Second Wave Read online

  SECOND WAVE

  Acorna’s Children

  ANNE McCAFFREY

  and

  ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH

  This book is dedicated to the owners,

  Julie and David McCulloch, and staff of the

  Elevated Ice Cream Company and Candy Shop of

  Port Townsend, Washington,

  where much of this book was written.

  Our characters seem to really enjoy joining us and the laptop

  in the plush booths with the red tabletops and telling us

  about their adventures while we drink green tea

  and eat Guittard dark chocolate ribbons.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  The scream awakened Khorii from a deep and well-earned sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Khorii reached under the table and retrieved Khiindi, something that…

  Chapter 3

  You need more rest, Khorii,” Jaya said. “You’ve been working…

  Chapter 4

  I told you the trip would tire you,” Elviiz scolded.

  Chapter 5

  Paloduro and its sibling planets, Rio Boca and Dinero Grande,…

  Chapter 6

  Hey, gang, come aboard! You got to hear this. Hafiz…

  Chapter 7

  Seeing her human grandfathers made Khorii more homesick for her…

  Chapter 8

  Narhii is not going in that thing alone,” Hruffli said.

  Chapter 9

  No, Khorii!” Elviiz said, holding her back when she would…

  Chapter 10

  For the first time, Narhii felt like kicking and screaming,…

  Chapter 11

  Every world between LoiLoiKua and Paloduro reported itself clear of…

  Chapter 12

  Although an orphan, Marl Fidd was not without connections. He…

  Chapter 13

  Khorii had imagined that without Elviiz or Marl aboard, life…

  Chapter 14

  No wonder all the children were crying!” Khorii said aloud…

  Chapter 15

  It is she, as I saw it would be!” An…

  Chapter 16

  The brilliant thing about going straight to jail was that…

  Chapter 17

  But I want to see them-in person,” Narhii argued.

  Chapter 18

  As more and more of her new family returned from…

  Chapter 19

  Marl blinked hard, looked away, purposefully tracked the Mana’s progress…

  Chapter 20

  Elviiz could not seem to power down. He should have…

  Chapter 21

  The truth was, as long as Khorii was busy in…

  Chapter 22

  Moonmay Marsden approached Khorii, a basket hanging from the crook…

  Chapter 23

  Congratulations, Elviiz, you’re finally a real boy.” Elviiz looked up,…

  Chapter 24

  Khorii didn’t have to ask Khiindi what his problem was,…

  Chapter 25

  What are you doing here, Marl?” Khorii demanded, trying to…

  Chapter 26

  If that ain’t just like an offsider,” a rough-edged…

  Chapter 27

  The settlers of Rushima were delighted to receive their overdue…

  Chapter 28

  The Mana was a much more interesting ship than the…

  Chapter 29

  Captain Becker’s storage asteroid was on the outermost fringe of…

  Chapter 30

  Linyaari environmental suits were less bulky than those the humans…

  Chapter 31

  They must have saved the ballroom for dessert,” Captain Bates…

  Chapter 32

  Nisa started to stand. You’re a right bastard, Coco, she…

  Chapter 33

  He’s not really a brutal captain, as the breed goes,"…

  Glossary of Terms and Proper Names in the Acorna Universe

  Brief Notes on the Linyaari Language

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Other Books in the Acorna Series

  Credits

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  The scream awakened Khorii from a deep and well-earned sleep. Swinging her feet out of bed, she stood for a moment, disoriented, trying to determine the source. Had she dreamed it? But, no, there it was again. Childish, high-pitched, feminine, and—invasive. It was in Khorii’s mind as well as in her ears.

  Sesseli!

  She ran for the door to her room and tripped over the cat.

  “Khiindi Kaat, please move,” she said to the smallish, fluffy, gray-striped cat who gave her an offended look. After all, she had assaulted him just when he was setting about on his errand of mercy to see what was making his friend Sesseli scream like that. If only these stupid bipeds didn’t find it necessary to put doors in one’s way.

  Khorii lifted him with her hoof and moved him to one side so she could open the door.

  Finally! Khiindi thought.

  He sprinted out ahead of her down the hall to the dormitory room occupied by their young friend, the charming six-going-on-seven-year-old Sesseli, an orphan from Maganos Moonbase.

  Khorii yanked open Sesseli’s door and ran in, expecting to find the child injured at the very least. Possibly worse. Instead, Sesseli was standing at her rain-streaked window, which overlooked the former town square of the mostly deserted city of Corazon. Khorii thought at first that perhaps a thunderclap or a particularly close bolt of lightning had frightened the child. But in that case, wouldn’t she be backing away from the window instead of crowding close to it? Besides, the soundproofing in the dormitory was excellent, and Khorii herself hadn’t heard any thunder. The monsoon outside sounded like nothing more than the patter of rain on her own window.

  “What is it, Sess?” she asked, using thought-talk so as not to startle the child further. Khorii was an expert at thought-talk—all adult members of the Linyaari were. Khorii’s whole home planet routinely communicated that way. Sesseli, though human rather than Linyaari, was herself a telepath with telekinetic abilities. Like Khorii and Khiindi, she was a member of the very young crew of the Mana, a supply ship whose crew and former owners had all died in the recent space plague with the exception of Jaya, the captain-in-training.

  The captain now in charge, former astronavigation instructor Asha Bates, was right behind Khorii, entering the room so fast she stepped on Khiindi’s tail. With a yowl that made Sesseli jump, Khiindi hopped on the bed, out of the way of clumsy feet, and from there was scooped up by Sesseli, who buried her face in his fur.

  “It moved,” the child said. “It moved all by itself. I didn’t make it, honest.”

  “What moved, sweetie?” Captain Bates asked, stepping around Khorii to join Sesseli at the window.

  “That. The marker,” she said, pointing. The former city square had become the final resting place for masses of the plague victims, each huge grave marked by a plascrete stone with the pictures of each dead face—or if the face was too far gone to be identifiable, some other identifying object—a ring, a watch, an amulet or scrap of clothing. The names of those who could be identified before burial were also attached. For fear of the horrible disease that had swept the galaxy, these dead could never be given more individual burials, but at least any surviving descendants who showed up later would be able to learn the fate of their relatives or friends. It was the best the children and mostly elderly adults remaining in Corazon, as in other stricken areas, could do for the less fortunate.

  “It is probably just the rain, Sesseli,” Khorii said, trying to reassure her. �
��It got muddy enough around the marker to loosen its moorings and it slipped.”

  “Or could it have been looters?” Captain Bates asked. “Maybe they were messing around there and destabilized the stone, so it shifted as the ground settled or something. That could have been what you saw, pet.”

  “Unless there’s another telekinetic around here we don’t know about,” Hap Hellstrom said from behind Khorii. Like the others, Hap was part of the Mana’s crew. All of them except Jaya had boarded the stranded supply ship while it orbited Maganos Moonbase, forbidden by the school’s administrators from landing. The school on the moonbase and all the students and teachers as well as the moonbase’s managers, Khorii’s human grandfathers, Calum Baird and Declan Giloglie, and their wives, were fine. The rescue party from Khorii’s home planet, Vhiliinyar, had, with her help, scoured the moonbase and its nearest world, Kezdet, eradicating all traces of the plague, which had not yet become entrenched there.

  Paloduro, the planet of which Corazon was the chief city, was where the plague had seemed to originate. It had been cleansed by Khorii’s parents before they became so exhausted they contracted a mutant form of the illness, which made them carriers. They had returned to Vhiliinyar with their human friend Captain Becker, his feline first mate, Roadkill, suspected sire of Khiindi, and his android first mate Maak, creator-father of Khorii’s android friend, tutor, protector, adopted brother, and often her main source of annoyance, Elviiz.

  Elviiz, who had appeared in the doorway beside Hap at the same time as Jaya, said, “I will go there now and determine the validity of Captain Bates’s hypothesis.” He didn’t always talk like that but just after he recharged, he always seemed to express himself in that annoyingly I-can-store-and-process-gigabillions-more-bits-of-information-gigabillions-of-times-faster-than-any-of-you-mere-human-gits way.

  But in this case he was making himself useful, so Khorii didn’t mind. She sat on the bed and pulled Sesseli and Khiindi into her lap, then she laid her horn against Sesseli’s fluffy blond head. The short golden spiraling horn in the middle of her forehead allowed Khorii and other Linyaari to heal trauma, pain, injury, and illness to a degree that seemed miraculous to most humans.

  “It wasn’t just a bad dream, Khorii,” the little girl told her privately. “I woke up and went to pee and stopped to look out the window on my way back to bed. I saw it move, plain as day.”

  The wind and rain made the night and the city streets and buildings dark. But although most of the city’s bright lights had died with its people, the survivors kept the central graveyard well lit so that no one would venture there by mistake. As Captain Bates had mentioned, the ground was still settling from the excavation of the mass graves and it would be far too dangerous for a living person to fall into a sinkhole and land among the dead. Though Khorii’s parents and later others of the Linyaari rescue team had cleansed the dead of contamination, one never knew and, besides, the experience would be enough to give one of the child survivors of the recent tragedy nightmares for a lifetime, given what they had already endured.

  Through the window, Khorii saw Elviiz. His silvery white mane, normally thick and fluffy on top and extending down the sides of his face, was instantly drenched flat the moment he stepped into the street. He walked as if there were no rain at all, and indeed his shipsuit was impervious to moisture, and his extra weight and strength let him walk easily, even against the strong wind. He stopped on the sidewalk surrounding the cemetery. Although the graves were recent, vegetation grew quickly because of the hot and humid climate of Corazon, and the graves were already covered by grasses and tropical wildflowers, even low bushes and ivy in places. Except for the marker stones, it looked very lush and inviting to someone who, like Khorii, was a grazer, but she would starve before she’d ever eat any of those plants.

  Elviiz did not proceed into the graveyard itself, but stood on the edge and scanned the glistening vegetation and muddy ground. He had optical sensors that could determine things like soil density and depth, and because he was not entirely flesh and blood, he was much heavier than a normal boy his size. If there were sinkholes, he’d be likely to fall in one, and he was smart enough to know that.

  After a few minutes he crossed the street again and returned to the dormitory.

  Elviiz, Khiindi, and Khorii had been staying in the dormitory of the University Paloduro for the past three nights while she took her mandatory rest from her plague-hunting duties. As the only Linyaari with the ability actually to see the disease organisms, her presence was critical to the plague eradication effort. But she, like all Linyaari, was required to rest after every major operation so that she did not end up as a carrier, as her parents had. So although her horn was still perfectly opaque, and after the first night she hadn’t even felt very tired, she more than any of the others understood the necessity for the rest period.

  She had returned to Corazon because it was the last place she’d seen her family and because all of her new friends were there. With so few uncontaminated resources and places available to the survivors, a brilliant young man named Jalonzo, his grandmother Abuelita, and some of his game-playing friends had taken up residence in the university’s dormitory. Jalonzo, Hap, and Jaya had been working on a vaccine for the plague, something that would be available when the Linyaari all returned home. In fact, they had been very excited yesterday by one formula they had concocted and had talked of nothing else all afternoon. They were the ones who had suggested moving into the dormitory because it was convenient to the well-equipped university research laboratory Khorii had meticulously cleansed for them.

  By the time Elviiz returned to Sesseli’s room, he was perfectly dry again and accompanied by Jalonzo, who was asking him a number of technical questions about his observations. A few minutes later, Abuelita showed up. “Since everyone is already awake, we may as well take this meeting to the common room. I’ll make cocoa, and perhaps that will help you all return to sleep.”

  They walked together to the common room, Captain Bates holding Sesseli’s hand. Khiindi leaped onto Khorii’s shoulders as she caught up with Elviiz and Jalonzo. “What caused the shifting?” she asked. “Did you find out?”

  “Naturally, I discovered the cause of the displacement of the monuments—Sesseli only saw one, but several have moved from their original positions as my sensors could detect from the moisture and compactness of the soil beneath the stones as well as some breakage of surrounding vegetation. I have compiled a list of the plants involved and their specific areas of injury if that would be of use?”

  “Not right now, Elviiz. You were going to tell us what made the stones move?”

  “It was as I suspected. The ground has shifted and subsided with the increased soil density from the rain. In fact, quite substantial sinkholes have developed over the affected graves. In one case, the stone actually fell into the grave. I did not attempt to retrieve it because of the possibility of contaminating myself.”

  “Good thinking,” Jalonzo said. But of course, good thinking was the only kind that Elviiz did.

  The common room was meant to stimulate minds and bodies and at the same time provide a comfortable area to study amid the din created by other students playing games, eating, and talking. Tables and chairs brightly painted with flowers and birds sat in the middle of a green area rug with borders of lime and aqua. Twisted sculptures of glass provided light for the space, supplemented with smaller lights in each of the padded booths lining two walls. Their upholstery matched the rug. The walls were a golden orange with arched holes sculpted into them—nichos, they were called. These contained trophies, portraits, and other artwork made by students mostly now among the dead. Masks both grotesque and comic were numerous, as were brilliantly floral-embellished animal figures and alien-looking monsters. A Ping-Pong table, for a game Captain Joh Becker described as being more ancient than the ruins of Terra, stood there with its ridiculous little net strung across the center and its balls and paddles carelessly tossed onto the surfa
ce, waiting for the next players. A snooker table balanced the Ping-Pong one on the opposite side of the long, shuttered cantina window, which was used to provide students with casual meals and snacks. The shutters were painted bright blue and decorated with intricate street scenes of Corazon at carnivale, the festive weekslong celebration that had ended when the plague arrived to strike down the revelers.

  Khorii and her friends chose a table nearest the cafeteria, where Abuelita was preparing her specialty, a delicious hot cinnamon-and-pepper-laced chocolate beverage. Jalonzo did not sit, but went to the kitchen and returned with a tray of the frothy drinks. Abuelita followed him, wiping her hands on a bib apron to keep her bed gown tidy. Because decontamination cost the Linyaari dearly in terms of their strength and energy, survivors kept their possessions and wardrobes to a minimum. When Jalonzo and the others developed another effective cleansing process, there would be time enough to reclaim less critical items from all their abandoned homes, offices, and businesses.

  The Linyaari, for whom clothing was optional, took the word of the survivors about what was essential and what was not for each of them. In Abuelita’s case, clearly a bed gown and apron were necessary.

  When Elviiz had shared his findings with everyone while they sipped their chocolate, Abuelita ran a hand over Sesseli’s blond curls as if to smooth them, which wasn’t actually possible. Nothing short of genetic modification would smooth those curls out. “You see, chica, it was nothing to fear. Merely a natural thing.”