Acorna #01 - Unicorn Girl by Anne McCaffrey

Author:Anne McCaffrey [McCaffrey, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0061057894
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 1997-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

The fried meat pies being hawked from the first rolling stall didn’t appeal to Acorna, but the second wagon held a tempting display of fruits and vegetables…rather more tempting from a distance, she realized with regret, than on closer inspection. The apples were soft and wrinkled, the madi-fruits covered with brownish spots.

“Do you not have anything fresh?” she demanded of the owner.

“All fresh, gracious lady, picked just this morning from my cousin’s farm.”

“Huh!” the meat pie seller grunted, just audibly, “just fell off the back of your cousin’s skimmer, more likely.”

Acorna did not wish to get embroiled in the men’s bickering. She pointed at random to a cluster of ruta roots. They looked slightly limp, but ruta aged well, and they’d be something to nibble on while she walked back through the park. She tasted one while the stall-keeper wrapped the others in a scrap of plastifilm for her; the insides, at least, were still sweet and crunchy.

“That’ll be five credits,” the stall-keeper said, holding out the package.

From the way his neighbor’s eyebrows shot up, Acorna guessed that she was being charged at least double the going rate for a bundle of slightly overage rutas. But that wasn’t important. What was important was that this blasted skirt had no pockets, and she hadn’t been thinking of money when she left the house that morning.

“Charge it to the account of my guardian, Delszaki Li,” she said.

The stall-keeper’s face turned ugly. “Look, techie, we don’t run charge accounts this side of the river. Credits in hand is my rule.”

“Then keep the rutas,” Acorna said, “they weren’t that fresh anyway.”

“You’ll pay me for the one you’ve eaten! I been robbed already once this morning by one of them thieving street brats, I’m not having some techie come along and make a free meal off my stall on pretense of sampling the goods!”

“Hey, Punja, we got the little thief for you!” called one of the street urchins whose game Acorna had noticed just before she inspected the stall.

Now, with a sinking heart, she realized that the quarry in their “game” was not a youngling from their group, but a much smaller child, bruised and bleeding from a cut lip, who struggled madly as the larger boys hauled her bodily toward the stall.

“And a lot of help that is,” Punja snarled, “you can tell by looking that she hasn’t a clipped credit to pay me back.”

“What did the child take?” Acorna interrupted.

“Three of me best madi-fruits. Gobbled them down on the run, she did. I suppose you’ll be wanting that placed to the account of your guardian, too, will you?” the man asked Acorna with heavy sarcasm.

“You could give us a reward for catchin’ her,” one of the boys holding the child grumbled.

“What good’s it to me that you caught the brat? You can give her a good beatin’ if you like, teach her not to steal from respectable merchants,” Punja suggested. “That should be enough reward for you. Have a little fun before you turn her loose.

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