First Warning: Acorna's Children

Chapter 8

Hafiz Harakamian had not attained his wealth and high position by being a patient man-not unless he was deliberately plotting or stalking something. He expected to be kept informed. And he also expected to be made godfather to the baby being born to Declan and Judit Giloglie as well as any children born to Calum and Mercy Baird or to his nephew and adopted son and heir, Rafik and his alluring lady. These children were related in spirit if not blood to his beloved adopted daughter Acorna and therefore, by Hafiz's reckoning, they all belonged to him as well. He was far too young and virile to be a grandfather, but a godfather-ah!

He made his fifth visit in as many hours to the Moon of Opportunity's communications terminal. "We have heard nothing from them-any of them-for two days! Two days! I know that Rafik feels he needs no advice in the administration of House Harakamian, but he could send word that he is well, he could say if he has had word from the Giloglies, he could say if the Condor has arrived yet at Maganos Moonbase. Am I so interfering, so difficult to talk to, that I am abandoned by my beloved family when they could most use my wisdom? Is consultation with me desired only when they wish to avail themselves of my wealth? By the three books and the Three Prophets I am sorely distressed and feel greatly wronged."

"Now, Haffy, my potentate of passion," his lovely wife Karina said, laying a scrumptiously plump beringed hand upon his chest while regarding him from her large and lovely eyes made deepest purple by art and by proximity to the priceless catseye chrysoberyl jewels she bore in abundance upon her shell-like ears, her delicate wrists, and her delicious decolletage. The parts of her person not covered in jewels were swathed in drifts of gossamer in a sunset of purples, lavenders, violets, and plums. His treasure, his beauty, his bride, and yet even her presence did not soothe him.

"Maybe something's just wrong with the relays," she said. "One little glitch in the nearest one, and you know how that affects our communications."

"Yes, my delectable dumpling, but to hear nothing! Now that I ponder upon it, no merchant ships have docked of late, none of the cargoes for which I have already paid good currency, no one from home at all."

"I understand that you are disturbed, O my lord of love, and it pains me to see you so. Therefore, I shall look into my scrying pool and employ my heightened sensitivity to the harmonies of the cosmos to determine what is causing this deplorable lack of consideration on the part of our beloved friends and relations."

"Oh, that would be nice, dear, how thoughtful, thank you," Hafiz said, a trifle flatly. Karina meant well and truly believed she had telepathic and even magical powers; although even to him, her doting husband, it was very obvious that for the most part she had all of the psychic sensitivity of a food replicator. Perhaps less. But it did not take any mind-reading ability whatsoever for Hafiz to realize that any implication on his part that her powers were less astounding than she proclaimed them to be would be hurtful to her and detrimental to the recreational marital activities they so deeply and mutually enjoyed.

So he would graciously support her efforts to seek information in her way while he sought the same information in his.

"Go you to prepare yourself, to meditate and free your mind to receive the images in your waters, my lavishly endowed love, and I will join you in an hour's time."

"Certainly. I go now and await your pleasure, most spectacular of all spouses."

When she had gone he turned back to the communications terminal and to the young Linyaari boy, Miikaye, interning with his chief communications specialist, and said, "Send for the captains of the two ships in my private fleet that are docked here. I have a mission for them."

"That would be finding out why we've had no word from the relays, sir?" the boy asked. Hafiz smiled paternally. Most Linyaari addressed him as Acorna did, as Uncle Hafiz, but it was good that the child had learned the proper form of address to one's employer early. Of course, "sir" was not as good as "my lord" as Hafiz's more experienced vassals called him, but it was a start.

"Yes, my lad. You have interpreted my order most correctly."

The boy smiled, with his mouth closed so as not to show his teeth, since to do so was considered hostile in his culture. "Yes, sir. Not too difficult considering the number of inquiries you have made yourself already today."

"Even so, my son, even so."

When his captains came his orders were simple, "Go forth and seek the truth. Also seek to repair the accursed relays if they are down again. You, Captain Ling, will follow the course set by Captain Becker and my beloved daughter to the first relay. You, Captain Gallico, will travel to Makahomia, and confer with the regent Nadhari Kando concerning the presentation of a kitten for my new godchild and will also gather intelligence from Nadhari and other useful informants during your journey."

Both men nodded and withdrew to prepare their ships for their respective voyages.

Practical matters seen to, Hafiz retired to the private and personal garden of delight he shared with his beloved. She was seated beside the glass and titanium birdbath he had ordered to be installed when she requested a small body of water for her prophetic pursuits. Her arms were crossed on the edge of the small pool, her head upon them, and he thought she was meditating perhaps, or catching a quick nap until, hearing him, she raised her head and turned. Her eyes and nose were both red and rather wet.

"Oh, Hafiz, it is truly truly awful. I don't know what we are to do!"

"What, my anxious angel? What demons dare distress you? Tell me that I may slay them!"

"No demons. No clear images at all. But the waters turned black, then red, and that means only one thing, well, two actually."

"Yes?"

"Gloom and doom. Disaster and despair. Bad omens indeed. Our loved ones are headed into terrible cataclysmic danger. Whatever will they do? However will we help them?"

He peered across her into the birdbath, which looked clear except perhaps for a bit of pond scum. He'd have to speak to the gardener about that. He sighed and stroked her hair. "Come, my darling, you are overwrought and will spoil your complexion and your appetite. Your Hafiz has already taken steps to evaluate this doom of which you speak. As for worrying about what they will do, please recall, my ravishing raven of revelations, that we are speaking here of Acorna and Aari, who destroyed the Khleevi menace. They will manage."

"Yes, but, Haffy, they have Khorii with them, and she is just a child."

"Ah, but she is their child. And in that you must take comfort."

"But that may just be the problem, Hafiz. Have you considered that?"

You know, Hafiz thought, she might have a point.

On the fringes of the industrial district of the city of Corazon on the residential and tourist world of Paloduro, third in prominence in the Solojo star system, inside a rented high school gymnasium, a battle raged in an altogether different dimension.

Jalonzo Allende, as Quetzacoatl, struggled for hegemony over the game world with the other contestants in the weeklong Carnivale Marathon Brujartisano Tournament. As usual, his full attention was on his game. As usual, he was winning. Thus he was unaware of exactly when the plague first struck.

A master strategist, Jalonzo made up his decks and plotted his moves with the high intelligence and grasp of complex patterns that had allowed him to progress far beyond his chronological age in his studies of the sciences.

He knew his abuelita, his grandmother, devoutly hoped he would someday apply his talents to more realistic and lucrative pursuits than gaming. Jalonzo had plans, but since the death of his parents when he was nine, he hadn't bothered telling people about them much, not even Abuelita. For the moment, the game was what mattered.

Though he had only been playing it four years, since just after his parents died, Jalonzo was a seasoned veteran, a mighty warrior-mage, with more wins than anyone in the city of Corazon. He was proud of his comparatively vast library of game rules, history, variations, and back stories, his albums full of cards and his collection of unusual dice-enough to fill most of his clothing locker at home. He had had to pay for only a tiny fraction of these treasures-the rest were his loot, winnings from his victories.

The other players were not always glad to see him, but most of them said nothing to his face. They all knew that someday soon he would be invited to participate in the holographic tournament held every year on Bruja Prime, the smallest moon of Rio Boca, a moon leased exclusively to the Brujartisano Corporation, who had invented and controlled the game. Also, at six feet five inches, Jalonzo towered over most of the other players, who saw him as just a little scary. Heavy and powerfully built, with black hair and the faint black shadow of an incipient beard, he looked far older than he was.

He had no idea when the first death occurred in the outside world, as he had been busy for the preceding three days slaying the characters of his opponents. The first real death he was aware of was the nacho guy. Camazotz the Bat God was the one who found him. Camazotz, known outside the game as Jaime Martinez, a nervy, thin, redheaded kid who had been losing often enough to have lost interest in the game in favor of food, came into the gym yelling that there was a dead guy on the sidewalk outside the gym. A dead guy with the thermal case of Mucho Nachos, the only place in this part of the city that delivered.

"Is he really dead? How do you know?" Apocatequil the Thunder Bringer, who was also the Prince of Evil, asked, sounding just like Jalonzo would have expected his character to sound: bloodthirsty and excited.

"Is he all bloody?"

"Why would the nacho place send a dead guy, anyway?"

"Can we still get the nachos, or did he do something gross to them?"

Jalonzo almost suspected this was a trick to get him to quit, go outside to check, then they'd shut him out so he wouldn't win anymore. But that was silly. Somebody had to win, and it was a tournament after all. The fun was in playing the game.

And even if it was a trick, he had to look, didn't he? The guy might still be alive.

Jalonzo rose and quickly walked through the sweat and strong-soap-smelling locker room, through the front hall to the entrance. He didn't have to open the door to see the guy. The door was clear plas, as were the side panels on either side of it. The guy really did look dead. There were flies for one thing, but then, they'd swarm around anyone living or dead. But there were an awfully lot of them all over the guy's face. So, yeah, dead probably.

But if he wasn't and the curanderos could still save him? The other contestants crowded against the panels and the door, gawking at the maybe-dead guy.

Jalonzo, mindful of his size and powerful build and careful not to push or hurt anyone, gently moved them away from the door and opened it. Fanning at the flies, he reached for the guy's wrist to find a pulse, as Abuelita had shown him how to do when he was a boy. As soon as his fingers touched the guy's skin, Jalonzo could tell that he was already gone. The skin was way too cool on such a hot day. Also, he stank of something a little more rotten and less rank than most people smelled when it had been hours since they last washed.

Backing away from the guy, he pulled out his hola to call the curanderos. But he couldn't even get a tone. Funny. He had juice, the power cell was full. The little hola looked as if it was eager to talk to him, eager to find who he wanted, all ready to go, but it couldn't. It just sat there in his hand. He looked down the street, thinking, and he noticed that everything was really very quiet for a holiday in that part of town. Usually there'd be a lot of loud music blaring from flitters and maybe some guys who'd had too much pulque, people in costume headed uptown to join in one of the Carnivale parades.

The only flitters on the street were silent and grounded, including the one with the Mucho Nacho logo docked a few feet from the door. Where was everybody? Looking back at the gamers, with their faces and hands pressed against the glass, he shrugged. Some of them were scanning the street as he had. Others turned away and were frowning into their holas.

Mucho Nacho's logo was emblazoned like a heraldic device on the thermal container cushioning the upper half of the dead guy's body. Jalonzo could see the hail number and tried it. This time there was a tone but no answer, which was very weird since Mucho Nacho was a busy place, three or four people at least there in the restaurant part to serve customers as well as the delivery guy. The smell of food made Jalonzo's stomach rumble, but he didn't much want any of the nachos under the corpse. He wandered over to the flitter to see what was there, half-expecting someone to yell at him to get away from there. But nobody did. There was nobody, but nobody, to yell anything actually.

He found another order of nachos, also in a thermal container, and took it. After all, the one they ordered was under the delivery guy, through no fault of theirs, and they were owed an order. Then he saw there were five other thermal containers as well, tamales in cornhusk wrappers, a huge basket of taquitos, more nachos, a couple of complete dinners, and some cinnamon churros. And drinks. Well, it wasn't theft. All that food was just going to get cold and rot out there by the time anybody came to see to this guy, so the gamers could eat the stuff and pay for it later.

The containers were easy to lift, and he lugged all five of them plus the drink cooler back to the gym. At least, burdened as he was with food, there was no question about the others letting him back in.

They stood away from the door when he came in, then three tried to push past him to go outside. He shoved the food into their arms, keeping them inside the building. "No, man, wait," he said. "It's no big deal. Nothing we can do. Nothing the euros can do. I called them."

"How, man? I couldn't even get a ring!"

"Me, neither. But I tried. We'll try again later. Must be a sunspot or something. Or maybe the Carnivale lights have overloaded the grid."

"What was wrong with him, man?"

Jalonzo shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe a heart attack? He wasn't bleeding or anything. Anyway, we got eats. We gonna play or what? We haven't finished the game. And it's dead out there."