[Acorna 08] - First Warning: Acorna's Children (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

by Anne McCaffrey

  ki-lin—Oriental term for unicorn, also a name sometimes associated with Acorna.

  Kilumbemba Empire—an entire society that raises and exports mercenaries for hire—the Red Bracelets.

  Kisla Manjari—anorexic and snobbish young woman, raised as daughter of Baron Manjari; shattered when through Acorna’s efforts to help the children of Kezdet her father is ruined and the truth of her lowly birth is revealed.

  Kmal Madari—a child saved from slavery in a mine on Kezdet, he grew up to become a midshipman in the planet’s space force.

  Kubiilikaan—the legendary first city on Vhiliinyar, founded by the Ancestral Hosts.

  Kubiilikhan—capital city of narhii-Vhiliinyar, named after Kubiilikaan, the legendary first city on Vhiliinyar, founded by the Ancestral Hosts.

  La Estrella Blanca—A luxury liner from Dinero Grande. It became a plague ship. Captain, crew, and passengers all perished.

  LAANYE—sleep learning device invented by the Linyaari that can, from a small sample of any foreign language, teach the wearer the new language overnight.

  Laarye—Maati and Aari’s brother. He died on Vhiliinyar during the Khleevi invasion. He was trapped in an accident in a cave far distant from the spaceport during the evacuation, and was badly injured. Aari stayed behind to rescue and heal him, but was captured by the Khleevi and tortured before he could accomplish his mission. Laarye died before Aari could escape and return. Time travel has brought him back to life.

  Laboue—the planet where Hafiz Harakamian makes his headquarters.

  lalli—Linyaari word for “mother.”

  lilaala—a flowering vine native to Vhiliinyar used by early Linyaari to make paper.

  Linyaari—Acorna’s people.

  Liriili—former viizaar of narhii-Vhiliinyar, member of the clan Riivye.

  LoiLoiKua—a water planet in the human Federation, with human-descended inhabitants that have become fully water-dwelling.

  Lukia of the Lights—a protective saint, identified by some children of Kezdet with Acorna.

  Ma’aowri 3—a planet populated by catlike beings.

  Maarni—a Linyaari folklorist, mate to Yiitir.

  Maati—a young Linyaari girl of the Nyaarya clan who lost most of her family during the Khleevi invasion. Aari’s younger sister.

  MacKenZ—also known as Mac or Maak, a very useful and adaptable unit of the KEN line of androids, now in the service of Captain Becker. The android was formerly owned by Kisla Manjari, and came into the Captain’s service after it tried to kill him on Kisla’s orders. Becker’s knack for dealing with salvage enabled him to reprogram the android to make the KEN unit both loyal to him and eager to please. The reprogramming had interesting side effects on the android’s personality, though, leaving Mac much quirkier than is usually the case for androids.

  madigadi—a berrylike fruit whose juice is a popular beverage.

  Maganos—one of the three moons of Kezdet, base for Delszaki Li’s mining operation and child rehabilitation project.

  Makahomia—war-torn home planet of RK and Nadhari Kendo.

  Makahomian Temple Cat—cats on the planet Makahomia, bred from ancient Cat God stock to protect and defend the Cat God’s Temples. They are—for cats—large, fiercely loyal, remarkably intelligent, and dangerous when crossed.

  Makavitian Rain Forest—a tropical area of the planet Makahomia, populated by various warring jungle tribes.

  Manjari—a baron in the Kezdet aristocracy, and a key person in the organization and protection of Kezdet’s child-labor racket, in which he was known by the code name “Piper.” He murdered his wife, then committed suicide when his identity was revealed and his organization destroyed.

  Marl Fidd—a student on Maganos Moonbase, and a true cad.

  Martin Dehoney—famous astro-architect who designed Maganos Moonbase; the coveted Dehoney Prize was named after him.

  Melireenya—Linyaari communications specialist on the Balakiire, bonded to Hrronye.

  Mercy Kendoro—younger sister of Pal and Judit Kendoro, saved from a life of bonded labor by Judit’s efforts, she worked as a spy for the Child Liberation League in offices of Kezdet Guardians of the Peace until the child-labor system was destroyed.

  Miiri—mother of Aari, Laarye, and Maati. A member of the Nyaarya clan, life-bonded to Kaarlye.

  mitanyaakhi—generic Linyaari term meaning a very large number.

  Miw-Sher—a Makahomian Keeper of the sacred Temple Cats. Her name means “Kitten” in Makahomian.

  MME—Gill, Calum, and Rafik’s original mining company. Swallowed by the ruthless, conscienceless, and bureaucratic Amalgamated Mining.

  Mog-Gim Plateau—an arid area on the planet Makahomia near the Federation spaceport.

  MOO, or Moon of Opportunity—Hafiz’s artificial planet, and home base for the Vhiliinyar terraforming operation.

  Mulzar (feminine form: Mulzarah)—the Mog-Gimin title taken by the high priest who is also the warlord of the Plateau.

  Mulzar Edu Kando sach Pilau dom Mog-Gim—High Priest of Hissim and the Aridimi Plateau, on the planet Makahomia.

  Naadiina—also known as Grandam, one of the oldest Linyaari, host to both Maati and Acorna on narhii-Vhiliinyar, died to give her people the opportunity to save both of their planets.

  Naarye—Linyaari techno-artisan in charge of final fit-out of spaceships.

  naazhoni—the Linyaari word for someone who is a bit unstable.

  Nadhari Kando—formerly Delszaki Li’s personal bodyguard, rumored to have been an officer in the Red Bracelets earlier in her career, then a security officer in charge of MOO, then the guard for the leader on her home planet of Makahomia.

  narhii-Vhiliinyar—the planet settled by the Linyaari after Vhiliinyar, their original homeworld, was destroyed by the Khleevi.

  Neeva—Acorna’s aunt and Linyaari envoy on the Balakiire, bonded to Virii.

  Neo-Hadithian—an ultra-conservative, fanatical religious sect.

  Ngaen Xong Hoa—a Kieaanese scientist who invented a planetary weather control system. He sought asylum on the Haven because he feared the warring governments on his planet would misuse his research. A mutineer faction on the Haven used the system to reduce the planet Rushima to ruins. The mutineers were tossed into space, and Dr. Hoa has since restored Rushima and now works for Hafiz.

  Niciirye—Grandam Naadiina’s husband, dead and buried on Vhiliinyar.

  Niikaavri—Acorna’s grandmother, a member of the clan Geeyiinah, and a spaceship designer by trade. Also, as Niikaavre, the name of the spaceship used by Maati and Thariinye.

  Nirii—a planetary trading partner of the Linyaari, populated by bovine-like two-horned sentients, known as Niriians, technologically advanced, able to communicate telepathically, and phlegmatic in temperament.

  nyiiri—the Linyaari word for unmitigated gall, sheer effrontery, or other forms of misplaced bravado.

  Our Star—Linyaari name for the star that centers their solar system.

  Paazo River—a major geographical feature on the Linyaari home-world, Vhiliinyar.

  pahaantiyir—a large catlike animal once found on Vhiliinyar.

  Paloduro—a planet in the Solojo star system, infested by the space plague.

  Pandora—Count Edacki Ganoosh’s personal spaceship, used to track and pursue Hafiz’s ship Shahrazad as it speeds after Acorna on her journey to narhii-Vhiliinyar. Later confiscated and used by Hafiz for his own purposes.

  Dr. Phador Al y Cassidro—headmaster and dean of the mining engineering school at Maganos Moonbase.

  piiro—Linyaari word for a rowboatlike water vessel.

  piiyi—a Niriian biotechnology-based information storage and retrieval system. The biological component resembles a very rancid cheese.

  Poopuus—water-dwelling students on Maganos Moonbase.

  Praxos—a swampy planet near Makahomia used by the Federation to train Makahomian recruits.

  PU#10—Human name for the vine planet, with its sentient plant inhabitan
ts, where the Khleevi-killing sap was found.

  Rafik Nadezda—one of three miners who discovered Acorna and raised her.

  Red Bracelets—Kilumbembese mercenaries; arguably the toughest and nastiest fighting force in known space.

  Rio Boca—a planet in the Solojo star system.

  Roadkill—otherwise known as RK. A Makahomian Temple Cat, the only survivor of a space wreck, rescued and adopted by Jonas Becker, and honorary first mate of the Condor.

  Roc—Rafik’s shuttle ship.

  Rushima—a planet invaded by the Khleevi and saved by Acorna.

  Scaradine MacDonald—captain of the Arkansas Traveler spaceship, and galactic freight hauler.

  Sesseli—a student on Maganos Moonbase.

  Shahrazad—Hafiz’s personal spaceship, a luxury cruiser.

  Shoshisha—a student on the Maganos Moonbase.

  sii-Linyaari—a legendary race of aquatic Linyaari-like beings developed by the Ancestral Friends.

  Siiaaryi Maartri—a Linyaari survey ship.

  Sinbad—Rafik’s spaceship.

  Sita Ram—a protective goddess, identified with Acorna by the mining children on Kezdet.

  Solojo—a star system in the human galaxy, one of the first infected with the space plague.

  Smythe-Wesson—a former Red Bracelet officer, Win Smythe-Wesson briefly served as Hafiz’s head of security on MOO before his larcenous urges overcame him.

  Spandard—A variant dialect of Standard Galactic Basic, once known as Spanish.

  Standard Galactic Basic—the language used throughout the human settled galaxy, also known simply as “Basic.”

  stiil—Linyaari word for a pencil-like writing implement.

  Taankaril—visedhaanye ferilii of the Gamma sector of Linyaari space.

  Tagoth—see Bulaybub.

  techno-artisan—Linyaari specialist who designs, engineers, or manufactures goods.

  Thariinye—a handsome and conceited young space-faring Linyaari from clan Renyilaaghe.

  Theophilus Becker—Jonas Becker’s father, a salvage man and astrophysicist with a fondness for exploring uncharted wormholes.

  thiilir (pl. thilirii)—small arboreal mammals of Linyaari homeworld.

  thiilsis—grass species native to Vhiliinyar.

  Toruna—a Niriian female, who sought help from Acorna and the Linyaari when her home planet was invaded by the Khleevi.

  Twi Osiam—planetary site of a major financial and trade center.

  twilit—small, pestiferous insect on Linyaari home planet.

  Uhuru—one of the various names of the ship owned jointly by Gill, Calum, and Rafik.

  Vaanye—Acorna’s father.

  Vhiliinyar—original home planet of the Linyaari, destroyed by Khleevi.

  viizaar—a high political office in the Linyaari system, roughly equivalent to president or prime minister.

  Virii—Neeva’s spouse.

  visedhaanye ferilii—Linyaari term corresponding roughly to “Envoy Extraordinary.”

  Vriiniia Watiir—sacred healing lake on Vhiliinyar, defiled by the Khleevi.

  Wahanamoian Blossom of Sleep—poppylike flowers whose pollens, when ground, are a very powerful sedative.

  wii—a Linyaari prefix meaning small.

  yaazi—Linyaari term for beloved

  Yaniriin—a Linyaari Survey Ship captain.

  Yukata Batsu—Uncle Hafiz’s chief competitor on Laboue.

  Yiitir—history teacher at the Linyaari academy, and Chief Keeper of the Linyaari Stories. Lifemate to Maarni.

  Zaami—a high mountain peak on the Linyaari homeworld.

  Zanegar—second-generation Starfarer.

  Brief Notes on the Linyaari Language

  By Margaret Ball

  As Anne McCaffrey’s collaborator in transcribing the first two tales of Acorna, I was delighted to find that the second of these books provided an opportunity to sharpen my long-unused skills in linguistic fieldwork. Many years ago, when the government gave out scholarships with gay abandon and the cost of living (and attending graduate school) was virtually nil, I got a Ph.D. in linguistics for no better reason than that: (a) the government was willing to pay; (b) it gave me an excuse to spend a couple of years doing fieldwork in Africa; and (c) there weren’t any real jobs going for eighteen-year-old girls with a B. A. in math and a minor in Germanic languages. (This was back during the Upper Pleistocene era, when the Help Wanted ads were still divided into Male and Female.)

  So there were all those years spent doing things like transcribing tonal Oriental languages on staff paper (the Field Methods instructor was Not Amused) and tape-recording Swahili women at weddings, and then I got the degree and wandered off to play with computers and never had any use for the stuff again…until Acorna’s people appeared on the scene. It required a sharp ear and some facility for linguistic analysis to make sense of the subtle sound changes with which their language signaled syntactic changes; I quite enjoyed the challenge.

  The notes appended here represent my first and necessarily tentative analysis of certain patterns in Linyaari phonemics and morphophonemics. If there is any inconsistency between this analysis and the Linyaari speech patterns recorded in the later adventures of Acorna, please remember that I was working from a very limited database and, what is perhaps worse, attempting to analyze a decidedly nonhuman language with the aid of the only paradigms I had, twentieth-century linguistic models developed exclusively from human language. The result is very likely as inaccurate as were the first attempts to describe English syntax by forcing it into the mold of Latin, if not worse. My colleague, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, has by now added her own notes to the small corpus of Linyaari names and utterances, and it may well be that in the next decade there will be enough data available to publish a truly definitive dictionary and grammar of Linyaari; an undertaking that will surely be of inestimable value, not only to those members of our race who are involved in diplomatic and trade relations with this people, but also to everyone interested in the study of language.

  Notes on the Linyaari Language

  1. A doubled vowel indicates stress: aavi, abaanye, khleevi.

  2. Stress is used as an indicator of syntactic function: in nouns stress is on the penultimate syllable, in adjectives on the last syllable, in verbs on the first.

  3. Intervocalic n is always palatalized.

  4. Noun plurals are formed by adding a final vowel, usually-i: one Liinyar, two Linyaari. Note that this causes a change in the stressed syllable (from LI-nyar to Li-NYA-ri) and hence a change in the pattern of doubled vowels.

  For nouns whose singular form ends in a vowel, the plural is formed by dropping the original vowel and adding -i: ghaanye, ghaanyi. Here the number of syllables remains the same, therefore no stress/spelling change is required.

  5. Adjectives can be formed from nouns by adding a final -ii (again, dropping the original final vowel if one exists): maalive, malivii; Liinyar, Linyarii. Again, the change in stress means that the doubled vowels in the penultimate syllable of the noun disappear.

  6. For nouns denoting a class or species, such as Liinyar, the noun itself can be used as an adjective when the meaning is simply to denote a member of the class, rather than the usual adjective meaning of “having the qualities of this class”—thus, of the characters in Acorna, only Acorna herself could be described as “a Liinyar girl” but Judit, although human, would certainly be described as “a linyarii girl,” or “a just-as-civilized-as-a-real-member-of-the-People” girl.

  7. Verbs can be formed from nouns by adding a prefix constructed by [first consonant of noun] + ii + nye: faalar—grief; fiinyefalar—to grieve.

  8. The participle is formed from the verb by adding a suffix -an or -en: thiinyethilel—to destroy, thiinyethilelen—destroyed. No stress change is involved because the participle is perceived as a verb form and therefore stress remains on the first syllable.

  enye—ghanyii—time unit, small portion of a year (ghaanye)

  fiiny
efalaran—mourning, mourned

  ghaanye—a Linyaari year, equivalent to about one and one-third earth years

  gheraalye malivii—Navigation Officer

  gheraalye ve-khanyii—Senior Communications Specialist

  Khleevi—originally, a small vicious carrion-feeding animal with a poisonous bite; now used by the Linyaari to denote the invaders who destroyed their homeworld.

  khleevi—barbarous, uncivilized, vicious without reason

  Liinyar—member of the People

  linyaari—civilized; like a Liinyar

  mitanyaakhi—large number (slang—like our “zillions”)

  narhii—new

  thiilir, thiliiri—small arboreal mammals of Linyaari homeworld

  thiilel—destruction

  visedhaanye ferilii—Envoy Extraordinary

  Acknowledgments

  We’d like to thank Dr. Christine Hale, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough’s epidemiologist neighbor, who helped us find a way to destroy much of the universe as we might come to know it. As usual, we also must thank Richard Reaser, our science, salvage, and stealthy stuff consultant, and Andy Logan for sustenance. And, as always, we owe thanks to our editors Denise Little and Diana Gill for all of their patience and hard work.

  About the Authors

  Anne McCaffrey is considered one of the world’s leading science fiction writers. She has won the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as six Science Fiction Book Club awards for her novels. Brought up in the United States, she is now living in Ireland with her Maine Coon cats and a silver Weimaraner and declines to travel anymore. She is best known for her unique Dragonriders of Pern series.

  Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is the author of twenty-three science fiction and fantasy novels, including the 1989 Nebula Award-winning Healer’s War and the Powers series co-written with Anne McCaffrey, as well as the popular Godmother series and the Gothic fantasy mystery, The Lady in the Loch. She lives in a Victorian seaport town in western Washington with her cats, beads, and computer stuff.

  To receive notice of author events and new books by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, sign up at www.authortracker.com or visit www.annemccaffrey.org or www.olympus.net/personal/scarboro.