Second Wave (8 page)

Hmmm. What would Uncle Joh do? Or Uncle Hafiz? No dots danced from the case, but she could read the man. If she told him all of this was safe, he’d be digging into all sorts of places that might not be to loot things that were not his at all. And the fabric was very beautiful. She was sure that Captain Bates, Jaya, and Sesseli and probably many others would enjoy new garments made from these materials.

She looked around. Elviiz was several tents away, collecting data. Khiindi was chasing something that scuttled into a closed tent.

“My counteroffer is this,” Khorii said, hoping she sounded businesslike. “I will decontaminate your goods, but in return you will give me the case of my choice and will also donate half of the recovered merchandise to help clothe and shelter the survivors.”

“That’s robbery!”

“Sir, I am disobeying my elders to diminish my horn’s power for such frivolous purposes. Every increment of my strength expended on this may mean one less life I can save or injury I can heal. However, this is very attractive merchandise, and I can see that you have braved much to recover it. I can justify cleansing it for you only if you share some of it to clothe or shelter those in need. With the rest, you are free to profit as you will.”

“Whew! You drive a hard bargain for a sweet young thing, but you have me over a barrel, so okay.”

None of the cases showed signs of the plague, but Khorii went through the motions of decontaminating the lovely stuff nonetheless, all the time clearing her mind of the grief and pain around her by focusing on the sheen of the silks and satins, the beauty of the patterns, the shine of the sequins, beads, and metallic threads, the flutter of ribbons. She imagined the garments that could be made for her friends and herself from each of her favorites and finally settled on the first case he had shown her. She planned to suggest that he donate the containers filled with the most durable and utilitarian fabrics to complete his bargain.

But when she indicated her choice he shook his head, “Not that one. Have you got any idea what that stuff cost me?”

“Nothing at all according to what you told me.”

“But that one has the best stuff in it.”

“That means I have good taste, doesn’t it?” In a way, she was glad the man was trying to back out of the bargain because it made her feel better about not really needing to cleanse his stock. She had inspected it, however, which was what she was doing everywhere, and what she wanted was not for her personally. It would do this man good to contribute something to someone else’s welfare.

“Oh, have it your way. Take the damn thing,” he said.

She reached down to fasten the case and he grabbed her, holding her bent over and covering her mouth with his hand. “Now then,” he said in a low voice, “I got a better idea. You and me could make good partners. There’s worlds of ownerless stuff out there, just waiting for someone to give it a home, except it’s a little buggy. You take care of that for me, I’ll take care of you. Be like your own daddy.”

This is getting monotonous,
Khorii thought.
First Marl, now this old crook. At least Uncle Joh doesn’t force anyone to clean his salvage for him. “Auntie Neeeva?”

But a tail brushed under her nose as Khiindi ran behind her.

“Yeow!” That was the scavenger, not Khiindi. The man released his grip on her so quickly she fell forward into the case of fabrics. Khiindi suddenly dropped to the ground, while the man moaned something incoherent and clutched his male reproductive organs through the cloth of his loose trousers.

Khorii momentarily pondered what to do. It might be misunderstood if she attempted to heal him. Human beings tended to be a bit shy about their reproductive organs, from what she had gathered.

But when she turned to look at the man, there was Elviiz, holding her assailant up in the air by the collar of his tunic. “If you become Khorii’s father, sir, you must adopt me as well. I am her brother.”

“And I,” said Neeva, flanked by Melireenya and Khaari, “am her mother’s mother-sister. You are kind to offer to care for this youngling, but she is not available for you to salvage. She has perfectly good parents, two sets of grandparents, and several collateral kinsmen as well. Put the gentleman down, Elviiz.”

Elviiz dropped him, and the man took off, yelling, “Take the lot! I don’t care. Just leave me alone!”

“How generous,” Khorii said. “He had promised to give only half of his stock of fabric to clothe the survivors. He must be so sorry he became greedy and attacked me that he wishes to atone by donating all of it.”

“From now on perhaps it would be best if you stayed with us after all,” Neeva said.

“I was fine. Khiindi and Elviiz wouldn’t have let anything happen to me,” Khorii protested.

“It is not your safety that concerns us. How would we explain the damage Khiindi and Elviiz might inflict if someone else attempted to detain you? We do not want others to misunderstand our race or our purpose here. We are helping, not invading and conquering…anybody. Our people simply don’t do that sort of thing,” Neeva said severely.

Elviiz hung his head. Like his father, Maak, he wanted to be considered a true Linyaari, just like fully organic members of the family. He would never have brought shame on them deliberately or caused bad relations with humans.

Khorii said, “Of course not. That’s why Uncle Maak made Elviiz as he did. And Khiindi, as you know, is of Makahomian Temple Cat stock, and they are bred to protect their people.”

“Yes, dear, but look at Elviiz. He has a Linyaari heart. He dislikes being put in the position of having to use force because you have placed yourself in a dangerous situation. No doubt Khiindi would prefer to limit his exertions to smaller vermin as well.”

Khiindi looked up from cleaning the claws of his back feet and uttered a loud, “Prrrt?”

“It was not good of you to trick that man,” Neeva continued. “It lowered you to his level.”

Khorii hung her head. Neeva was right.

“However, the fabric will be very useful, and we all heard him give it to us for the survivors.” She touched Khorii’s horn softly with her own, the Linyaari version of a kiss. “And you are absolutely correct,
yaazi
. The goods in this case will particularly please your friends.”

Chapter 6

H
ey, gang, come aboard! You got to hear this. Hafiz is on the horn with some great news,” Captain Jonas P. Becker called from the descending robolift of the
Condor,
flagship of Becker and Son Interplanetary Recycling and Salvage, Ltd.

Acorna and Aari stood up from grazing in the lush meadow the Ancestors had allocated for their personal use and trotted over to the robolift. RK, Becker’s feline first mate, leaped from the captain’s shoulder to Acorna’s.

“Beam us up, Maak,” Becker said into the com he’d just installed on the robolift.

“How do I do that, Captain?” the android asked in a mystified tone.

“You can’t, buddy. I just always wanted to say that. You don’t really have to do anything. I’ll push the button like I always do.” Acorna and Aari smiled at each other. The captain was so pleased with something that his mustache was absolutely fluffy with joy. He was also carefully shielding his thoughts so they could enjoy the surprise element of the news he wished them to hear for themselves.

They ascended to the cargo deck, then up to the bridge. The robolift previously had gone only to the cargo deck. “This is a wonderful surprise, Joh,” Aari told him. “Making the lift go all the way to the bridge is both logical and practical.”

“Yeah, well, I thought of it when I was getting my strength back after the plague. The stairs were just too much, you know? But this is nothing!” He snorted and waved one sausage-fingered hand dismissively at the lift. “Come on, can’t keep His Hafizness waiting. He made me promise not to tell you so he could.”

Becker capered ahead of them and then, with a low bow, as if presenting royalty, indicated Hafiz Harakamian’s impatient countenance on the com screen.

“Acorna, most felicitous of female foster offspring! And Aari, supremely salubrious son-in-law. Greetings!” Hafiz nodded, a deep blue catseye chrysoberyl winking at them from the center of the peacock-feather fan adorning his turquoise turban. “Sit down, my dears, make yourselves company. Jonas, are you a barbarian? Serve your guests cakes—er—seed cakes, of course, and a sparkling libation. The tidings I bear require celebration, think you not?”

Hafiz himself was seated, and behind him a flowing curtain of amethyst and violet draperies indicated that his beloved Karina was hovering in the background. This impression was confirmed when her purple-catseye-encrusted hands caressed the teal-and-gold brocade shoulders of her husband’s robes.

Aari and Acorna sat. Roadkill walked from Acorna’s shoulders to the back of the command chair and draped himself across it, his bushy tail tickling her cheek.

Acorna knew the form Hafiz preferred, especially when he wanted to spin out a story, as he seemed to wish to do now. “How have you been, Uncle Hafiz? I trust you and Karina are well and that your enterprises flourish?”

“How kind of you to inquire, my child. I am well as is my beloved. As for my enterprises, as you know they faltered somewhat while the disastrous disease threatened to eradicate life in our home sector. Your father, Rafik, tells me that our losses are so great he has been unable to calculate them accurately as yet. So many of our employees in so many of our enterprises have succumbed that data has been difficult to gather.”

“But Rafik is well?”

“He is. As are your other fathers and their families. Your people retrieved and cleansed many of our vessels and other properties, so House Harakamian is in better order than the businesses of its—for the most part late—competitors.”

“We were all happy to have the occasion to repay your fathomless kindness to us and our worlds, Uncle Hafiz,” Aari replied. “Have you had any news of Khorii?”

Aari was much less accustomed to the circumlocutory manners that were Hafiz’s habit. As Joh Becker put it, Aari liked to “cut to the chase.”

“Ahhhh.” Hafiz smiled deep into his beard and mustache, leaned back in his chair and laced his fat, ring-encrusted fingers across his royal blue sash. Had RK favored a palette of blues instead of his brindled gray coat, he would have looked much the same after hiding a particularly well aged deceased rodent amid her bedclothes. “That I have, my children, that I have. I received a most encouraging relay mere moments ago from the
Balakiire.
Khorii is with them now, and thus far, are you ready?”

“They’re ready already, Hafiz!” Becker told him. “Enough’s enough. Tell them before they read my mind.”

“Thus far Khorii has confirmed their impression that the plague has run its course. There have been no new outbreaks, and all previously contaminated areas are, according to the talented pearl of your family oyster, now clear of the disease.”

“Then she—everyone else, too, of course—will be coming home soon?” Acorna asked. Her hands trembled in her lap. She reached up with her left and stroked RK’s tail.

“As soon as possible,” Hafiz said, nodding. “But you understand, beloveds, that it may
not
be possible for her to return very soon. She alone can confirm that all traces of the illness have vanished, and the area of infection was, as you know, quite extensive.”

Becker chewed his mustache, as if trying to decide something, then said, “Hafiz, tell Khorii if she wants a good litmus test for the course of the disease to check the
White Star,
” he said. “I’d appreciate if you passed it on just that way and went through as few relays as possible—better yet, send it to the
Mana.
I don’t exactly want the whole Linyaari fleet trying to read my mind on this one.”

Hafiz raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t ask,” Becker said, and Hafiz nodded. The two men of business respected each other’s mysterious silences, at least superficially. That didn’t mean they might not do some sneaking around later trying to find out what the other one was up to, but they kept it polite for the sake of their mutual friends. “But if she checks the
White Star
and it’s clear and there are still no new outbreaks, it should be safe for her to return home.”

“As you have said, so shall it be done,” Hafiz replied formally.

“Is that all?” Aari asked, sounding a bit disappointed. Acorna knew he would have preferred to hear that their daughter was currently waiting for someone to collect her from the Moon of Opportunity and bring her back to Vhiliinyar.

“It is,” Hafiz said. “And now, I must forsake your company, which is like unto a waterfall in the desert of my despair, and return to—yes, dear?” He looked up, nodded, and patted the feminine hand on his shoulder. “Karina has something she wishes to impart to you as well. Farewell for now.”

“Farewell, Uncle Hafiz,” they said, and Acorna added, “A thousand thanks.”

Karina Harakamian settled her drifts of draperies into the chair like a purple flower shedding its petals. She beamed triumphantly at them through the com screen, her eyes twinkling like her many jewels. “No disrespect to my hubby, kids, but I’ve had a vision that portends even better news than his!”

Karina must be excited indeed, Khorii thought, because she had momentarily forgotten the funereal tones she ordinarily employed to announce her “visions.”

Generally, Karina also chose to have her visions in the presence of those who would be most impressed by them. Contacting them after the fact was not her style. “When did you have this vision?” Acorna asked her, putting more eagerness into her voice than she actually felt. Often Karina’s visions of the “future” simply restated the present. Occasionally she had a true flash of insight, but during those times, in Acorna’s experience, her presentation was quite dramatic, if accidental, usually coming within the framework of one of her questionable trances.

“Just now!” she said. “While Haffy was speaking to you. It was quite clear though disappointingly brief and, forgive me, dears, but this is the way my gift works, a bit cryptic.”