Anne McCaffrey - Acorna 6 - Acorna's Rebels

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Acorna's Rebels

ANNE MCCAFFREY

And

ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH

An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers ACORNA'S REBELS.

Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without

written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles

and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd

Street, New York, NY 10022.

HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional

use.

For information please write:

Special Markets Department,

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.,

10 East 53rd Street,

New York, NY 10022.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCaffrey, Anne. Acorna's rebels/Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.

— 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-380-97899-7

1. Acorna (Fictitious character) — Fiction. 2. Young women —Fiction. 3. Unicorns—

Fiction. I. Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann II. Title.

PS3563.A255 A6325 2003

813'.54-dc21 2002073873

03 04 05 06 07 JTC/QWM 10 987654321

In loving memory of Donald Dean Scarborough

Acknowledgments

Thanks again to Rick Reaser for science, salvage, and

cultural consultation regarding Linyaari birth disks.

Thanks also to Martin H. Greenberg for his support of

the Acorna books, and to Denise Little, our editor at

Teknobooks, for her careful editing and suggestions.

Thanks also to Diana Gill, our editor at HarperCollins,

for her suggestions on how to improve the book.

One

The mountains were still not right. Oh, the peaks

soared majestically enough. Gaali, a huge crest

translucent with snow and deep blue glaciers, loomed

above the purple-blue cone of Zaami, which nestled

between it and the rugged, sharp-edged icy summit of

Kaahi, the only one of the three massive slopes ever to

have been scaled.

These peaks had an almost mystical significance to

Acorna's people, the Linyaari. They were the top of the

world, and Our Star's progress from one side of Gaali's

peak to the other had once divided a Linyaari day as the

rising of moons did on other planets. The sight of the

rugged mountains against the horizon had meant home

to the Linyaari—until their world was invaded by an

alien race, the Khleevi. The Khleevi had destroyed

everything in their path, even the highest mountains on

Vhiliinyar, the native planet of the Linyaari.

Many of the Linyaari recovery teams working on their

ravaged homeworld had recently seen their mountains

again, beautiful and whole. Caught up in the alien

machinery of a long-buried ancient city there, they had

been trapped and snatched into their planet's past.

Returning time travelers brought back sketches, notes,

specimens, even vids of the peaks, but Acorna could not

reconcile any of their images perfectly with the holo

program that would form the basis for the re-formation

of the peaks.

"You've redone that range twenty times if you've done

it once, Princess. Give it a rest," said Jonas Becker, CEO

of Becker Interplanetary Recycling and Salvage

Enterprises Ltd., and captain of the firm's flag and only

ship, the Condor.

"It's as if every person who has seen those mountains

has seen different ones, Captain," Acorna said. "No

matter how we build them, someone will be

disappointed or think there is something we have left

out."

"We'll just put all the controversial stuff at the top of

the high one, then." He shrugged. "That way if they

want to nitpick they'll have to either climb it or land on

it to find fault."

"Maybe. But they are already rebuilding our home

more slowly than most people truly wish because of

Aari and me. I want everything to be just right when

each feature of old Vhiliinyar is reinstated."

"You are really something," Becker said, shaking his

head. "You look like you haven't finished high school,

yet you're trying to push mountain ranges around and

tell forests how to grow because you also think you can

tell people what to see when they look at them? Give it

up, Princess. It wasn't just because of Aari that your

people decided to take the more conservative approach

to re-terraforming Vhiliinyar. Expense entered into it,

and truly owning their home, and all that other stuff

Kaalmi Vroniiyi and the Ancestors talked about at the

last Council meeting. It's time for you to let go a little.

You have to do something besides work and hang out at

the time machine in case Aari pops up."

"I do other things!" Acorna said with a little jut of her

lower lip. "I go for long walks. I talk with the Ancestors

and the Elders. I make notes of how the environment is

trying to heal itself from the Khleevi damage."

At that moment a piece of debris flew between them

on an ill-tempered breeze blowing through the ancient

city. Though the breeze was nothing like the high

roaring winds that plagued Vhiliinyar's barren surface

these days, it carried blades of ice in it nonetheless. The

debris was pounced on and subdued immediately by

Becker's first mate, a Makahomian Temple cat Becker

called Roadkill, or RK. Being the second in command on

a salvage ship, RK was a highly skilled professional

when it came to collecting junk. However, in this case,

once he had pounced on the object, which turned out to

be a crumpled list of specimens collected by aagroni Iirtyi

in different eras of Vhiliinyar history, the paper's lack of

resistance bored the cat.

Abandoning his prey, RK strolled over to greet

Acorna, leaped onto her shoulder, and walked across

her chest. Purring madly, he rubbed his face against the

tablet she held. She finally released it and rubbed his

chops, which had been his master plan all along, she

suspected.

Becker continued his own blandishments. "Going for a

walk isn't like really going anywhere. You haven't even

visited MOO in over six weeks. Hafiz has summoned

RK and me to visit him there, and we're about to board

the Condor now. Come on with us. Mac would love to

see you. Besides, if there's salvage to haul, we'll be

shorthanded without Aari. We could really use your

help. My back has been acting up lately." The very able-

bodied veteran spacefarer rubbed the small of his back

and groaned, while watching her from slitted eyes to see

if she was looking sympathetic.

She laughed. "Oh, very well, Captain. I take it that you

are not employing your acting skills because you wish

me to heal your 'bad back,' but because you're so

flatteringly desperate for my company, such as it is these

days. Let me tell Maati and the others I'm going, leave a

few notes for them on how to continue my work here,

get some things together, and I'll be right with you."

As soon as they were back in space Acorna realized

that Becker had been right to lure her away from the

planet. Back on Vhiliinyar, no matter how hard she

worked, she always kept one part of her focus on the

people around her, secretly waiting for someone to say

they'd seen him—coming out of the lake or near the time

device or ... somewhere.

Here on the Condor, with Becker, Mac, and the cat, it

was almost like the impossibly recent good old days

when they had all been together. Except now there was

someone definitely missing. Aari's absence was still all

too painful to her.

One nice thing about the Condor was that, since Becker

was continually patching it up with salvaged parts and

pieces, it never actually looked the same, outside or in,

two trips in a row. Something always needed to be

repaired or replaced, and Becker had a particular talent

for integrating the mechanical and electronic equipment

of far-flung alien cultures so that it blended together into

the intergalactic hash that was his vessel.

On this trip she recognized some hull modifications

made with bits of salvaged Linyaari ships—the gaily

painted and gilded loops and flowers made the skin of

the Condor resemble a patchwork quilt. Becker seemed to

have had a bit of trouble with the control panel, too. A

part of the current module had been salvaged from a

Khleevi vessel. The Khleevi controls were designed to be

manipulated by widely spaced pincers and were sized

for a very large being, instead of human or Linyaari

hands. Becker had rigged sticks with pulleys that

operated pincers at the ends of them for performing

certain functions at the control panel. Acorna wasn't

sure she wanted to know what those functions were.

As the ship approached MOO, she felt her anxiety

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Acorna'sRebelsANNEMCCAFFREYAndELIZABETHANNSCARBOROUGH2AnImprintofHarperCollinsPublishersACORNA'SREBELS.Copyright©2003byAnneMcCaffreyandElizabethAnnScarborough.Allrightsreserved.PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica.Nopartofthisbookmaybeusedorreproducedinanymannerwhatsoeverwithoutwrittenpermissionexcepti...

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