Second Wave (15 page)

Yiitir, the distinguished Linyaari historian, said, “I would just like to interject that although we ourselves are a pacifist people, the
sii
-Linyaari do not necessarily share our philosophy.”

“Point taken,” said Kiiri, the current administrator of Vhiliinyar. “I fear that the people who wish Vhiliinyar to remain totally Linyaari, with the exception of our esteemed guests from the
Condor,
of course, do object to another species among us, even if the
sii
-Linyaari do not.”

“However,” interjected Naaya, administrator of narhii-Vhiliinyar, “the people of narhii-Vhiliinyar have chosen to live here as a more outwardly focused culture, and our seas, not yet fully stocked with the plant and animal species that make them a viable habitat, have no
sii
-Linyaari. If Uncle Hafiz could give our seas priority in our ongoing terraforming process, we may be the ideal new home for the LoiLoiKuans. While they are not Linyaari and are more humanoid than we are, from what Khorii and Neeva say, they seem to be peacefully inclined.”

Many heads bobbed in assent to this plan, and murmurs of approval swirled around the globe.

“An excellent notion,” Hafiz said. “Now then, for the details of the transfers…”

But at that moment, the screen focusing on the
sii
-Linyaari suddenly frothed with foam and flashing tails until for a moment Hafiz feared it might have fallen into the water. But with eyes from all across the universe watching from their cells on his globe, the froth suddenly cleared, the tails were exchanged for heads, and two
sii
-Linyaari surfaced and hoisted something colorful and glittering but limp and sopping wet, onto the basking rock.

All cells ceased movement as, in the central one, the gaudy object sat up, revealing itself to be a girl clad in bright but dripping robes and a great deal of what appeared to Hafiz’s shrewdly appraising eye to be quite precious jewelry. Her face was streaked with color and her white mane with a ribbon of blue dye.

She looked distressed at seeing the com camera, and said something in Linyaari that Aari automatically translated as, “Oh, no, I thought that in this time I’d be free at last of being spied upon!”

“Who are you, youngling, and how did you come to emerge from the sea?” Kiiri asked.

Karina reached out and squeezed Hafiz’s hand. Her cheeks flushed with joy and triumph, her bountiful bosom heaving excitedly, she spoke. “Acorna, dear, and Aari, you will recall my prediction? I told you that you’d be seeing your daughter within the week and here she is, right on schedule!”

Chapter 13

K
horii had imagined that without Elviiz or Marl aboard, life on the
Mana
would be more peaceful than it had been on the journey to Corazon. Mikaaye was quieter than either of them and seemed willing to do his part without objection or insisting on improving each and every procedure.

Their first shift out was so uneventful and pleasant that by the time Jaya replaced Captain Bates at the helm, Khorii felt rather restless. Sesseli played in the corridor with Khiindi, the ship’s kittens, and a piece of Captain Bates’s beading cord. Hap was still demonstrating the intricacies of the engine room to Mikaaye. Khorii felt rather superfluous.

Captain Bates, who relinquished the pilot’s seat, lingered on the bridge.

“I’ve got it, Captain, really,” Jaya said. “If I have any trouble, I’ll be sure and wake you.”

“I know, Jaya,” their former teacher said. “It’s just that I don’t need a lot of sleep and with everything going so well—”

“You feel at loose ends, too, Captain?” Khorii asked.

Asha Bates’s hazel eyes snapped open, then hooded as she drawled, Yeaaah, loose ends. Exactly, Khorii. Come with me, please. I have an idea.”

Khorii was surprised when the captain activated the lights in her quarters to reveal that Jaya’s parents’ quarters, which Jaya insisted the captain take since it placed her closest to the bridge, had been expanded by removing the bulkhead between it and the room formerly occupied by the first mate. Jaya remained in her old quarters across the corridor from the captain’s. She had lived there while her parents were alive, and Khorii knew it helped her feel closer to the life she had shared with them.

A beaded curtain with the image of a many-armed dancer flowed like a waterfall between the captain’s and first mate’s spaces. Except for replacing the double berth, Captain Bates had left Jaya’s parents’ quarters much as they had been, but the first mate’s quarters, beyond the curtain, were another story. The berth had been removed in favor of a table bolted to the bulkhead and deck. Cabinets with small transparent drawers were bolted to the bulkheads from the deck to overhead. Khorii recognized some of the cabinets from the bead store.

“The
Mana
is an older vessel, Khorii, built in the days when hard copy charts and maps were sometimes used to supplement the information provided by the ship’s computers. Our space fleets are all modeled on the naval and merchant marine fleets of old Terra, with a similar command structure, similar language and nomenclature and also, on merchant vessels like this one, remnants in the architecture of what were once considered essential features on sailing ships. Like this map case.” She patted the top of the case, which held a rack of pliers, scissors, and wire. “But we don’t need paper maps these days, and manual navigation instruments are totally anachronistic when you’re among the stars instead of looking up at them. The mate was using the case to store her jewelry, brass for her uniforms, that sort of thing. I added some smaller compartments and—”

She opened the top drawer to show stones and large beads and other special components neatly arrayed by color. The storage tab on each drawer displayed the color contained by that drawer.

“I hope to collect more as we travel, Khorii. I had most of my stones in my kit already—Steve Reamer, who used to teach jewelry making to the children on Maganos, gifted me with some of them; others I’ve had even longer.”

“You’ve really made yourself at home,” Khorii said, meaning to compliment her on her adaptability. The gray floors had been covered with carpets from the
Mana
’s cargo, a bright coverlet was tucked securely into the berth, which was piled with silken pillows in many colors, many embroidered with golden threads.

“I had to do something. The bulkheads were in bad repair—the one between this room and the next was brittle and full of pockmarks. But I can easily repair it with a little spot welding and return it to the original layout,” Captain Bates said hastily. “No, no, Uncle Hafiz would love this!” Khorii said. “Though it’s possibly a bit understated for his taste.”

Captain Bates grinned. With her hazel eyes, light complexion, and midlength wavy brown hair, dressed as she was in her utilitarian shipsuit, she didn’t look like someone who would be the denizen of such an exotic den. “Have I ever told you anything about my background, Khorii?” Khorii shook her head. “Well, the short version is that I grew up among space nomads, pirates, gypsies, and traveling showmen. Our traditions were
not
based on Old Terran naval ones, so this is what home looks like to me, except I made this into a workroom for beading and other off-duty projects.”

For the first time, Khorii saw the purpose of having five slender digits on each hand instead of three larger, single-knuckled ones, as her race did.

Captain Bates caught her look, and said, “That’s no drawback. Come on, pick out some larger beads from here, and we’ll do your hair.”

A pleasant hour later, while Captain Bates’s hands combed, tugged, and braided her mane like a particularly versatile wind, they spoke of their lives, friends, what had happened in Corazon while Khorii had been away on her rescue missions and what had happened on the missions.

When Captain Bates finally lowered her hands, she said, “Now shake your head.” Khorii did so. Beads clacked and clinked together as she shook it. She rose and looked at herself in the polished metal portion of the bulkhead used to monitor grooming. Her entire head sparkled with the colors beaded and threaded into her star-clad mane, which also looked much longer, weighted as it was with the beads.

“Our star!” she exclaimed, clacking her braids again. “If it wasn’t for my horn, I don’t think I’d recognize myself.”

“You’re safe,” Captain Bates said. “I haven’t figured out how to bead a horn yet, though there are pigments and gilt…”

“Perhaps not,” Khorii said.

“No, it might interfere with your abilities. I was going to put little bells on the ends of the braids but thought better of that, too. You might want to sneak up on someone, and bells would be counterproductive. Ask any cat.”

As if on cue, Khiindi scratched at the hatch and Sesseli called apologetically, “I’m sorry, Captain, he keeps wanting to come in. He can be such a silly kitty.”

But when she saw the quarters and Khorii’s mane, Sesseli’s eyes got wide. “Do mine!” she said. So she replaced Khorii in the chair in front of the table while Khorii found her new do was considered by Khiindi to make fine surrogate prey. She shook her head for him, and he batted her braids while Captain Bates twined and embellished Sesseli’s baby-fine blond curls with smaller beads.

The child examined her reflection. “My beads aren’t the same as Khorii’s.”

“No, because I didn’t want them to pull and give you a headache. But look here at this braid and at Khorii’s in the same place.” They came to stand by Khorii, and the teacher lifted a braided lock on the right side of each girl’s head. “See this sequence? Hot pink, purple, saffron, and turquoise with the little gold spacers? Just alike. Among the nomadic crews they use beaded braids to identify their own and former crewmen. If you see a nomad with hair as full of beads as Khorii’s, you know he or she has a long history with many crews and is probably highly experienced. What do you think about making this sequence our crew’s uniform? This is our second voyage together, after all. We could have our own special insignia. Shall we see what Jaya thinks?”

“Yes,” Khorii said, “but what about the males? I know Elviiz will feel left out if he doesn’t get a braid, too.”

“Males can wear them, too, although Hap may need to grow his hair a bit to hold the beads.”

The intercom opened abruptly, and Jaya’s voice, sounding shaky and tense, said, “Captain Bates? Are Khorii and Sesseli still with you?”

“Yes, Jaya. Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure. Could you all please return to the bridge?”

“Certainly. Do you need Hap or Mikaaye?”

“I—I don’t think so, but I’ll buzz them to make sure they’re okay,” she replied.

Khorii, trailed by Sesseli and Khiindi, followed Captain Bates back across the corridor to the bridge.

Jaya’s skin was naturally a deep honey color, but when she turned to them she looked almost as pale as Khorii.

“What is it?” Captain Bates asked.

But Khorii saw everything in an intense flash of memory.

“My parents,” Jaya said, “and the rest of the crew. They were here.”

A
lone on the bridge, Jaya had dutifully gone through her checklist and was playing a solitary game of 3-D chess with the computer when she happened to glance up to the wide viewport that stretched across the
Mana
’s nose. She had been in space and aboard this ship most of her life, and though her role as pilot was relatively new, it was really no big deal. The ship’s computer did most of
the work. Even Sesseli could do this part, which was mostly minding the scanners and com set and watching the viewport to check on their position. That part was just a human thing for the most part. The computer and the scanners did the real “watching”—checking for all sorts of hazards, exploding heavenly bodies, other ships, asteroid fields, and adjusting the ship’s course to avoid them.

Nevertheless, computers, while less fallible than humans, were not entirely infallible and besides, someone needed to be on the bridge to coordinate the activities of the rest of the crew.

Glancing up at the viewport, Jaya thought how like eyes the stars looked. And then she realized that they looked like eyes because there seemed to be the dim reflections of faces superimposed on them.

Which was weird because viewports were made of nonreflective material, which was very expensive precisely because it was nonreflective as well as heat-, cold-, impact-, shatter-, and pressure-resistant and, of course, transparent.

She twisted her chair around to see what was casting the reflection, and it followed her across the screen until the insubstantial faces, with equally insubstantial, and even transparent bodies, came away from it to float in front of her.

They almost looked like they belonged there. She had seen them, in a more solid form, so often throughout her life. But they’d never been grouped together like this, staring at her. Her mother’s and father’s faces and partially realized forms were the foremost, but
she
could see others through them, behind them.

She scanned them with feelings of eagerness, hopefulness, glad to see them again, even if they were only fragments of her dreams or some sort of ghostly memory left behind in the ship, as such memories were said to do in haunted houses.

But they looked down at her with empty eyes, their expressions uninterested, as if they didn’t know her.

“Mom?” she asked, her voice almost inaudible even to herself. “Dad?”

The eyes didn’t blink. Had she done something to rouse their spirits and make them angry at her? Did they disapprove of the way she was using the
Mana?
Why?

The empty eyes seemed to bore into her, so unlike her the way her parents’ eyes had been in life. They had been meltingly dark, and always expressing something, laughter, worry, anger, fear, approval, love…she would rather not have seen them at all than to see them like this, so distant, so…alien.