'Wait a bleeding minute!' Calum jumped to his feet. My people estimate it will take at least four weeks to be certain that the new defenses are accurately installed this time.' But right now' - and he looked directly at Acorna and then Calum, shaking his head sadly - 'the worst problem is that of reinstalling and testing the Acadecki's defense system. 'Supplies and munitions are still not completed. Pal continued inexorably to read on from the notepad in his hand. But couldn't they see that Calum needed to complete his quest for her home planet - and that she needed to find her own people before she could be content anywhere? Gill and Judit were happily settled now, overseeing the care and education of the bondchildren still arriving to study and work at Maganos and Rafik was presumably satisfied with his new career as assistant and heir apparent to his uncle Hafiz, the head of House Harakamian. Acorna understood why some of her friends were reluctant to see the Acadecki depart. The sooner Acorna could release Calum from that self-imposed quest, the sooner he and Mercy could marry. He considered finding her home world his first duty to her, even before his love for Mercy. She tried to compose herself, remembering that it was probably even worse for Calum. Theneed for earth and sky and open space was becoming almost an obsession for her as the meetingdragged on - just as dreaming up all these newways to stop her and Calum from starting on theirmission to find her species' home world had becomean obsession for Pal. Maganos, Unified Federation Date 334.05.11Īcorna's office in the Dehoney facility onMaganos Moon Base was far too full forher comfort, and the meeting had beengoing on so long that she was developing an alluring fantasy about escaping the comfort of the basefor the freedom of a good planetside gallop - anyplanet, anywhere, just so it offered her clean firmearth to run on and a horizon very far away. The Linyaari are roaming the galaxy, spreading the alarm about the deadly Khleev-And searching for a beloved little girl they had given up for lost, long ago. No sooner does she leave than a mysterious craft appears, piloted by the Linyaari, a gentle race with telepathic powers. With her 'Uncle' Calum, one of the three grizzled asteroid prospectors who rescued, protected, and raised her, she sets off to find her people.

And, she still has her miraculous ability to make plants grow and heal human sickness.īut Acorna has strange dreams of a gentle folk who mind-speak by touching horns. She still has her tiny, translucent horn, and her 'funny' feet and hands.

A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fictionįound as an infant drifting in space, Acorna, the Unicorn Girl, has become a young woman.

200 Significant SF Books by Women, 1984-2001.

Acorna books