Authors: Anne Mccaffrey
“But Khiindi is going?”
Khorii nodded.
“And Jaya and Hap?”
She nodded again.
“Elviiz?”
“I’m not sure. He may want to stay here and help Jalonzo. We found something weird on LoiLoiKua he thinks may be linked to the plague.”
“How weird?”
“A sea monster,” she said simply.
“I want to see it, too!” Sesseli said.
“No you don’t. It almost ate someone while we were there. There are teams heading there now to evacuate the rest of the poopuus’ relatives.”
“You never want me to have any fun. You guys hog it all,” Sesseli said. Khorii thought she was growing up. And her telekinetic talent could be very useful.
“That’s not it, Sess. But there are so many scary things happening now, we don’t know how to keep you safe.”
“I’m as safe as you are,” the little girl said. “And Khorii, I lost everybody once when I was a baby. I don’t want to be left alone again.”
“Okay, then, if it’s all right with Captain Bates and Jaya you can come.”
Although Khorii knew Elviiz had very strong motivation for staying behind to help analyze the specimen, she hadn’t really expected him to do so. He had always considered it his top priority to be with her their entire lives. He was always in her way, always lecturing and reprimanding her, always getting to learn and do things before she could.
So she was surprised when he said, “It is a dead asteroid and all of the people are dead. The mission requires your particular skills and perhaps those you possess as an organic Linyaari. You will have Jaya, Hap, Captain Bates, Khiindi Kaat and, if you need something heavy moved, Sesseli’s telekinesis to assist you. My skills can be put to better use here. If you do not return within the time frame we have allotted for the mission, however, I will be with the
Balakiire
looking for you. However, Mikaaye will accompany you in my stead.”
She snorted. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I can look after myself.” But she felt a little lost nevertheless. They both knew that while that was true under normal circumstances, Elviiz had pulled her out of many situations she couldn’t handle alone. She didn’t even know Mikaaye though he seemed nice enough. But if Melireenya was willing to part with her son for the length of the journey, Khorii could hardly object. Besides, he would give Hap another male to keep him company.
The only unsettling thing that happened before she left was when she and Khiindi climbed the stairs to her rooftop garden. It had been destroyed, the plants uprooted and the soil mounded in the middle of the roof. Khorii spent a rather soothing hour or two taking the soil back into place and replanting what could be saved. Many of the mature plants had been broken or squashed, and traces of some sticky aqua material laced the area. She collected as much as she could and took it to Elviiz.
“A parting gift for your research,” she said, explaining how she had discovered it. “Looks a bit like those viral cells in the monster slide, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, and Khorii?”
“Yes?”
“I will do my best to make sure your garden is not destroyed again.”
“Thank you, Brother,” she said, and laid her horn against his forehead in parting.
A
lthough an orphan, Marl Fidd was not without connections. He had learned early on that the way to get what he wanted was to win friends and influence people, even if he meant to lose the same friends after he influenced them one way or another to part with something they had that he wanted.
Then there were his other friends, the ones from whom he would never dream of taking anything because they’d kill him. These were friends who wanted something he had. His skills were numerous, including expertise with demolitions, weapons, and with disabling a wide variety of security devices and programs. What none of these more dangerous associates realized, however, was that Marl possessed more than the standard array of qualifications for someone his age.
His truest and best talent, and the one he figured would take him to the top of the criminal heap in time to retire while he was still young and pretty enough to enjoy the fruits of his crimes, was his telepathy. Very few people knew about it, and it wasn’t something he advertised. Like the element of surprise in warfare, it was far less useful when others knew about it.
But the truth was, he could charm the birds from the trees if he wanted to, which he didn’t most of the time since the kind of birds that sat in trees to begin with tended to be boringly short on cash, credits, negotiable bonds, or other liquid assets.
The criminal community of Corazon, like the general population, had been much diminished by the plague to the extent that Marl had the jail all to himself. Marl found this disappointing to begin with as it gave him no chance to widen his galactic contacts with those in his chosen career field.
The food wasn’t bad. However, after months of feeding himself into a butterball because there was nothing else to do, he decided to diet. Getting healthy food was no problem, since the old woman who cooked for the jail saved her goodies for the kiddies and didn’t spoil inmates. She made what he did get tasty. Since nobody wasted any wine on him either, he had a chance to replace the expensive vintages that had been flowing through his veins for the last few months with regular blood cells instead. It wasn’t fun, but he had no choice, and besides, all that funny business on the ship with the moving bits of things smacked a bit of the DTs. He exercised as much as possible in his cell.
However, the rest of the time was spent improving his interpersonal relationships with his guards. This was aided a bit by the much-diminished communications networks. Normally young people assigned boring tasks would have been on their mobcoms, called holas here, with their friends. But the channels that had been reestablished were fewer and weaker than they had been before, and without the same range. Casual use was no longer allowed, and all channels were monitored. So the kids were bored and in need of diversion, which Marl was all too willing to provide.
The younger guards, mostly husky boys except for the occasional sweet young thing who brought him meals, were secretly a bit impressed with a desperado such as he. When they found bossing him around or bullying him unsatisfying and realized they were outclassed, he would obligingly teach them a few moves. Two of the boys returned the favor by giving him Spandard lessons. His telepathy made him a quick study, then he could work on his older guards.
These geezers were less gullible than the younger guards but were also more comfortable around people of Marl’s persuasion. Cops spent as much of their time with criminals as they did with other cops, after all.
Montoya, who had to be at least a hundred years old, started out answering every request or complaint from Marl with a story about who had lost how much in the plague and how it should have been Marl instead. He took it upon himself to scold Marl so fiercely about trying to rob the warehouse on Rio Boca that his dentures rattled.
Marl went through a routine that ended with his being tearfully remorseful but retaining an edge of defiance, not overdoing it for the skeptical old coot. He wanted to give an impression of himself as a potentially redeemable punk. As his own facility with Spandard increased, he asked the old man questions about his own losses, what was happening in the city, how it had been before and how it had changed since the plague. The more he and Montoya talked, the more he convinced his jailer that he truly wanted to change, to find a useful and valuable place in the new structure society was assuming.
The guard, as bored as the kids and, furthermore, lost without his fifth wife, his former wives, and all of the children and grandchildren who had succumbed to the plague, became increasingly willing to bring in new bits of news, even photos and films, to show Marl and discuss with him.
Jail was altogether a more educational experience than Maganos Moonbase had been.
Best of all, the nights were as peaceful as the days. Nothing moved without an easily apparent reason for doing so. All in all, Marl felt that Khorii and the
Mana
’s crew had truly rescued him by bringing him to this nice, safe prison where he could regroup and plan his next moves. That didn’t mean he forgave them, of course, or that they would be left out of his plans for the future. Cozy as his cell was, he had no intention of remaining there.
The day after Montoya told him that the
Mana
and her crew had departed for a mission, leaving behind one ship and three females from Khorii’s pacifist race, Marl waited for nightfall, then made his move.
H
afiz Harakamian now enjoyed complex acts of interspecies philanthropy almost as much as he had once enjoyed the challenge of cutthroat commerce. He consulted with the Linyaari Council on the proposed project to help the endangered LoiLoiKuans. Since much of the Council was already engaged in the plague-relief efforts, the conference was conducted by com relay. Finding his customary com screen a bit restrictive for such conferences, Hafiz employed an enjoyable bauble he had customized for the purpose. It was a globe two meters in diameter that hovered and spun in front of his desk when needed and retreated into the purple, saffron, and aqua silk tented ceiling of his office when not in use.
Its surface was split into cells, and at the top of each was the name and location of the communicant. During the conference, the cell of each speaker enlarged so that the speaker appeared life size on the surface of the globe. The other cells scrolled past in succession above, below, and beside the dominant cell, so that Hafiz could see the effect of the current remarks on each conference member. If someone made an audible aside or showed a strong reaction, their cell enlarged beside that of the speaker. If two people were engaged in a debate, their enlarged cells appeared side by side.
Hafiz was thrilled with his own ingenuity and had demanded regular teleconferences with his consultants, employees, and subcontractors since acquiring and modifying the globe. If only the intergalactic relay system could be made to function as smoothly, all would be perfect. Unfortunately at the present time, while it was reasonably reliable among planets and moons, it was far less satisfactory for communication with vessels in transit unless they were very near a stationary unit.
However, for the most part, it had been useful in keeping Aari and Acorna in touch with Khorii’s progress in plague detection and the broader rescue effort. The
Condor
’s com unit served to connect the remote quarantined area with Hafiz’s system.
At present Aari and Acorna, Captain Becker, and Maak peered out of one of the cells to interpret for the
sii
-Linyaari. These ugly multiple-horned creatures appeared in another cell. A com unit located on their favorite offshore basking place in a bay near where Acorna and the others were quarantined displayed their unfortunate and rather hostile-appearing visages.
“Would these LoiLoiKuans not prefer it if we eradicated the monster so they could remain in their own ocean?” Hafiz asked Neeva.
“Perhaps. However, the planet is in a moribund solar system as it is, and for that reason the adults have been separated from the children. Resettling them on a more vital world would allow what is left of the families to reunite.”
“Ah, so terraforming is out of the question,” Hafiz said.
“So is eradicating the sea beast,” said Liriili sanctimoniously. “Do not forget, Lord Hafiz, that we Linyaari do not practice eradication of other species.”
“Except for Khleevi?” Karina asked sweetly from her husband’s side.
“We did not exactly eradicate the Khleevi,” Liriili replied, “although we did permit the use of a defensive weapon, which does not violate our principles. However, as you know quite well, Lord Hafiz, we simply permitted the Khleevi to eradicate themselves.”
“Ahh,” Hafiz replied, pretending to study the fistful of rings on his right hand. “As you say, Madame.” Although Liriili was his and almost everyone else’s least-favorite Linyaari, she had demonstrated a talent for administering the nitpicking details of rebuilding the plague-decimated societies so he was inclined to accord her a measure of respect. “So, no terraforming, no eradication. Perhaps a dam or a seawall.”
Neeva cleared her throat. “The beast is apparently large enough to destroy any such barrier between it and its prey. And then there would be the difficulty of installing such a barrier.”
Hafiz nodded his understanding. “Even so,” he said. “Therefore, relocation.”
“Yes,” she said. “Khorii thought perhaps the
sii
-Linyaari might host them in Vhiliinyar’s sea. Of course, we also need permission from the Council and particularly from the more traditional members of our race, who wish to preserve Vhiliinyar as a sacred haven for our species alone—and the
sii
-Linyaari of course.”
“Of course,” Hafiz agreed.
An especially clever part of his device, a stroke of genius really, was that it could usually take visual clues in the form of the body language of telepathic beings such as the Linyaari (and, much more rarely than she liked to believe, his own Karina) to determine who was having intensive nonverbal discussions with whom. Aari and the
sii
-Linyaari were now engaged in such a discussion.
After a moment, Aari said aloud, “The
sii
-Linyaari wish me to say that their sea has not, as they had hoped, been returned to its original size, which would make it easier for them to entertain guests. They feel that the sea cannot accommodate another sentient species for an extended period of time. But of course, they are sympathetic to the plight of their fellow mer folk and feel they could manage to host them on an emergency basis, so long as the refugees bear in mind the ancient proverb that guests, like dead fish, begin to stink after three days.”
“Colorfully expressed indeed,” Hafiz said, inclining his turban in the direction of the ugly creatures.