimmer," Nadhari told
Acorna. "I will fetch the girl."
"She won't come to you," Acorna said.
Nadhari bared her teeth. "She will if I tell her
to." She slipped out of the skimmer, which barely
fit in the narrow courtyard where they had landed,
and trod through puddles of slime to where a short
flight of stairs led to a basement door in the wall.
She tapped a special sequence; the door opened a
crack, then swung shut again.
"Wait, wait!" Acorna cried, scrambling after
Nadhari. "They don't know you! She's afraid!
You'll have to go back to the skimmer!"
"Delszaki Li ordered me to protect you."
Nadhari planted her booted heels firmly in the
mud and glared at Acorna. "You go, I go."
"Nobody's going in," Acorna said patiently.
Gill thought it was time he joined the discus-
sion. "Acorna, acushia, this is not exactly a shop-
ping trip, is it? Want to tell me what's going on?"
Acorna looked at her feet. "Not really."
"Not good enough," Gill said sternly.
Acorna drew a deep breath. "Well..."
ANNE McCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL
303
302
The door creaked on its hinges. "You talk too
long!" whispered a woman. She put her face to the
open crack, where the daylight cruelly illuminated
the shiny red burn scars that disfigured the right
side of her face from cheekbone to chin. "Someone
will come! The lady must come in and pay the
price. No one else."
There was a moment of tense bargaining, as
both Gill and Nadhari initially refused to allow
Acorna to go into the dark rooms at all, and the
person on the other side of the door wanted them
to go back to the skimmer, and Nadhari clearly
wanted to blast her way into the rooms and take
whatever it was Acorna had come for with no
more talking. Finally a compromise was reached:
Nadhari and Acorna were allowed in while Gill
waited outside.
"We are only women here," the veiled figure
had said. "Only women come in."
"And if they think that makes them safe," Gill
muttered, pacing the short length of the courtyard
and back again, three strides each way, "they obvi-
ously don't recognize dear Nadhari."
There was a cry from inside, then the door bolt