Acorna’s Search Read Online Free PDF

plaintive meows to show what he thought of the feline sanitary facilities available at the campsite. Instead of plunging into the growth, he began to skirt it, his ears still flattened, his tail twitching with frustration, searching for a way to conceal himself without having to actually step between the plants.
    Acorna and Aari observed their former shipmate, amused. (We won’t watch,) Acorna promised RK.
    This produced no visible change in the cat’s behavior, but in a moment he disappeared from sight and the Linyaari couple concluded he had found what he was looking for.
    Then an earsplitting yowl burst from the greenery several yards to the left of the campsite.
    Acorna and Aari jumped to their feet, stumbling over the rocks in the dark. Acorna fell heavily and scraped the skin from her right arm and knee.
    Aari turned back to her, his horn lowered to help with the healing, but Acorna waved him on urgently.
    (This will keep. See to RK. Help him!) she insisted above the cat’s caterwauling as she climbed painfully to her feet. (That does not sound like a cat bellyache to me.)
    She brushed her wounded arm over her horn but the cat screamed before she could touch her leg. Her wound could wait. Something was very wrong with RK. She moved as fast as she could toward the noise. Sounds of thrashing and howling, snarling and more shrieks and screams rang through the night as she limped forward to see one of the tall plants whipping a furry tail back and forth in the air. Nothing remained evident of RK but his furious cries and his tail. A huge green bulbous protuberance on the plant concealed the rest of the cat.
    Aari leapt for the lashing tail but it whipped out of his grasp.
    They had no weapons handy, no implements or utensils that would be useful in destroying the plant. And RK’s cries were growing weaker, strangled, more pitiful. They had to do something…now!
    Acorna grabbed the stalk in both hands and plunged the tip of her horn into it, deeply. Her assault split the stalk. Thus weakened, its top half dropped. Acorna caught the broken plant bulb in her hands, preventing it—and RK—from hitting the rocks.
    Thariinye and Maati, awakened by the commotion, joined their friends, which was just as well, since it took the strength of them all to pry open the bulb of the plant from around RK.
    First they saw nothing but his tail, then his writhing back end, the legs jerking and claws churning. But the cat’s legs and flanks were denuded of fur, and raw looking. They could scarcely bear to look as they pried the rest of the plant loose from the animal.
    Digestive acids had caused great burns on poor RK’s affected hide. But the cat wouldn’t give up the fight. He still had the strength to squirm so hard that it took all four of them to restrain him while pulling him free of the plant.
    (We might have known the only living things the Khleevi would leave behind would be carnivorous plants!) Acorna said. Some of the other plants seemed to leer at them in the dark.
    They pulled the injured cat back onto the rocks with them, where all four began laying on horns to poor RK’s denuded and sore-covered body. His ears were the worst casualties of his adventure, and his nose was deeply burned. The cat choked and coughed, making strangling noises, as his throat swelled.
    Naturally, for RK’s mouth had been wide open as the cat shrieked his anguish and rage while the plant’s digestive juices poured in to make a meal of him. Acorna, as gently as possible, pried the cat’s muzzle open and inserted the tip of her horn to heal as much of the damage as she could.
    In order for all four well-grown Linyaari to bend over one Makahomian Temple Cat, however large and fierce it was for its species, it required a certain amount of contortion that would have been comical to an outside observer. Acorna squatted down so that she put no pressure on her horn as it healed the cat’s mucous membrane, lungs, esophagus, and other internal organs