Acorna's Search by Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Author:Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough [McCaffrey, Anne & Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780552150767
Publisher: HarperTorch
Published: 2001-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Getting Liriili into the flitter had been hard enough, but getting her to shut up and allow the pilot to deliver her to the ship was proving to be tedious in the extreme.

“I demand to be taken back to the Council on narhii-Vhiliinyar immediately,” Liriili declared with as much hauteur as if she were not only still viizaar of that planet, but also High Commanding Queen of the Universe, had there been such a title.

“Madame, we have explained to you—” Yaniriin began, but to no avail. He was fortunate enough to have escaped previous encounters with Liriili, but he had heard stories, and from what he could hear, they were all true.

“Again, I demand to return to my old world and be presented to the Council. I have endured an ordeal beyond belief and my story must be told. I alone—”

“If you are going to say that you alone have experienced what you’ve been through, lady, I doubt that,” Yaniriin interrupted her this time. “You disappeared, sure, but so have a third of the people we sent to scout Vhiliinyar for rehabilitation.”

“Yes, I noticed that,” she said loftily. “I turned my back for only a moment and when I looked, the laboratory and all of its staff had vanished. I notice, of course, that someone has slyly put the building back now, but where is the aagroni? I thought he had too much pride to stoop to such cheap tricks.”

Yaniriin said carefully, “The aagroni has vanished along with the others, Lady, and is still missing. But he was there when you vanished, and he was there for days afterwards. Did you not see him where you went when you disappeared?”

“I would hardly be complaining of his behavior if I had, would I?” she said.

In between fielding her remarks, Yaniriin was speaking with Lady Khornya and her companions in the search mission. He was almost relieved when Khornya told him she wished for him to keep Liriili on the site so she could interview her. It kept her out of his ship for however long it took for the interview to be concluded.

If he thought Liriili would be pleased by this decision, he was informed of his mistake at once.

“I, who have been deprived of food, water, and the company of my peers for lo these many days and nights while I shivered on this desolate Khleevi-ravaged place, fearing who-knows-what horrors to be visited on me, am to wait on the pleasure of that chit of a girl?”

“Lady Khornya hopes that if she interviews you here, Madame, she will gain clues to where you have been and where the others might be. It is her mission—”

“It has been her mission from the very beginning to undermine my authority, and now she wishes to endanger my life with her dallying? And you, a man responsible for commanding a starship, permit this?”

He hadn’t known what to say to this, and had consulted with Nadhari Kando, asking if perhaps Khornya’s wishes should be disregarded.

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