Acorna’s Search Read Online Free PDF Page B

damaged by the juices. Aari rubbed the nub of his still stunted horn gently across the red and weeping stumps of RK’s ears. Maati and Thariinye used their horns to close and heal all of the lesions and restore life to the cat’s damaged exterior, though Thariinye winced in sympathy as he did so.
    As RK’s breathing returned to normal and his pulse grew stronger, he began to shiver, and Acorna stripped off her shirt and wrapped it around the cat. “Even though the night is warm, he’s chilling without his fur,” she fussed maternally, and felt a brief flash of affectionate amusement from Aari. Handing RK to Maati, who rocked the cat as if he were a baby and crooned to him, she and Aari returned to the plant she had horned. She sank her horn into it again, stabbing it repeatedly, while Aari pulled and tore at it, until they wrenched the top half of the plant free from the rest of its stalk and carried it back to the flitter.
    Thariinye had already begun to strike camp. The Linyaari had needed no thought-talk to be in common accord that they would not remain in this spot for another moment. They were better off in the destroyed stone canyons than here. They needed a less exposed area for RK to finish healing in. Besides, the aagronis should have the specimen of the plant they’d found to analyze immediately. It was time to head back to the base camp.
    Was the strange plant that had nearly killed RK a mutation of some more benign plant that had once grown on Vhiliinyar? Or was it perhaps an infestation that had been a farewell gift from the Khleevi? Best to have it analyzed while the sample was still fresh.
    En route, they tried several times to alert the base camp of their unexpected arrival, but surprisingly could rouse no response on their com unit.
    “Why doesn’t anyone answer us?” Maati asked the first time their hail was ignored. “That’s funny. I thought Mother said they were going to monitor the com around the clock. Maybe the scientists got their noses into experiments and are ignoring it.”
    But their subsequent attempts at communication were also unanswered. Acorna once hailed her aunt’s flitter to see if their com unit was functioning. It was—Neeva replied in a sleepy voice. Their party had not tried to reach the base camp and so far their assignment had proven uneventful. Her aunt offered help and shared her concern, even though she tried to sound reassuring.
    “I’ll try them from here and let you know if we reach them, Khornya,” Neeva promised. “Your site is a great deal farther out than many of ours. Perhaps we miscalculated the range of the flitter transmitters?”
    But even as the flitter neared the base camp their hails went unanswered.
    When they touched down on the site of the former Linyaari graveyard, everything was as still as it had been when the bones of the ancestors were the only inhabitants of the place.
    The base camp was dark, the double pavilion provided by House Harakamian for the laboratory silent except for the vague snatches of dreams Acorna caught coming from the inhabitants. Normally Acorna was not able to pick up dreams, but Vhiliinyar was so abnormally quiet, the unguarded thoughts of those who slept were like sharp bursts of song from startled birds.
    “They posted no guard,” Aari said. “Unbelievable.”
    (Son! Maati!) His mother woke all at once and sat up on her sleeping pallet. He could see her in his mind’s eye, and through him, Acorna saw her, too. (What is it?)
    (We need your advice, Mother. A hostile plant attacked RK and nearly devoured him.)
    (What sort of plant?) This was the aagroni, his thought voice husky with troubled sleep, and brusque with trying to separate what he was hearing from his dreams.
    (Not of Linyaari origin that I can tell, aagroni .) Aari, the only one of their team to have lived extensively on Vhiliinyar, was the obvious one to answer. (Perhaps it is a mutation?)
    (Or some Khleevi monstrosity left behind!) the aagroni