Authors: Anne Mccaffrey
“They don’t? How do you know?”
The woman didn’t answer the question but gave her a withering look and sat back with an indignant expression on her face, as if she’d eaten something unpleasant. “It’s disrespectful is what it is. And I am here to tell you that however much that bunch may look like our sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, they are up to no good.”
“They? The haants, you mean?”
“Who else would I mean?” The old lady rapped the edge of the table with a cane that Khorii hadn’t seen before. “Except, like I said, they ain’t natural ghosts.”
“I don’t know a great deal of human folklore,” Khorii said, “but my understanding is that ghosts are not natural in the first place. They’re—” She started to say supernatural, but the old woman glared at her, clearly offended.
“Not too long ago I’d have said unicorn people weren’t natural either, but here you are,” she said.
Yes, I am,
Khorii thought.
But are you?
The boy and the old lady exchanged grins.
“Well, of course I am,” the elder said aloud, as if Khorii had spoken, too, “in spirit, right, boy?”
Her grandson said, “Oh yes, folk always said my gran had more spirit than a still full of home brew. Dyin’ didn’t make a bit of difference in that with her, or me either.”
Khorii tried to be matter-of-fact, but these people gave her a strange feeling that was neither dread nor fear, but more a sense of vertigo. She could see them, she could hear their words, and they could hear her thoughts, but she could not feel anyone
there
in the same way she felt a living person’s presence. There was no
matter
to them, no substance. Though they were much more clear to her than any of the other specters had been thus far, they were communicating with her as if they were holos on a com, except that they didn’t need technology, evidently, to manifest themselves.
“That’s a good way to put it, honey,” the old woman said. “My boy here and me passed over fifteen years ago, but it’s close enough here on Rushima for us to come visit when we’ve a mind or there’s a need. Bodies come and go, but spirits seem to stick around for a long time after the mortal shell turns into fertilizer. Something about the atmosphere, or the proximity of the string beans here, I reckon.”
“String beans?” There were very tasty green vegetables by that name, but immediately Khorii knew she had misunderstood.
“That’s what some non physicsy as well as physically disinclined among my kind call it. They don’t believe in string theory, even though they’ve made the transition to the next strand themselves. They think we are in limbo or purgatory or some other place they heard about in one of their religions. I say call it whatever you will, it all amounts to the same thing. But what it amounts to is we have our own place but can come to visit, too. There’s quite a few of us hangin’ around, lots longer than me and my grandson, but mostly it’s only their family members and friends can see them, usually just before that person is about to join us.
“Me, I’ve always been more sociable than that, so the boy and me get out a good bit. But my point is, we have a respectable society of haants that call in around here from time to time, and this new riffraff pretending to be our kinfolk is an offense and a disgrace to us.”
“Because they’re, as you said, unnatural?” Khorii asked.
“Because they’re maniacs, that’s why! They don’t have the spirits of our families—they’re mean and destructive and don’t care about anybody.”
She lowered her voice. “I happen to know they were responsible for that fire at Bug Gulch and for the horse jack breaking under Marsden.”
“They can do that?” Jaya and the others had told her that the ghosts on the
Mana
moved things, but she naturally assumed it was just mischief. If Jaya’s parents and other crew members were lingering aboard, however belatedly after their deaths, why would they want to do anyone harm? But other, malevolent spirits—
“Sure as I’m pushin’ up daisies!” the old lady said with a snort. Khorii saw white hairs quiver on her chin when she did so. “But that’s just a saying. Truth is, I can’t move a thing. Most of us can’t, not here leastways. But these fake haants—”
“This is really interesting, but why are you telling
me
?” Khorii asked.
“Because you got the healin’ horn, girlie, and like it or not, that puts you in charge. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna suggest you heal the heathen haants and send them to their rest, and we just want you to know who you are dealin’ with. Me and my friends mind our own business, watch over our kinfolk, try to meet and greet them when it’s their time to join us. We thought when that plague started up that we’d have a mighty big job to do and prepared to welcome and comfort our kin. But our sons and daughters and their wives and husbands never did join us, though we were right here waiting for them. I don’t know what became of them, but I can tell you for sure that the haants that caused that fire may look familiar, but they are no kin of anyone I know.”
Khorii thought that explained a lot, but it also left even more to be explained. “So who do you think they are? Other than unnatural, that is?”
“I don’t know, but I can tell you that they are not human nor your kind neither and you can take that to the bank.”
The old woman rose and started hobbling off with the boy’s support, vanishing halfway across the room. Khorii rose and went to join Mikaaye, who was finishing up with his last patients, a man and a woman. As she approached, they rose, winked at her, and flicked from sight as if a holo had been switched off.
Mikaaye had had another “string bean” visit him as well. “I thought the old man standing beside me was a local doctor because he told me all about everybody I was seeing and who their families were and what had been wrong with everyone. I thought he wanted to coach me on the local customs. But when I told someone what he had advised, they said he’d been not practicing medicine for the last twenty years on account of being dead. This is a
very
unusual place, Khorii.”
Hap, who had come up behind them in time to catch the end of the exchange, said, “No kidding! Listen, just now I almost got trampled by a horse galloping down the main street of town. Lucky for me I grew up around critters. I headed her off and calmed her down. Elder Bawb came out and said she was one of that team that was transporting the patients from Bug Gulch. Looks like something happened to them. Bawb tried hailing their mobile, but nobody answered.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Khorii agreed.
“So Jaya and Captain Bates think we’d better take a couple of the shuttles out there. Cap’n Bates said Mikey should probably come with.”
“Mikey?” Khorii asked.
Mikaaye said, “It is my nickname. Hap says it is what my name is in Standard.” He sounded very pleased. Khorii thought it likely that, since the human universe had become so familiar with the Linyaari recently, human boys named Mikey might soon be called Mikaaye as well.
They joined their shipmates in the shuttles, Jaya piloting the large shuttle cargo, Captain Bates flying her own personal craft. Hap came, because of his size and knowledge of animals, and Sesseli, because her telekinesis might come in handy. Khorii and Mikaaye both started to board Jaya’s shuttle, but Captain Bates stopped them. “Khorii, I think since we don’t know what’s going on yet, or what the danger is, you should stay behind. That way there’ll be one healer in reserve to help the rest of us if need be.”
“I must be the one to go then,” Khorii said. “If there is more plague among the injured, I will know, as Mikaaye would not.”
“What does it matter if I can see the plague or not? I could cure it as well as you, Khorii, and I am larger and male,” Mikaaye said, then added, “and you are unique among our people in that you can see the plague. You cannot be replaced.”
“I’m sure your mother feels the same about you,” Khorii said, and prepared to board, but Jaya and Hap blocked her.
“Mikey’s right, Khorii,” Jaya said. Khorii thought angrily that Jaya was just agreeing with Mikaaye because Hap was, and they were boys. Jaya was inclined to defer to boys, especially if it wasn’t her they were disagreeing with. “You are unique. The entire universe needs you.”
Captain Bates laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re right in that you’re the senior Linyaari on this mission, Khorii, but that means Mikaaye needs a little experience soloing without another healer along. Also, if anything happens to the rest of us, you’re better prepared to function independently to do whatever needs doing than Mikaaye is.”
“Besides,” Sesseli said from Khorii’s elbow, “somebody has to keep Khiindi company. He’s been acting like a real fraidy cat since we landed.”
A
s more and more of her new family returned from the plagued worlds, Ariin met her uncle, Lariinye, her father’s brother, as well as her grandparents on her mother’s side of the family. She visited her parents often by com unit and also got to know “Uncle Joh” Becker and his odd-looking first mate Maak, who seemed to have a screw stuck in the center of his forehead where a horn would be. She also caught glimpses of the father of most Petaybean cats, the bushytailed RK.
She learned about the ways and customs of her people, stopping to wonder now and then that she not only had people but they had customs of their own, an advanced society, and a role in the broader universe much more important, it seemed to her, than the one the Friends played.
Her
people did a lot of good without kidnapping poor innocent eggs from their mothers’ wombs. Even their scientific probing was done in a more kindly manner.
She was pleased to see that the Others had survived, unchanged, from her time as well, though people referred to them as the Ancestors. Her parents were quarantined in the midst of the grazing grounds preferred by these ancestors, who were apparently unaffected by the plague. Probably because it was gone, she thought.
Which made her all the more anxious to put her plan into action. She was able to do it more quickly and easily than she expected, and with less deception.
“Ariin,” Mother said to her one day while they were chatting on the com unit, “do you remember the first day you met us speaking to Uncle Hafiz and Karina?”
“No,” she said. “I remember you, and Maati, but I have not met these—”
“They were the colorfully dressed humans,” she explained. “Karina was very excited because she had seen in one of her visions that you would be coming to us.”
Ariin, who had had a lot to get used to over the past two weeks, still felt doubtful, though she began to recall some non-Linyaari biped—
“She wears a lot of purple, and an immense amount of jewelry,” Mother added.
The woman’s image swept into Ariin’s memory at once. “Oh, yes, she reminded me of Akasa, only more”—she started to say fleshy, but Mother seemed to be fond of these people so she corrected herself, “purple.”
“Yes, I can see the resemblance although I believe that Karina is a much more well-meaning person than Akasa, from what you’ve told me. At any rate, they would like to invite you to the Moon of Opportunity so they can meet you personally. Uncle Hafiz is one of my human family, and, as you have no doubt heard, has been a great benefactor to our people.”
“So I have to do what he wants?” Ariin asked.
“No, dear, of course not. But you will enjoy MOO, and Hafiz and Karina grow lovely things in their gardens just for us and give entertaining parties. He is interested in you because he considers me a daughter, although I call him Uncle because he is the uncle of Rafik Nadazdek, one of my human foster fathers. He considers you part of his family as well.”
“We have a very complicated family, don’t we, Mother?”
She had heard many stories in many versions since she had been there. Both sets of grandparents had been lost and considered dead at one time, as had her father and Uncle Lariinye. Grimalkin, the creature who had stolen her and given her to the Friends, had been responsible for reunions as well. She wondered if he thought that made what he’d done to her all right. If he did, she didn’t agree.
“I suppose you could say that, yes. If you’d like to go, Maati and Thariinye will take you when they go to prepare for another foray into Federation space to relieve your great-aunt Neeva’s team.”
Reluctance and suspicion were banished from her tone as Ariin responded to her mother this time. “Oh, I’d love that, Avvi!” she said, beaming and using the Linyaari word for “mother.” “When do we start?”
Three sleeps later she boarded a space vessel for the first time. Like the rest of the Linyaari fleet, this ship was egg-shaped and decorated with bright colors, aqua and yellow, and swags of gold with little floral flourishes.
Maati had been teaching her to speak Standard using the LAANYE, an interesting device that, once programmed, taught one a language while one slept. It didn’t always explain idiomatic expressions, however, or proper name references, so Maati expanded on the lessons the next day when Ariin asked her questions—or even thought them.
It was very hard to keep anything hidden from Maati.
The flight did not take long, and they didn’t see a lot of space, which was rather disappointing, since MOO was fairly close, galactically speaking.
The entire surface was covered with large, rounded pavilions like the ones her people slept in. Though they were white on the outside, she quickly saw as soon as she entered the terminal that from the inside it looked as if she were on a planet with proper atmosphere, a sky, buildings, just like back on Vhiliinyar, only grander and more full of the sort of details Akasa would have liked.
In person, Karina Harakamian reminded Ariin of Akasa less than she had on the com unit. While Karina, like her husband, looked shrewd and as though she knew how to get what she wanted, she also looked as though one of the things she very much wanted was to be liked. In fact, she looked as if she wanted Ariin to like her, which was rather a new experience for the girl. Her Linyaari relatives could read her mind and judge her feelings and so were not unsure of how she felt about them, but although Karina could sometimes see things others could not, she couldn’t read thoughts the way Linyaari could, though she believed otherwise, or pretended to.