Silent Starsong

Eleven-year-old Kyra Starbard has a proud family legacy of interpreting the future from the stars' songs. But her deafness, incurable by the best medics, breaks her mother's heart and pushes her father to try anything--including the expensive purchase of a telepathic alien servant, to help Kyra communicate on a planet inhospitable to disability. Marne's telepathy is too weak for his Naratsset culture, so he is sold into slavery and expects to die at the hands of cruel owners--until he meets a human child who begs her father to "save" him. Her kindness introduces Marne to a new world--one where he would risk his life to save a human from her own people's abuse and the stars' songs can touch even a deaf girl and a defective telepath. But there are forces that believe Starbards, whether they can hear the stars are not, should be utterly destroyed. Can the two friends, not good enough for either of their cultures or families, manage to keep each other safe when several different worlds threaten their lives?