Acorna: The Unicorn Girl: Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball

Book I of Acorna: She was just a little girl, with a tiny horn in the centre of her forehead, odd-looking feet, beautiful silver hair and several curious powers: the ability to purify air and water, make plants grow and heal scars and broken bones. A trio of grizzled prospectors found her drifting in an escape pod amid the asteroids, adopted her and took her home to sizzling controversy. Officious bureaucrats wanted to put Acorna in a home and cut off her 'deformity'. Ambitious scientists wanted to isolate and study the 'unicorn girl'. Which was worse? Acorna's 'uncles' weren't waiting around to find out - they took her back at knife-point and ran to the bandit planet Kezdet where no questions are asked and she might grow up free. But Kezdet has dark secrets - an army of toiling, silent children in the mines and factories, unnamed, unloved and unseen, administered to by a mystery man known as 'The Piper'. And the Piper has plans for Acorna...Cover art by John Ennis.