Third Watch (19 page)

“But you really miss them all now and wish like anything they were all back again,” Sesseli said, with a sigh.

“Not all of them, no,” Jaya said. “But my mom and dad I miss all the time. And—well…”

Hap silently patted her shoulder. Sesseli buried her face in the fur of the kitten she was carrying.

Moonmay said, “It’s true kinfolk can be a trial and a tribulation at times, but I miss mine just the same, and I’d miss them more if I knew I’d never again have an opportunity to be peeved with their antics.”

“Fine,” Ariin said. “I already apologized. Now what we need is a way to find Odus and make him stop the plague. If he’s able.”

Elviiz nodded sagely. “My fleeting impression of this individual, based on both data collected and my newly acquired intuitive powers, is that he is perhaps overly optimistic about the extent of his intellect and does not think his hypotheses through to all of their possible logical conclusions before acting on them.”

“That sounds exactly like him. So what do we do about it?” Ariin asked.

“We have two points of reference with which to work,” Elviiz replied. “One is that Odus visited this planet and apparently left it again. The other point is the
Estrella Blanca,
originating in the Rio Boca region of the Solojo system.”

“But the plague may have come from a passenger more likely to have been traveling from Dinero Grande,” Khorii said. “The people on the
Blanca
were all very well-off, so unless the carrier was a crew member, it could have originated on the passengers’ homeworld.”

“Dinero Grande sounds like this Odus bird’s style,” Hap said.

Captain Bates nodded, “He does sound like he considers himself a high roller.”

“He could have been on Dinero Grande, I suppose,” Khorii said. “We might have missed him.”

Ariin snorted. “He wouldn’t let anyone miss him. I doubt he’s there anymore, if he ever was, but if he was, you can bet there will be some trace of his magnificent presence other than the plague.”

“Would all of the Friends have moved together to the same place, do you think?” Khorii asked her sister. She wished Khiindi could be Grimalkin again at least long enough to help them figure out where the others of his race had gone. “The only one I’ve ever heard much about is Grimalkin, and we know where he is and that he and Pircifir were more inclined to go their own way than the others.”

“It may not be necessary to find the rest of them as long as we find Odus,” Elviiz said. “I will change course immediately for the Solojo system, and suggest that the
Mana
and the
Balakiire
do the same.”

“I have a better idea,” Ariin said.

Elviiz looked up inquiringly and with some incredulity.

“You aren’t familiar enough with the time device to have thought of it, brother,” Ariin told him. “None of us have searched it for the whereabouts of Odus and his people because we didn’t realize there would be a problem. But it should tell us when they left Vhiliinyar for the last time, and I’m sure if we look hard enough, there would be some data concerning their destination if they had one when they left.”

Elviiz beamed. “That is an excellent idea, sister. We will have to travel backward to a time before the Khleevi, but if we avoid them and eliminate other time periods in which we know the Friends still inhabited our world, we should be able to find what we seek very quickly.”

“In no time, you might say,” Captain Bates said.

“Can we come, too, this time?” Sesseli asked. “Please?”

“Sorry, Sess,” Khorii told her, “but it’s best if we split up now. The
Mana
should go ahead with the original plan and look for Odus or clues about him on Dinero Grande while we search the timer.”

The little girl looked sullen for a moment, but Captain Bates said, “That works for me. Besides, we can check up on Jalonzo and the others in Corazon. If there’s still a city there after the crawly things eat their way through it.”

“The
Balakiire
will assist the
Mana,
” Neeva told her. “Other Linyaari will be available on Vhiliinyar if my sister’s daughter’s children require help. You may be in need of our skills to make some of the quarantined areas safe for exploration, and many of our rescue teams have returned home already.”

W
hen the
Pircifir
returned to Vhiliinyar once more, Ariin pulled back her cuff to reveal the crono. Then, before consulting it, she looked at Khorii, Elviiz, and, finally, reluctantly, at Khiindi.

Digging into her pocket, she extracted the crono she had taken from Grimalkin and held it out. “I still don’t trust you,” she told him. Khiindi blinked his large gold-green eyes at her twice, then cautiously stretched out a forepaw and snagged the device with his claws, pulling it back to rest between his front legs and his belly.

“That is a very good idea, sister,” Elviiz complimented her.

Khorii added, “Brilliant! For all his faults, Grimalkin has done more time travel than either of us, especially in the time before his people left Vhiliinyar. Having him choose when we visit will—er—save time.”

“He was apparently near when the VL58PK was manufactured. Otherwise, how would he have acquired that particular model?”

“Oh, Elviiz, you’re new to time traveling, or you wouldn’t ask,” Khorii said, with a sigh. “It gets very complicated. But you’re right in saying that it is a lead—and perhaps the first one we should follow. Khiindi?”

She picked up the robe Grimalkin had worn and held it up while, outside the ship, time blurred by.

The ship remained docked in Vhiliinyar’s new docking bay. The port had been constructed not where the original one was, Khorii knew, but close to the site of the original techno-artisans’ complex. The current complex was being built up around the port. This made sense, since most of the goods modified by the artisans arrived in the port and also, particularly for the shipsmiths, would need to leave from there.

When time stopped blurring, the viewport was level with the top of one of the huge pavilions in which the work of the techno-artisans took place.

A large, oval-shaped ship poked at the top of the pavilion. The first coat of gilt and painted shielding had been applied to the hull, the details sketched out on top of it for later embellishment.

Although soft light still infused the pavilion, the moons of Vhiliinyar had risen, and the night held none of the noises Khorii associated with shipbuilding and repair from her earliest acquaintance with it.

The pavilions, as she knew, could be erected and dismantled depending on the amount of work the artisans had to do. Every precaution was taken to preserve the good meadowland beneath the floors of the temporary structures. Techno-artisans liked to graze as much as the next Linyaari. This was not the scantily furnished and crowded port/technical complex she had known from babyhood, however. This complex was beautifully laid out in a spiral from a large central guildhall and work area where the special coating compounds for Linyaari ships were mixed and the clan records were kept. The ships were each dedicated to individual clans and their members who were starfarers and were named for prominent starfaring ancestors. This was the old Vhiliinyar, before the Khleevi invasion, and at that time, according to her lessons, many Linyaari had never been in space, preferring the peace of their home meadows. They maintained the homeworld and its culture and customs, and cared for the Ancestors while the more adventurous of their race explored space, set up trade agreements with other worlds, and befriended other species. Until the arrival of the Khleevi, she was told, the Linyaari had never had a true enemy, so far as they knew, in the entire universe.

Though it was a bit difficult to see beyond the pavilion and ship that blocked most of the viewscreen, she counted eleven more pavilion hangars arranged in the spiral tightening around the guildhall.

“Let’s have a look,” Grimalkin suggested. He was two-legged once more, clad in Pircifir’s robe. He took the time to strap the crono securely to his wrist this time.

“I’m glad we came at night,”
Khorii told Ariin.
“I know when we’ve time traveled before we’ve gone back to times before we were born, but this seems so familiar, I feel like we might run into Father when he was a boy. Mother won’t even be born for another two
ghaanyi
…”

They left the ship to explore the other pavilions.

Every single one of them held one of the VL58PK models, each in the process of receiving its shielding coat of elaborately codified decorative swags, swirls, and embellishments.

“I thought the story was that one of these was never delivered,”
Khorii said.

“I’ll bet Odus probably used time travel to confuse the techno-artisans somehow or other,”
Ariin suggested.
“It would be his kind of joke.”

Grimalkin spoke in a low tone. “It’s as I thought. The ship we saw was here. I visualized it in this place, and here it is.”

But as they stared at the ship in question, with its purple orbs and golden swags on a pink background, Grimalkin’s nose went up as if he were still in cat form.

Elviiz said, “My olfactory sensors detect the odor of fuel. I also feel slight vibrations coming from the ship. Our quarry is already aboard the vessel and preparing for takeoff.”

With a controlled whoosh, the fabric-clad structure of the pavilion’s pinnacle retracted, leaving the ship’s nose open to the moonlit sky.

“Quickly, back to our own ship if we are to catch him,” Grimalkin said. They ran back to their ship and reboarded, but at no time as they ran the relatively short distance did they see or feel the other ship leave its moorings. By the time they were back on the bridge of the
Pircifir
, however, the twelfth pavilion stood open and empty, though no other vessel ascended into Vhiliinyar’s night sky.

“It vanished,” Elviiz said. “Most unscientific.”

“He timed it!” Grimalkin said. “Of course, and we must do the same.”

He stared at the crono again, and the landscape outside the viewport changed once more. They caught a glimpse of the ship Odus had taken on the ground just before it lifted toward the moons.

The techno-artisans’ compound was gone, as was the spaceport. In the distance were the mountains and the gleaming sea, but no sign of the city of Kubiilikaan or its own spaceport.

“Please return to your seats and strap yourselves in for liftoff,” Elviiz said in an oddly pleasant and mechanical voice. “We will be leaving in a precipitous manner in pursuit of the vessel now exiting Vhiliinyar’s atmosphere.”

“Perhaps we will be invited to join him,” Grimalkin suggested. He touched the com button. “Greetings, friend. Leaving so soon? I was hoping you might give me a ride in your elegant new transport.”

Odus’s gleeful and rather shiny face peered back at them from the com screen. In front of him, Akasa was seated, checking her lips in her reflection from the viewport. “Grimalkin! Haven’t seen you in a while, old cat. What is that antique tube rocket you’re flying? Are those your children?”

“He doesn’t remember me?”
Ariin asked.

“If Grimalkin isn’t frozen in cat form, then he hasn’t taken you to his Council yet as far as Odus knows.”

“I’m beginning to agree with Pircifir about not liking time loops. This one seems to have tangled itself.”

“Remember that the Friends knew all about our race before they had Grimalkin abduct you. So maybe Odus came way forward in time to hijack the ship and in his time line, you don’t exist yet.”

Grimalkin answered smoothly, “Never mind them. I’ve been looking for the rest of our people, Odus. When I tried to go home after an extended journey, Kubiilikaan had vanished. I found it, using the crono, but it was deserted. Where did everyone go?”

“Oh, you know, here and there,” Odus said vaguely. “Decided to leave Vhiliinyar to the Linyaari and the unicorns, actually. I was hoping we might create a more stimulating race among us, but the Linyaari aren’t especially interesting. They graze, they build things, they philosophize and sing, but I ask you, old cat, where’s the drama in that? Except for being bipeds, they seem to have acquired none of our traits. Most disappointing.”

“He put me through all that testing to try to create our race, and now he thinks we’re boring?”
Ariin said indignantly.
“If he was in range of my hooves, I’d show him boring!”

“Hostile thoughts are probably counterproductive right now,”
Khorii cautioned.
“Can’t you push him to invite us along?”

Ariin pushed.

“If you think that bucket of bolts can keep up, I’ll show you,” Odus said. “I have a brief errand on the way back, however. We left our dwellings behind. They were dying anyway and in poor repair, despite the technicians’ best coaxing and care.”

“Perhaps you could just give me the coordinates in case we lag behind, our vessel being less modern and splendid than your own,” Grimalkin suggested, with a modesty Khorii felt anyone who knew him would find transparent.

“Not that simple, old cat. This journey will involve a bit of a jump forward on the old crono—best synchronize.”

Grimalkin nodded affably and pretended to do so, but Khorii knew he was doing nothing of the kind. They knew very well when Odus would make that fateful jump to the Khleevi-ravaged planet.

“I’d still like the coordinates for our people’s new home,” Grimalkin told him. “Just in case we get separated. You never know what in the universe might happen.”

“True enough,” Odus agreed, and provided the information. Khorii noticed Elviiz listening carefully, and she was sure he was processing the coordinates.

“Try to stay close,” Akasa said. “We won’t be turning back to look for you.”

“Nor should you,” Grimalkin said agreeably. “Our ship is no match for that splendid craft you’re flying.”

When they broke off communication, Elviiz told Ariin and Khorii, “Before we go off-world again, I would like to speak with my father and with our mutual parents as well. We cannot determine the time of our next meeting with any accuracy, so while we are within such close proximity, spatially speaking, I wish to take advantage of the opportunity.”