“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
The 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 Melire
enya’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.
Khiindi 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.
Sesseli would have thought he was being cute, the typical curious kitty, but she didn’t know about his past. Until the last few ghaanyi, he had been master of time and space and had flown many different sorts of spacecraft.
The inside of the cabin, which had been glowing softly with sleep cycle lighting, suddenly blazed with a harsh light that caused Khiindi’s pupils to contract to narrow slits. The change of lighting was automatic when the com unit, ship’s computer, or other salient functions engaged. The people who designed the ship didn’t want the human guardians sleeping on watch either.
Instead of transmitting an image or a voice, the communicant sent a low electronic tone, or rather, a series of them, amounting to a muted electronic symphony. The ship’s computer responded with its own harmonies. The navigation screen also activated, filling with numbers flashing past in rapid succession.
Khiindi hopped onto the panel and stood above the navigation screen, staring down at it. Someone was messing with the Mana’s course. That couldn’t possibly be a good thing. Luckily, the faithful ship’s cat was on the job!
Khiindi leaped up to add the force of gravity to his own meager weight and pounced on the appropriate switch. The screen died with a sigh. Victory! But the crew had to know about this. Now where in the stars was that hatch control?
The fartin’ thing quit on me, Captain,” complained the communications officer aboard the Black Mariah, the name of Marl’s current ride. “You sure them was the right codes, mate?”
The pirate ship was approaching Rushiman atmo, having followed the Mana that far. The backwater agro colony would not be the Mana’s ultimate destination, though, of that Marl was sure. They’d be heading for that treasure ship Khorii and her little toy tin man had been talking about before lousing up his retirement plans on Dinero Grande. She and Elviiz had found a luxury liner full of rich stiffs in all their finest and an even richer cargo, according to research he’d done since Khorii had brought the White Star’s fate to his attention. All he needed to make it his were the coordinates to its hiding place. He had gathered that Khorii and her family had it stashed someplace. Then the only other thing he would need would be Khorii to ensure the safety of him and his mates, and they’d claim it for their own. After that, if the girl got tricky, he could dispose of her, or maybe sell the goody-goody little bitch to his buddy in the Nanobug Market, who could make good use of her talents on a retainer basis. If she didn’t cooperate, he had also heard a rumor that Linyaari horns still worked fairly well without the Linyaari attached.
“’Course I’m sure,” Marl replied. “I got us this far, didn’t I?”
“Yeah you did, and a thrill it is to be here, too,” the man said. Marl despised sarcasm and irony from beings he considered lesser creatures than himself.
“The ship is right there where I said it would be.” He flipped his fingers up for the man to vacate his chair. “You probably entered the codes wrong.”
“No I didn’t. It started up okay, see them little numbers right there? But then it crapped out on me, like it switched itself off.”
Marl tried the codes himself with the same result. “Somebody noticed then and shut us down.”
“So now what, boy genius?” asked the captain, looking up from sharpening the short, curved blade he always wore for sentimental reasons, as he claimed. “We just keep following them?”
The captain’s tone was bland, but Marl was not deceived. The captain was not asking for suggestions from his least popular crew member. Marl knew that the rest of the crew and their families considered him a Jonah, not a genius. Ever since he came aboard, the ship had been falling apart. Though the engine room and features critical to the ship’s function had remained unaffected, the bulkheads, decks, berths, and chairs crumbled as if attacked by termites. Marl knew why. He appreciated that the spooks had learned from their mistakes aboard the shuttle. However, he wasn’t keen to share his insight with Coco, as the captain was known, and his crew. They were a superstitious lot already, and they really didn’t need any encouragement to connect him with the damage and with the see-through stowaways they had glimpsed in corridors or darkened quarters.
As for him, Marl had already begun regretting including these unimaginative louts in his brilliant scheme. “We could,” he answered the captain. “Or we could throw a boarding party.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because we’re bigger than they are, and there’s no one to stop us?” Marl replied. “Because that way we don’t have to wait for them to make their milk run. Instead of just taking the codes, we can grab Khorii, add the ship to your fleet, and—since Rushima is a puny unprotected ag colony—stock up on fresh meat and eggs and wholesome veggies while we’re at it?”
“Good plan,” the captain said.
Marl swallowed his surprise. He had expected more of an argument, if for no other reason than that the idea was his. “Thanks,” he said.
“So why don’t you take the shuttle and do it.”
“But, Captain, the shuttle is—”
“It’s in a lot better shape than when you arrived. Good as new, the repair crew says. You can also let me know if they’re right. Once you’re dirtside and have the ship and the girl, you call and let us know it’s safe to land and pick up the provisions as well as a crew.”
It was a challenge of course. The captain gave his knife a final swish against the strop, sliced the air with it a time or two, and fixed Marl with a flinty glare that let him know—in case he had any doubt—what the consequences of failure would be.
Marl tried to look doubtful. “All by myself, sir? What if I’m killed or captured?”
“That would certainly save me a lot of trouble,” the captain replied.
“But how about the rapin’ and pillagin’, Cap’n?” the com officer complained. “We haven’t had shore leave in ever so long.”
“Thoughtless of me, Pauli,” the captain said. “I thought you’d appreciate missing out on the plague, but I can see I was neglecting your other needs. You can go with Fidd.”
“With him? But, Cap’n, that’s suicide!”
“So’s mutiny, Pauli. So’s mutiny.”
“What if we’re outnumbered?”
<
br /> “Take Petit with you, then, but you three are all we can spare.”
Petit was of course so named because he was huge. He would take up half the shuttle all by himself and, besides, he had an obvious fetish for his own body odors, which were as strong as the body to which they belonged. Certainly he never assaulted them with soap, water, or sonics in any sort of cleansing capacity.
Even Pauli stifled a groan, but Marl sighed. “Sorry to get you into this, Pauli, but orders are orders.” The two would come in handy in any possible altercations between themselves and the kids and geezers who would be their only opposition. And, as they maybe shared one functioning brain between them, they’d be easily ditched when no longer needed.
“Aye,” Pauli said.
“That’s ‘aye aye, Cap’n’ to you, mate,” Coco said.
Marl allowed his shoulders to slump and his feet to trudge as he turned toward the docking bay, but when he saw the shuttle he’d almost died in, he did not have to feign reluctance to board it.
Chapter 22
Moonmay Marsden approached Khorii, a basket hanging from the crook of her arm. “I heard you were still here, and I thought maybe you’d like to see our kittens. I bottle-fed Thomasina myself, and seems like no sooner than she was off the bottle than she was out to do something personal about the cat shortage we’ve had here ever since the plague.”
Khorii couldn’t resist looking. There were four little kittens with gray stripes, and one orange one. She petted them very softly with a fingertip between each set of tiny ears, still kittenishly rounded and not standing up in proper cat-ear points. The orange one grabbed her finger in both front paws and tried to nurse from it.
“Khiindi was orange-ish when he was a baby,” she said. “But I guess Makahomian Temple Cats can change colors as they get older.”
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