Third Watch (24 page)

“A few more shouldn’t make any difference then,” she said. “They’re a package deal.”

“Tell you what, buddy,” Uncle Joh said. “We were on our way over to Dinero Grande, where the rich and powerful used to live. We’re checking on a cargo for Hafiz Harakamian himself. Why don’t you stick with us and see if we can’t turn up a newer, fancier model than that old bucket for you and your band of merry men, women, and children? Then you can leave the
Mana
to the kids that own it, no harm done, and you haven’t made an enemy of Jonas P. Becker.”

Khorii didn’t know what to expect from that—possibly an offer to blow them out of the sky. Fortunately, she knew the cargo ship was not heavily armed, whereas the
Condor
was always equipped with a full array of weapons salvaged from many different eras. Most of them didn’t work very well, of course, since Uncle Joh spent too much time on more functional modifications for his ship, but armed combat should be avoided. The Linyaari were against it on principle, and she was against it because all of the people she cared about most were within range of ship-launched weapons. Someone could get hurt. Someone probably would get hurt since that was, to the best of her understanding, the general idea behind weapons.

“Jonas Becker, son of Theophilus Becker, of Becker Intergalactic Recycling and Salvage Enterprises, Ltd?”

“That’s what it says on the side of the ship,” Uncle Joh said.

“Sorry, I don’t have my reading glasses on,” Coco apologized. “Spoils the image.”

“I got a few pair around here somewhere if you need more,” Uncle Joh said. “Sounds like you’ve heard of our firm, huh?”

“Heard of you? You and your father are legendary among my people. Those who do not know us well believe we are only murderers, thieves, kidnappers, and brigands. This belief is not entirely without foundation, but the truth is, we foster our reputation for fearsomeness and mystery. What few people realize is that we are among the earliest and most innovative recycling experts in the universe, and much of what my generation does was taught to our people by your own honored father.”

“Izzat right?” Uncle Joh asked, nonplussed. He looked to Khorii for confirmation. Khorii shrugged. She’d met the pirates but claimed no special knowledge of them.

“Indeed. He was an honored adopted elder of our clan.”

“I had no idea,” Uncle Joh said.

“Me, neither,” Captain Bates admitted. “Must have happened before Mom and I joined them. Now that I think of it, I did hear some of the senior people, when they were looking at a particularly useless scrap of something, ask each other, ‘What would Off do?’ But I thought at the time they were referring to some sort of cleanser.”

“You should meet my lady friend Andina,” Uncle Joh told her out of the side of his mouth. “She knows all about cleansers and stuff.” To Coco, he said, “So, you going to hang with us and look for some awesome salvage or what?”

“We’d be honored.”

On another private com band Melireenya said, “Mikaaye is reading him, and he is sincere.”

“Okay then, boys and girls, we’re burnin’ starlight,” Uncle Joh said, using another of his strange and unusual Terran expressions that were unlike any that Khorii’s other human friends employed. “Dinero Grande or bust.”

Khorii and Captain Bates returned to the lounge. Mother was no longer there.

“Where did she go?” Khorii asked Ariin.

“She went to find Maak and Elviiz,” Ariin said. “Did you know she can analyze the mineral and chemical content of something just by looking at it? She has determined what the sludge thing is made of, and hopes with the help of Maak and Elviiz to develop a defensive weapon that will defeat, if not destroy, it.”

Khorii sighed. “And I was afraid I’d miss something if I stayed here.”

Ariin looked chuffed at being one-up, but said placatingly, “You can’t be everywhere at once any more than I can. Maybe that’s why we’re twins.”

And to Khorii’s surprise, when Khorii sat back down in the seat next to her sister’s, Ariin gave her a brief and somewhat awkward hug.

The moment was cut short when RK jumped onto their chair backs and prowled back and forth, purring and demanding attention. Ariin pulled her arm away and stood up quickly. She was still nervous around cats.

Khorii wondered how Khiindi was and what he was doing. She missed him. Of course, she particularly missed his being her little cat, but she found she had also begun to miss Grimalkin. If he was here, he’d probably turn into Puss from the story, pounce on the inogre, and wrestle it to the ground.

With that thought, she knew she had fallen asleep and was dreaming. The real Grimalkin was far more likely to turn himself into Khiindi and hide behind her.

Chapter 20

G
rimalkin didn’t need Pircifir’s ship in order to leave Vhiliinyar. Even less did he need children to cramp his style. However, as long as he was in the post-Khorii time period, he was stuck in small cat form. The plague and its mutations unfortunately fell into that time period, and though he could attempt it, he doubted it would do any good to try to convince Odus to refrain from doing something potentially disastrous before he’d done it. Odus was not amenable to warnings. His unjustified confidence in his own genius kept him from believing anyone trying to deter him from his chosen path, least of all Grimalkin. He and Odus had never actually come to blows, but they had never been companions either. Grimalkin attributed their antipathy to what he considered to be his own empathetic nature. He always knew and cared what others thought and felt, if only to use it to manipulate them. Odus had no clue about others or an interest, other than for the purposes of scientific experiment, in obtaining one.

It wasn’t that Grimalkin felt especially responsible for Odus’s actions, because for a change, he’d actually had nothing to do with it other than help introduce the creature—in its most benign form—to his own people. But he was aware of the outcome as far into the future as he and the girls had traveled. Furthermore, he was enough of a time traveler to realize that it wasn’t safe even for his people to toy with the entity whose ancestors had formed their homes. A creature like that might know where you live and find a way to time travel back and—who knew?—look up its predecessors and in the process destroy his race, the unicorns, and the Linyaari as well. No, he told himself, he didn’t feel at all responsible, but he did think it was in his own best self-interest to put a stop to this. He just did not see how he could do it as a small cat in the same time as the youngsters occupied now.

No, he needed to stay in a time in which he could maintain humanoid form long enough to pilot a ship to the coordinates Odus had indicated, and only then, if he could not foil Odus earlier, go forth into the plague-ridden future on little cat feet. He could be a very beguiling cat. He had had lots of practice. He ought to be able to persuade someone to deactivate the freeze placed on his little feline self so he could communicate with Odus enough to deal with the problem the scientist’s tinkering had created. If not, of course, especially if someone got his crono away from his comparatively helpless furry form, he, all of humanity, and possibly his own race were in deep trouble.

That didn’t deter him however. He was intimately familiar with deep trouble, having been in some degree of it one way or another for so much of his life.

T
he wealthy citizens of the Solojo system chose to live on Dinero Grande because it was the most beautiful of the three planets clustered closely together in its part of the system. It boasted wide, tranquil meadows, broad, clean rivers and streams, distant, gorgeous mountains, and a few small, calm seas perfect for pleasure craft.

The homes were all large estates, containing houses, stables, garages, gardens, and landing zones for the personal spacecraft residents used to obtain supplies both necessary and luxurious from Rio Boca, the import/export and intergalactic relations center of the system.

A great many of Dinero Grande’s wealthiest and most illustrious citizens had been aboard the
Estrella Blanca
’s ill-fated maiden voyage. Their homes had been closed up before they left, and any staff members not attending their employers had been sent on holiday. Most of them would have gone to Corazon, where the Carnivale was under way.

In these isolated, empty homes, the plague had killed no one, and without plague-ridden bodies to grow from, the inogres did not develop either. The gardens had grown freely into tropical jungles choking the pathways and filling the fountains of the palatial homes. The tiled courtyards were pried loose and upended by unattended root systems.

Furthermore, since the creatures were tunnel-like but did not actually seem to tunnel, they had not thus far spread across the fields or through the forests to further ravage the unaffected areas.

Neeva said she knew just the place where the ships could land safely and led them to a large “country cabin” built entirely of local hardwood logs. Across a broad meadow, it faced a lake as clear and sparkling as quartz, though not nearly so inviting to inogres as real quartz would have been.

Khorii hadn’t seen this part of the planet, and Ariin was completely enchanted by the loveliness of the place, which was situated and landscaped to a dramatic effect not achieved by the studied naturalness of their reterraformed Vhiliinyar.

But it was Mother who, upon seeing the passengers disgorged from the
Mana,
unstrapped herself and raced from the
Condor
even faster than Melireenya bolted from the
Balakiire.

Mikaaye had not yet appeared in the field, but Grandsire Rafik had! There he was, along with his wife and her sisters and some of the people Khorii recognized from her cleansing mission on Frida Moonbase.

“Captain Coco evacuated Frida!” Khorii said, amazed, and unstrapped herself to head for the meadow behind Mother and Father, who had gone after her, and Ariin, who was right behind them.

“Sonofa—pirate,” Uncle Joh said. “I guess he must have. Either that’s Rafik, or my old eyes are deceiving me.”

“It is!” she said. “Why didn’t he say so? You were about to do battle.”

“Apparently it was just a lot of boyish posturing on both sides,” Captain Bates said, with a pointed look at Uncle Joh. “And Coco doesn’t like to admit to doing good deeds. Bad for his reputation. Keeps his name from striking terror into the hearts of people, etc., etc. I suspect your granddad’s wife and sisters must belong to an affiliated clan.”

“I don’t know,” Khorii said. “I knew they were from some kind of tribe with ties to Uncle Hafiz’s and Grandsire Rafik’s culture, but…”

“Let’s go get some fresh air and say hello, shall we?” Captain Bates suggested.

Unfortunately, by the time they reached the others, reunions had been replaced with verbal firefights.

“The
Mana
is mine.” Jaya, emboldened by backup from the other two ships and with her feet on the ground, took the opportunity to challenge Coco. He stood straddle-legged, arms folded across his chest in a stubborn and lordly manner, his braided beard and hair bristling and a well-practiced sneer marking his face. “I was born there, my parents died there, and I almost did, too,” Jaya declared.

“It’s never too late,” Coco told her. “You are a slip of a wench and do not need so much room. My people do. Our ship was destroyed saving this lot—”

He waved his hands at the dazed-looking crowd of Fridans. Elviiz was passing among them, collecting names and identity numbers. This action on his part kept the clanspeople away from the refugees. They didn’t want anyone outside their own clans to know their names, and they certainly didn’t have ID numbers, or wouldn’t divulge them if they did.

“Which does not entitle you to take my ship,” Jaya insisted. She only came as high as his chest, but she looked up at him with her dark eyes blazing. If she had been modified, as Elviiz had, with deployable laser beams in her eyes, Coco would have sizzled and been crisped into a pile of ashes.

“It says on the computer that it belongs to the Krishna-Murti Company,” Coco said.

“Which is a wholly owned subsidiary of House Harakamian,” Grandsire Rafik said. He had parted from Mother and his first meeting with Ariin to intervene. “The heads of Krishna-Murti unfortunately were on the passenger roster of the
Estrella Blanca
and their bills were not paid, so House Harakamian is the vessel’s default owner. Jaya and her crew are our authorized agents. Leave her alone, Captain Coco. Park your people here, and I’m sure in gratitude for our rescue, House Harakamian will be happy to build you a brand-new ship to your exact specifications.”

“A new ship?” Coco exclaimed indignantly. “The clans would disown me! My people would hate a new ship! We prefer customizing an existing craft to meet our needs.”

Uncle Joh turned to Captain Bates. “You know, I’m starting to like this guy.”

“There are thousands of derelicts floating through the galaxy now, adrift since their crews succumbed to the plague. We can help you retool those,” Grandsire told Coco. “But the
Mana
is one of the few remaining supply ships. Now more than ever we need her to take provisions to isolated colonies or particularly hard-hit areas.”

“We’ll be happy to take care of the supplies for you,” Coco said with a wolfish grin that showed a lot of gold-enhanced teeth.

“We’ll give you all the supplies you want, our gift for your rescue of me and the colony,” Grandsire said. “But we need the
Mana.
”

Captain Bates spoke up. “We had a deal, Coco. And now you’re being offered an even better one. I am clan, and I am Jaya’s captain. She and the kids have become my clan.”

Sesseli had grabbed her skirt and hugged her legs in greeting. Captain Bates reached down and waggled one of Sesseli’s beaded braids at him. “See? Hijack clan, and you’ll get a really bad reputation, especially when you’ve been made an offer any chieftain would give the gold out of his teeth to have.” She turned to Rafik. “I’m sure whatever they give you, House Harakamian would be prepared to swear that you stole it or cheated them out of it.”