Acorna: The Unicorn Girl (1998)

Acorna: The Unicorn Girl (1997) is a science fantasy novel by American writers Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball. It is the first book in the Acorna Universe series. McCaffrey and Ball wrote the sequel Acorna's Quest after which McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough extended the series almost annually from 1999 to 2007.

Plot summary

Synopsis

Acorna is found in an unusual escape pod by three galactic miners, Gill, Rafik, and Calum. Raised by the three unlikely foster fathers, Acorna, a unicorn girl, matures almost to adulthood within three years. While she is growing up, the miners discover that their 'daughter' has magical powers such as the ability to clean air and water, heal the sick, and detect the slightest scent. Furthermore, she is extraordinarily smart, picking up everything quickly, but her unique looks and special powers make her an object of desire by many, be it for scientific studies or a rare-item collection, or sex. Gill, Rafik, and Calum, who are determined to protect their beloved Acorna at all cost, are forced to flee all over the galaxy to avoid her pursuers. The book chronicles their adventures together as they travel from system to system, planet to planet, eventually finding a planet that thrives on illegal child slavery. Acorna is not about to let that continue without a fight, and she vows to free every last child on the planet.

Infancy

The story opens with Acorna's parents' spaceship being chased by the Khleevii, insect-like creatures who have preyed on the Linyaari race for some time. The little spaceship has nowhere else to run and the despairing parents take desperate measures. Knowing that the Khleevii torture their captives, they decide to take a fatal dose of the soporific abaanye, setting a compression device, that will destroy their cruiser (and anything else in its proximity), when the Khleevii spaceship comes close. They place their sedated youngling in a lifepod and eject it just before the defensive weapon triggers. She will have a chance of rescue if the lifepod is not destroyed with her parents' spaceship and that of the attackers. Otherwise, her dose of abaanye will keep her asleep until the air supply runs out and she asphyxiates.

The lifepod is transported by the compression event to an asteroid belt which is being mined by Declan "Gill" Giloglie the Third, Rafik Nadezda and Calum Baird in their ship, the Khedive. Detecting life-signs in the lifepod, they bring it on board and open it, thus discovering the alien occupant, the Linyaari infant they name Acorna.

The asteroid miners elect to continue working until they have an economic payload and then return to "base", Mercantile Mining and Exploration, to whom they are contracted. This decision probably saves Acorna from a fate worse than death. Before their return to MME, it is absorbed by Amalgamated Manufacturing, a rival corporation notorious for its questionable business practices.

Acorna is found to have unique abilities: she can purify water and air, apparently through the use of her horn, a spiral protuberance in the centre of her forehead. Although she is humanoid, she has equine features, a silvery mane of hair and hoof-like feet. Her vocalisations are somewhat horse-like and her diet is exclusively vegetarian. Initially, she attempts to communicate in her native tongue, but soon adopts Basic, the standard language of the Federated Sentient Planets.

Although she asks for "Avi", which the miners realise must mean her mother, later also stating that "Lalli" was on board the spaceship from which her lifepod was ejected, her foster fathers do not realise the extent of her language development and allow her to lose her earlier vocabulary. When Acorna is given writing materials, she seems to produce similar script to that embellishing the lifepod, but the miners do not recognise the significance of this knowledge and it falls into disuse. Acorna learns to read and write Basic instead.

She matures quickly, learns rapidly and appears to have innate mathematical talents. It is discovered that she can also sense the mineral composition of the asteroids her foster fathers are mining, detecting rhenium, a desirable resource, in "Daffodil", currently being mined. This makes her contribution to the mining venture invaluable. By the time the Khedive has a full cargo hold and the miners decide to return to "base", Acorna is an active, working member of the crew, having been with her adopted family for nearly two years when the Khedive returns to the former MME Base.

Early childhood

The Khedive docks at the Amalgamated Manufacturing Base to unload its cargo and take on supplies. The miners have notified Base of their adopted child and while they are attending to bureaucratic procedures, Dr. Eva Glatt, a member of the Testing, Therapy and Adjustment Department, takes charge of Acorna. Glatt makes assumptions about Acorna, based on her assessment of human children, concluding that Acorna has deformities, arrested development and mental deficiencies.

Dr. Alton Forelle, a psycholinguist, recognises that Acorna may be a member of an alien species and is determined to experiment on her to further his theories on linguistic development, hoping that this work will earn him a university post. His assistant, Judit Kendoro, has sympathy for the child, but feels powerless to prevent the scientific investigations proposed.

Meanwhile, having completed the questionnaires and ancillary paperwork, the miners seek out Glatt in order to have Acorna returned to them. Glatt assures them that they are unsuitable as custodians of the child, explaining that the Personal Psychological Profiles of the miners show that Gill, Rafik and Calum are invalid guardians, based on their "obvious" problems, as evidenced by their occupation and concomitant lifestyle. Acorna wants surgical corrections for her differences and the removal of her horn is imminent.