Acorna’s Search by Anne McCaffrey Page A

there be underground Khleevi installations? Or is this just another sign of Vhiliinyar’s unstable geology?” She got on the com unit and began hailing the other crews, asking them if they had any further cases of missing persons or if anyone reported hearing unusual subterranean noises.
    It was no surprise, and in fact confirmed her worst fears, when she learned that many more people were missing, several from some crews, one from others, and none from still others. Altogether, in the last afternoon twelve more people had vanished from Vhiliinyar as if they had never been there at all. But no one mentioned underground rumblings other than the usual ones, which seemed to be related to volcanic eruptions.
    When she reached MOO and gave her report of what had happened, Hafiz said, “You must evacuate at once.”
    “What about our mission here?” she asked, because she knew none of the others back on MOO would. “What about our friends?”
    “There is no wisdom in reviving a planet to house a race that becomes extinct in the effort,” Hafiz said.
    “That’s true,” Acorna said, “and I think it would be smart to evacuate most of the crews and all nonessential personnel, but I believe I can discover what is happening. I want to stay here, Uncle Hafiz. I need to find Aari and Maati and the others. I have no evidence to give you at all, but I can’t believe they’re dead. They’re simply—not here. If they were dead, or even in terrible, terrible trouble, I’d know that. Even if I didn’t pick up actual thoughts, I’d be feeling something if I’d lost them. I feel nothing but the certainty that I can find them if I continue to look.”
    Hafiz, wily old merchant that he was, said reasonably, “Of course, of course, my dear Acorna, I understand completely how you feel and you may certainly stay behind to look to your heart’s content and the blessings of the Three Prophets and the Three Books be upon you. But only on one condition.”
    “What is that?” she asked, sounding vague and distant, even to herself.
    “That you promise on the lives of my nephew Rafik, his ugly first wife, and Giloglie that you will not yourself become lost.”
    “I cannot promise that,” she said. “In fact, being—lost—taken, whatever happened to them—myself, may be the only way to find them.”
    “You are far too precious to risk on a maybe, my dear sweet Acorna. Come now, for once listen to the wisdom of your elders, and return with the others while you are able. We will not abandon your friends and loved ones. Once you are here, we will form a plan to search for them, using all the considerable resources at my command. But—please—leave before you vanish with the others. When all have had a chance to compare impressions without disappearing in the next instant as if at the will of some evil djinn, when from this you have gained perhaps insight, formed an idea that may have some outcome other than the sacrifice of yourself, done perhaps some research into this matter, then shall you return with all of the assistance it is within my power to give you.”
    Acorna’s protestations that meanwhile her loved ones could be in deeper peril were met with a philosophical, “If it is God’s will, they will survive until we can assist them. It is my will that you now put your head before your heart in this matter.”
    She knew he was right, but leaving Vhiliinyar behind was the most difficult thing she had ever done. When they had arrived on this planet, she had finally been part of a real Linyaari family—her lifemate, his parents and sister, her aunt and crewmates. Now, all of them were suddenly gone as if they had never existed and she was alone again.
    The enormity of it was completely unreal to her. She could not grasp it, and did not want to. Despite what she’d told Hafiz, she felt no fear for her companions, because she could not feel the truth of it at all. The people she loved couldn’t possibly be gone. They