The Unicorn Girl Read online

  “We’ll regress her to the time when she was found, of course,” Forelle replied, as if that should have been assumed. “The technique is simple enough, and with the right drugs, no one resists a regression. From the number and sequence of sounds she was making when they found her, she must have had some mastery of her native language at that time. The information is still there, simply overlaid by recent experiences. We have only to strip off the overlay.”

  Judit made a small, involuntary gesture. Even adults who had volunteered for the process found a full regression terrifying. What would it be like for this child? “You’ll halt the process, of course, if she appears traumatized?”

  “Of course,” Forelle assured her. “But you mustn’t be so tender. We must have as much evidence as possible to back up this discovery. If she is a sapient alien, speaking a language totally unrelated to any human tongue, whatever we can learn of that language will be of inestimable scientific value. We can’t let individual concerns stand in the way of Science.”

  “And publication,” Judit said dryly.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Forelle said. “If you help me with the child, I shall certainly list you as one of the coauthors. And you must bear the other possibility in mind, too. If she’s just a deformed mutant gabbling some known tongue in a way we didn’t recognize from the log, what fools we should look, announcing the discovery of the first true alien language! We can’t risk that, can we?” He smiled into space and went on, more to himself than to Judit, “It’s high time linguistics came into its own as a scientific discipline. We’ve been ridiculously hobbled all these years by a squeamish reluctance to experiment on human beings. Why, the entire critical-period theory of language learning could have been settled generations ago if someone had just had the fortitude to isolate a few dozen babies from human speech for ten or twenty years. It would be a beautifully controlled experiment, you see—take a child out every six months and expose it to language, and when they stop responding, you know the critical period has passed. Of course, one wouldn’t want to contaminate the test subjects by returning the exposed children, and one has to allow for sickness, and the need to duplicate results, so rather a large initial test group would be required. I’m sure that’s why my request for funding was turned down. Governments are so short-sighted about pure research. But this time I won’t need to wait for a grant. I’ve got the subject right here, at least I shall have as soon as that Glatt female is through with her puerile tests, and Amalgamated’s psycho-socialization lab is perfectly equipped for the examination.”

  Judit Kendoro bit her lip and reminded herself that she had been lucky to get out of the factories of Kezdet, lucky to win one of the very few technical school scholarships set aside for indigent students, even luckier to have a good job with Amalgamated that had paid off her sister Mercy’s bond and would, given just a few more months, see her little brother Pal through school and into a job of his own. Even forgetting the other considerations that kept her at Amalgamated, no one could possibly expect her to throw away all those years of hard work just because some foundling child might be scared by reliving a traumatic incident of her past. Besides, what could she do?

  “I’ll just see how they’re getting on with the child at TT&A,” she said.

  Dr. Forelle smiled. “Good idea. They’ve had her quite long enough. And you might bring the test results with you…not that I expect much from the clumsy, outmoded instruments that Glatt woman uses.”

  “We’ve completed the forms,” Gill said, leaning over Eva Glatt’s desk, “and we’ve come for Acorna. If you could just show us the way to the crèche?”

  Eva looked surprised. “Oh, you can’t take her now!”

  “Why not? She may be enjoying the chance to play with the other children, but I’m sure she will be wanting to see us by now.”

  “Playing? Other children? I’m afraid you have misunderstood. We’ve just begun testing her mental and psychological capacity. She’ll be in tests most of this day. Most of the week, probably. You wouldn’t be spending any more time with her in any case.”

  “We would not?” repeated Rafik. “I am sorry, that is not acceptable.”

  “She is used to us,” Calum said hastily, trying to smooth things over, “and…we’re kinda used to her, too. We figured, unless you located her people, she could just stay on with us. She’s already lost her parents. She doesn’t need to lose us, too.”

  Eva Glatt laughed merrily. “How sweet! But you really couldn’t expect to retain care of her, could you? Three mining engineers, isolated for years at a time…I’m sure you’ve done your best, but you hardly have the training and expertise to solve her special problems.”

  “Acorna doesn’t have any special problems,” Calum said angrily. “She’s a perfectly delightful little girl, and we like taking care of her. Oh, I’m not saying we might not have handed her over to a Company crèche if we’d been able to at the beginning. But she’s been with us nearly two years now. We’re her family. Of course we expect to continue taking care of her.”

  Eva laughed again. “Don’t be ridiculous. Even if the situation were not obviously unsuitable, your PPPs would invalidate any application for formal guardianship.”

  “PPPs?” Rafik repeated.

  “Personal Psychological Profiles,” Eva deigned to elucidate. “I pulled up the Amalgamated psych files on you. All three of you are classified as maladaptive personalities who are drawn to a lonely, high-risk profession such as asteroid prospecting by a combination of self-destructive traits and romantic thrill-seeking—”

  “Excuse me,” Rafik interrupted, “I do not, myself, recall that this company has administered any psychological tests to me. Calum? Gill?”

  The other two men shook their heads.

  “You just filled out the personnel forms,” Eva said patiently. “The computer analysis was routed to my mailbox immediately, since your personality problems may have a bearing on the child’s psychological problems. The results are much as I expected.”

  “Psychology! When we contracted with MME,” Gill said, “we reported to the Director of Mining Engineering, who was more interested in whether we knew how to handle an ultra-low-temp vacuum blasting unit than in what we saw in the inkblots.”

  “An outmoded attitude,” Eva said. “Amalgamated considers it of vital importance to see that only socially well-adapted personnel are retained in the trying conditions of space.”

  “And exactly how,” Rafik inquired sweetly, “did you come to this…conclusion…about our personalities?”

  “It’s self-evident,” Eva said. “Why else would you expose yourselves to the risks and loneliness of such a career, when you all score high enough in SGIQ—Stabilized Generalized Intelligence Quotient—and have more than enough education to obtain much better-paid administrative positions right here at company headquarters?”

  “More money,” Calum agreed gravely, “and the benefits of psychologically designed decor. Why indeed?”

  Eva looked at him uncertainly. “I…I’m glad you agree with me. You understand, then. The child is severely deformed and probably retarded as well—”

  A hissing noise distracted her for a moment, until Rafik took Gill by the elbow. “Do not interrupt, my friend,” he said. “We are all most interested in the lady doctor’s evaluation of Acorna, are we not?”

  “By height and weight charts, she is a reasonably well-nourished six-year-old,” Eva said, “but on the SLI—Standardized Language Interaction—she scored as a low two.”

  “By my own experience,” countered Gill, “she was an infant when we found her, and that was less than two years ago. She can’t be more than three or four years old.”

  “And her understanding of language is excellent,” Calum added. “If she’s lagging in expressive speech, it is probably because her brain is not wired for human language; she’s having to learn it analytically, not naturally as a human infant would.”

  “I’m glad to see you admit
she has brain problems,” Eva said quickly.

  “Differences,” Calum said, “not problems.”

  Eva fussed with her desk console for a moment. “Given the degree of language retardation, we next administered the Colquhoun Color-Matching Test, which is of course designed for much younger children. She displayed notable clumsiness in operating the cursor—”

  “Her fingers are lacking a joint,” Rafik pointed out. “Of course she has trouble with equipment designed for human hands. What are you testing for, intelligence or manual dexterity?”

  “The two have long been shown to be linked,” Eva retorted. “Every fool knows that a child is not ready for reading or computation until he can hop a straight line on one foot; it’s one of the standard crèche-readiness tests.”

  “Aye, I’m sure that is one of the things every fool knows,” Gill agreed with a heavy irony that escaped Eva. “Did you test her intelligence at all?”

  “Did you ask her to write a simple program for carbonyl reduction?”

  “Or to calculate the concentration of platinum-group metals in the regolith of an E-type chondrite?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Eva snapped. “Even if the child could perform such tasks, she must have learned them by rote. Doing such extremely age-inappropriate things is another sign of the social maladjustment we will cure after her deformities have been corrected. If she is to develop into an adaptively competent personality, her upbringing must be entrusted to experts who will understand how to help her compensate for her disabilities without requiring excessive achievement from her.”

  “And exactly what did you have in mind?” Rafik inquired politely.

  “Well, I—she must be tested more thoroughly first, of course—but I see no reason why she should not be trainable to hold a minimum-responsibility position in a sheltered workspace.”

  “Stacking trays in the company cafeteria,” Gill said.

  “Or folding linen,” Calum suggested.

  Eva flushed. “I’m not a miracle worker,” she snapped. “You’ve brought me a deformed, retarded child who has already suffered the effects of nearly two years in a socially maladaptive environment.”

  “I would not, myself, be so quick to be assuming the child is retarded,” said Calum. “Once you take your eyes away from the psychological tests long enough to observe that she is not human—which any competent biologist could verify for you—perhaps you will begin to understand that differences are not the same as defects. And yes, she has some problems with language and with manipulating equipment designed for humans. So? In any other field, Dr. Glatt, the expert is the one who knows how to solve problems, not the one who wails that they’re unsolvable.”

  A gleam of triumph appeared in Eva Glatt’s eyes. “As a matter of fact,” she said sweetly, “I am already preparing to solve some of the child’s problems. There’s no known surgical correction for the hand problem, but that disfiguring excrescence in the middle of her forehead can easily be removed.”

  “That—you mean you want to cut off her horn?” Gill exploded. “Woman, have you lost your wits? That’s not a deformity; it’s an integral part of her.”

  “Amalgamated’s on-site med team is quite capable of administering a local anesthetic and tying off any blood vessels that have infiltrated the deformity,” Eva said primly.

  “I think you do not understand.” Rafik leaned over Eva’s desk, his dark eyes flashing with intensity. “Acorna is…not…human. Differences are not deformities. And her race uses that horn. We’ve already learned that she can use it to purify air and water, and we suspect it’s integral to her metal-sensing abilities.”

  Eva sighed. “I think you three have been isolated too long. You’re beginning to hallucinate. What you suggest is not scientifically possible.”

  “We speak from our own experience,” Calum said.

  Eva tapped at her desk console. “In my capacity as head of TT&A, I shall recommend extended leave and a course of psychological adjustment for all of you before you are allowed to take out company property such as the Khedive again. My evaluation shows that you are not only socially maladaptive but seriously delusional.”

  Gill began to hiss through his clenched teeth again, but Rafik stopped him.

  “Never mind the minor insults, Gill. The first priority is to stop this nonsense of surgery on Acorna. The horn is an integral part of her. Without it she would be crippled…or worse. We will absolutely not, under any circumstances, give permission for an operation.”

  “I think you don’t understand. Acorna is no longer your problem. After surgery and remedial training, she is to be transferred to an orphanage pending identification of the parents who abandoned her.”

  “The devil she is!” Gill roared. “We’re taking her back. Now. Are you going to send for her, or do we go and get her?”

  “She was scheduled to go into surgery at 1330 hours,” Eva Glatt said. She glanced at her wrist unit. “It’s too late for you to make a fuss now.”

  “Relax, Gill,” Calum said after checking his own unit. “It’s only 1345 now. They’ll still be fiddling around with the anesthesia.” He perched on the corner of Eva Glatt’s desk, one arm casually draped over her console. “But I do think you had better tell us how to get to Surgery. Now!”

  A young woman with a wrist-thick braid of dark hair hanging over one shoulder stepped into the office. “I believe I can help you gentlemen with that,” she said. Her chest rose and fell as though she had just been running, but her manner was calm enough. “I’m going that way myself, as it happens.”

  “That,” said Gill, “would be very helpful. We’re in rather a hurry, though….” He steered the girl out into the hall, blocking her view of Eva Glatt’s desk, while Calum slipped behind the desk and stopped Eva from reaching for one of the recessed buttons in the desk console. “Rafik, go on ahead. I’ll bring this one—keep her under my eye so that she doesn’t get any ideas about calling Security.” He hauled Eva Glatt to her feet and clamped his free hand over her mouth.

  “Calum,” Rafik interjected, “we do not have time to drag a captive with us. And we do not wish to alarm our guard.” Eva Glatt’s eyes rolled up in her head as he approached and she sagged limply against Calum’s arm.

  “Well, that’s solved,” said Calum with relief. “She’s fainted.”

  “No,” Rafik said, “just weak with fear. I apologize for this,” he told Eva, who was now feebly struggling again, “but we do not have access to your more scientific methods of quieting people.” His fist tapped her forehead, so quickly she could hardly have seen the blow coming, and this time she fell back in the complete relaxation of true unconsciousness.

  Gill and the girl who’d offered to guide them were some distance ahead when they came out of the office, walking at a pace just short of a jog through the long curving corridor to the left. Rafik and Calum ran and caught up with them at an intersection where they had paused for a moment.

  “Running,” the girl said severely, “is likely to draw attention. Just walk as quickly as you can manage. I gather you three are the men who brought the alien foundling in, is that right?”

  “At least somebody around here understands she’s not of our kind,” Rafik said as they race-walked down the hall. “Yes. Acorna is ours. Or we are hers. Depending on how you look at it. And she must not be put through this surgery.”

  “Yes. My boss—Dr. Forelle—wants it stopped, too. He was to have called ahead, to make sure they delay until I get there with the orders to release her to our department.”

  “Just a minute!” Gill grabbed the girl by the upper arm. “She’s to be released to us, not to another department of this blasted company.”

  “You,” said the girl without slackening pace, “can’t get Eva Glatt’s orders for immediate surgery rescinded. I can.”

  “And who might you be?” Rafik asked.

  “Judit Kendoro, Psycholinguistics. I work for Dr. Alton Forelle.”

  “Saints defend us,”
Gill exclaimed, “is there nobody works for Amalgamated but head-shrinkers?”

  “Amalgamated decided to use the old MME base as headquarters for the research and personnel departments,” Judit explained. “They’re phasing out the independent mining operations; yours is one of the last contract groups to come in. Deliveries will be handled by drone and routed to other stations from now on.” Despite the speed they were making, she wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “Forelle,” Rafik said. “The man who wanted our logs of the first interaction?”

  “Yes. He believes—or hopes—she is a sapient alien.”

  “Then he’s on our side?”

  “I wouldn’t say that exactly.” Judit skidded to a halt just before a three-way intersection with corridors painted in different patterns of yellow and green stripes. “He doesn’t want her put through surgery before he has a chance to study her. What do you want with her?”

  “To take care of her,” Gill said.

  Judit looked him up and down for a long moment, then turned to Rafik. “I believe you mean that.”

  “Believe it,” said Rafik.

  “Then—” She glanced back the way they had come. Calum followed. Judit dropped her voice. “Don’t let Dr. Forelle get her. He’ll mine her brain for memories of language without caring what he does to the rest of her. It could be worse than the surgery.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “Is your ship ready to take off?”

  “We’ve just docked, we’d fuel and air to spare, no repairs scheduled…”

  “Then this,” Judit said, “is what we do next.” She outlined her idea.

  “You trust us easily,” Rafik commented when she had finished.

  “One must trust somebody,” Judit said, “and…I had been listening for a few minutes outside the door before I interrupted you in Dr. Glatt’s office. Incidentally, dare I hope that you gagged her?”

  “No time,” Calum said, catching up with them. “Knocked her out.”

  “Good.”