Second Wave (23 page)

But as Marl slunk from the shadows into the moonlight, the gang following him, members of which bore a resemblance to the pictures of some of the cemetery’s inhabitants, seemed less solid. The buildings they passed by were clearly visible through them at times.

There were ten distinct forms besides Marl’s. Elviiz knew he could be on the street and between Marl and his vehicle quickly enough to prevent escape, if that seemed the wisest course. However, interfering with Marl’s departure would also interfere with collecting data on his companions. So Elviiz waited until Marl entered the deserted terminal at the docking bay, the others following him, passing straight through the door he closed behind him as if it didn’t exist.

Only then did Elviiz run out of the administration building and over to the terminal, thinking that closer proximity would reveal the nature of the beings accompanying Marl.

However, the shuttle was waiting when Marl reached it, and Elviiz was still some distance away when the teenager boarded it. The hatch sealed behind him, but, again, this did nothing to deter his companion from entering the shuttle by other means.

As the shuttle ascended with all of them, Elviiz tried to tabulate the data he had just collected. It refused to fall into place.

He returned to the street. From that level, undistracted by a specific goal, he sensed forms moving counter to the wind and a rustling noisier than the trees. His optical sensors sharpened their focus so that he saw several entities approaching him from three directions. At his back was the terminal.

The noises were not just noise, he realized, but some sort of communication. Spandard?

He sharpened his auditory focus as well and was able to increase the volume. Although he felt communication was transpiring, it was too indistinct for him to detect the meaning. But the movement, and the tone, both felt distinctly menacing.

“Holá,”
he said in Spandard. “
Yo soy
Elviiz. Please speak clearly so that I may record and interpret your communications.”

He was not afraid, although theoretically he was capable of fear. However, these entities could not harm him. They might try, not realizing that he was an android, and not a wholly organic being. They might inflict damage, but on the other hand, he might inflict damage on them. But such considerations were counterproductive. Attempting to understand them was the course that he alone was equipped to pursue.

They closed in, making no direct attempts to communicate that he could discern. “Attacking me is futile,” he said confidently. But his optical sensors at that point informed him of a subtle distinction he had not detected previously. The creatures to either side of him seemed transparent because he could see the walls of the building through them. But the walls had bands of ornate tile inlaid in them and as one of the forms passed beyond the band of tile, the tile Elviiz had assumed was behind the creature moved
with
it. The creatures were not transparent with the wall showing through them. They had incorporated portions of the walls into themselves.

“Fascinating!” he said aloud. “Will you not please explain to me how you are absorbing portions of this structure without damaging it?”

Their expressions did not change, but as they drew nearer, Elviiz heard a distinct rattle and clatter from behind them. The upper portion of the walls was crumbling and showering unsupported fragments down onto the walkway.

That was his last observation before the roof, literally speaking, caved in.

M
arl Fidd’s ride, a geriatric shuttle of distant but uncertain origins, landed without notice. Marl boarded. Had the hatch been the sort of door he could slam behind him, he would have done so.

The shuttle pilot didn’t turn around as Marl took his seat. “I thought you said you were coming alone,” the pilot grunted.

“I am alone,” Marl replied. He’d better be. But looking around, all he saw was the interior of the shuttle. There was no way this bloke could know about the ghosts or zombies or whatever those bloody bony buggers on the pallets had been. Marl’s vision was still a bit dazzled from the laser bolts of the com tower, and sparkly dots seemed to glow like fairy dust all over the shuttle’s interior, but he didn’t see anything more alarming than that. “Something must be wrong with your instruments. You lot really should hijack a better class of vessel.”

“Watch your mouth, or you can leave right now, mate,” the pilot growled. “And your friends, too.”

“What friends? Turn around and look at me, you silly git. I left my entourage back in my posh hotel suite. See here, I don’t know what you’ve been shooting or sniffing, but you’d best get this bird off the ground unless you want to piss off some very influential people by bungling a juicy mission.” Then, since he didn’t actually know that the pilot himself was not an influential crewman, he added in a more conciliatory tone, “No offense, mate, but why fly a leaky bucket like this with entire abandoned space fleets to choose from?”

“Our buckets may leak, but we don’t get plague from boarding them—
mate,
” the man replied.

“Oh. Well, I know how to fix that problem,” Marl said.

“How’s that?”

“For me to know and you to find out,” he said, then, seeing from the gleam of the pilot’s eye that the man was considering ways of finding out that would violate Marl’s personal privacy, not to mention his hide, added, “In good time.”

Marl strapped into his seat and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to engage in any more witty repartee with this bozo. He was afraid every time he opened his mouth he might shriek something that would tell the pilot of his adventures in the com tower. They didn’t necessarily mind insanity on pirate vessels, but they mostly tolerated the violent kind aimed at potential marks or the law, not the kind that broke out in cold sweats and screamed like they were supposed to make other people scream.

Closing his eyes was a bad move, however. His sense of hearing took up the slack, and he heard what he was certain were nonstandard noises. By the time the shuttle hit the outer atmosphere, it sounded as if the entire damned ship was coming apart. Marl’s eyes were wide-open by then.

“What by the fires of Krim did you do to this vessel?” the pilot demanded, reaching frantically for toggles, buttons, and switches as he watched screens that shimmied with the vibrations of the craft as if they’d been jellied.

The pilot bawled a Mayday into his com unit.

The communication he received in return was in a language Marl did not understand, but it sounded reassuring. That was good, wasn’t it?

His teeth threatened to shake from his head, and suddenly he was very cold, but perhaps that was fear. Then, too, judging from the frost forming on the instruments, perhaps not.

The shuttle gave a final jerk, and space whizzed past the frosted viewport. Marl thought that they were falling. What a nuisance, after all he’d done to escape Corazon, to end up crashing back into it again.

Had he known he was losing consciousness, he would have been glad. It wouldn’t hurt so much that way, probably.

But the next thing he knew, he was looking into a bright, circular beam of light, and next to it was a pair of anthracite eyes topped by a single slick black wing of an eyebrow. The eyes did not look happy to see him.

“I’m alive, right?” he asked. First things first, after all. “On the ship?”

“Yes, thanks to our tractor beam,” the single-browed pirate said in Standard thick with an accent that could have been Spandard, but wasn’t quite. “Otherwise, we would not be having this little talk. What did you do to the shuttle?”

“Nothing!” Marl insisted. “Nothing. It’s old. It’s—”

“It was totally refurbished,” a cold voice said from beyond the light. “And now, between the time it left our bay and returned with your sorry hide in it, the walls are falling down, the inner hull is corroded away, and it looks like it’s been eaten from the inside out.”

“Not guilty!” Marl said. “Your pilot can tell you.”

“He could, except he didn’t make it. The last thing said before he died was something about you bringing someone with you when you boarded.”

“Did you find anyone else?”

“No one but you and him.”

“Well, there you go. I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but had he been under any unusual stress lately? Frankly, I don’t think the ship was the only thing that was cracking up.”

The unibrow pirate grunted. “You stay where I can keep an eye on you at all times.”

Marl followed him to the bridge, where the captain greeted him with cordiality appropriate from people who had every reason to think he was going to make them rich and powerful. “Our mutual friends say you can plot us a lucrative course, boy. Where’s it to be, then?”

“Here it is,” Marl said promptly. While contacting this ship, he had also scanned the files at the com tower for the
Mana
’s new course. “We’re following this ship, see? They’re the ones will lead us to the cargo.”

“There are many rich cargoes not worth the lives of my people,” the captain said. “We have steered clear of the plague this long, and I intend that we continue to do so.”

“No problem there, mate. There’s two horns aboard that ship. And they know me.” Marl was very careful not to say how. “I’m sure that if they are not already inclined to decontaminate our cargo in the interest of public health, we can—talk them into it.”

The captain nodded, and Marl programmed the course into the ship’s computer.

He felt very nervous after that because he saw in the eyes of the captain and the unibrow, who turned out to be the first officer, that with the course plotted, there was no reason for them not to downsize the crew by one, namely him. He was so clearly the outsider, too, as the others all lacked his flair for grooming. Greasy snarled hair with lots of stuff in it he hesitated to try to identify, appalling teeth oddly gleaming with metal and sometimes gemstones, and a very random fashion sense, the unifying element of which seemed to be that the garment be torn, tattered, shredded, or with repairs proudly accentuated with wildly contrasting thread or fabric. No sleek shipsuits for these people. They also taxed the ventilation system with a peculiar bouquet of smells—sweat and more pungent body odors mingled with an overlay of musky, acrid perfume. He should have remained in the condition he’d been in during his stay in the mansion’s kitchen. It would have been much more appropriate for this company.

The women and children among them did not give the ship a particularly homey air, nor did Marl find their presence reassuring. While the men looked like they’d think nothing of killing him, some of the women looked like they’d think about it very carefully, selecting the choicest cuts, seasoning him properly to bring out his flavor, and wondering whether he’d be better with a white wine or a red.

All in all, it didn’t look to be a very comfortable trip out. But Marl consoled himself with the reward that waited for him at the end—and the chance to get back at that horned alien and her friends at the same time.

Chapter 21

T
he truth was, as long as Khorii was busy in the thick of things, solving problems, healing, surrounded by her friends, she forgot about Vhiliinyar, and even forgot about missing her parents. Life felt like an ongoing adventure, like the ones she imagined her mother and father used to have, and she had a sense of purpose.

Alone, tired, all the necessary work accomplished for the time being, she finally had time to feel the gap between the self she had grown up with and who she was now. Even Elviiz was somewhere else, and the other Linyaari kid, an organic one, seemed to be an acceptable replacement for her as well as for Elviiz. She had wanted to like him and had tried to teach him things, but he seemed to prefer Hap’s company, and both Hap and Jaya seemed to like him more than they did her. He didn’t even look as alien among them, somehow, despite his horn. Not as alien as she had always felt anyway. But there was nothing special about him to another Linyaari. He was just another youngling, newly star-clad. He had more energy and strength than she did, she guessed, but then he hadn’t been working like an adult for months and months the way she had. So he just butted in and took over, and everybody let him do so under the guise of her needing to “rest.”

Horns, you’d think she was really old or something. Khorii decided that even if he was Melireenya’s son, she didn’t like Mikaaye very much. He was boring and shallow and didn’t really know anything or how to do anything that
any
Linyaari couldn’t do.

At least there was still Khiindi. She’d been told that Rushima had been full of animals before the plague and, although as with the humans, the adult animals had died, the babies just weaned had often survived. Or maybe those were cat and dog ghosts—or chicken, pig, or horse ghosts—she saw in yards and windowsills or peeking out from under porches or in alleyways. Maybe that was why Khiindi was choosing to spend so much time on the ship.

K
hiindi was guarding the ship. Somebody had to. The VES were single-minded in their mission to exterminate rodents and other vermin but did not seem to have a clue how to deal with the real problem plaguing—his little kitty cat, double-crescent lips curled in a smile at the term—the
Mana
. Once the bodies were removed, he thought most of the threat would go with them, but one could never be too sure, so he was sleeping with one eye open. To remain vigilant, a guard needed his rest. The best napping place, other than Khorii’s berth or Sesseli’s, was the command chair on the bridge. It was usually warm and smelled like one of the humans or Khorii. His nap had been interrupted only once when some of the crew—but not Khorii—returned to take one of the shuttles out.

When Khiindi heard the first electronic noise, he thought it signaled the return of his crew and he opened an eye—the one not already at least metaphorically open—to keep watch on the ship. The beep and accompanying blinking light were not shuttles requesting the opening of the docking bay however—that was the toggle to the far left of the copilot’s chair. No, it was the tiny red bulb of the com unit signaling that someone was trying to make contact. Khiindi sat up and put his front paws on the control panel to watch more closely.