“So Smargad started all this Staré rights foolishness?” Tomás’s eyebrows rose. “He doesn’t seem the type. Didn’t seem.”
“No, he did not,” Lexi corrected. “Other humans did, including the female with the over-roasted runner-nut smell.”
“Mrs. Debenadetto,” Rigi supplied. Tomás shook his head. “After she was encouraged to stop helping at our school, she became interested in teaching Staré. Mother and Father had some comments about her choice.”
“So did my parents.” Tomás stared past Rigi’s shoulder, meaning that he was thinking. “I wonder if that’s when she got the idea, and somehow she and Smargad crossed courses and he offered to help her.”
“One wonders.” Uncle Eb growled. “He had an instinct for finding people like her and then using them. Damn it, Firebug and I should have stopped him the first time we caught him.”
Lexi’s ears tipped sideways and he tapped one foot. “And how were you to know that he would find someone to pay for theoretical bones, Mister Trent?”
“Experimental,” Uncle Eb corrected. “I still should have paid more attention.”
“Because we do not have enough things to concern ourselves with, of course, Mr. Trent.” Lexi closed one eye, tipped the opposite ear farther over, and hung his tongue out of the side of his mouth, opposite Uncle Eb. Rigi snickered, unable to contain herself. “And Mrs. Kay will be most unhappy if her vehicle is not returned by the time specified.”
“A situation to be avoided at all costs.”
Tomás departed. Rigi and Makana followed Uncle Eb and Lexi back to the runaround. The rain seemed to be easing up, at least for the next few seconds. This time of year it never really stopped for more than a few hours. That suited Rigi quite well. She sniffed the wet plant smells happily.
“I do not understand,” Makana ventured at last, after they had stopped at a public facility for a rest-break. “Why did the human attack the Elders, and kill the others?”
“Because they would not agree with him and Mrs. Runner-nut,” Lexi answered. “They refused to sign papers asking humans to leave, and they would not agree to damaging the fruit water devices.”
“The term is cover-up,” Uncle Eb said, not taking his eyes off the traffic-way. “The activist at the farm killed them in a panic because they threatened to turn him in, and then Smargad used the first murders to claim that someone else had done it. He killed the subala minor and attacked Tankutshishin because they objected to demands to help him. I suspect that was not all, not the least of his plans, but it was the basic reason.”
Should she tell him what Smargad had snarled at her? No, not while Uncle Eb was watching the other vehicles, especially not with the badly-loaded delivery thing beside them refusing to stay in its proper drive-track. Rigi stayed quiet.
“Are you going to speak of what we learned?” Lexi said once the accident-in-waiting had disappeared behind them.
“I have no choice. The Crown must know about what seems to have happened.”
“And the war-side will come.”
“War-side and speaking-side both.” Uncle Eb sounded tired.
Rigi put the pieces together. “So the beast gets what he wanted. The Crown removes the Company and all of us affiliated with it.” She tried not to sound bitter, but it was Mr. Petrason’s threat made good at last. Her father would be forced to leave, taking her and her mother and Cy and Paul with him. She didn’t want to leave Shikhari.
“No, child. Unless there is evidence of deliberate mis-management, or a very great lot of accidental errors, the Crown will not take Shikhari over. There are reasons for it, reasons I do not care to discuss.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” After a while she asked, “How does Aunt Kay like the art set?”
“Too well, I fear, Miss Rigi. She took one look and announced that it was wonderful and that she had Great Plans for it.” Uncle Eb drooped. “Great Plans always seem to require Great Funding, and the verandah alone cost me a set of the LimLexicon and a first printing of the original Oxford English Dictionary that I had fully intended to purchase for myself.”
“Oh dear. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Harrumpf.”
Rigi looked out the windows for the rest of the trip. They stopped in front of the Staré-head house and Makana got out, then let her out. “Thank you, Makana.”
He started to reply, but stopped when they heard Uncle Eb groan. “Mrs. Kay specified this time, yes Mr. Trent, but at your residence, not at Miss Rigi’s place of abode,” Lexi said. “If I might be so bold, I believe that stopping at the flower market should be next on the list.”
Rigi turned around and hurried through the gate, trying to smother laughter. Makana followed. As they walked around the end of the house to the back door, he asked, “Miss Rigi, is Mr. Trent always so not even in his behavior?”
“Not always, Makana, but yes, he is considered odd for a human.” And probably for every species that she could think of.
Which meant that all was back as it should be. Rigi danced a little as she went up the steps to the back door.
About the Author
Alma T. C. Boykin grew up reading and listening to the stories of Rudyard Kipling, H. Rider Haggard, Talbot Mundy, John Masters, and other tellers of adventure tales. She never quite recovered.
Alma blogs about her books, history, food, felines, music, and anything else that catches her wandering fancy at the Cat Rotator’s Quarterly:
http://www.almatcboykin.wordpress.com
Also by Alma T. C. Boykin
Shikari: Shikari Book 1
Auriga Bernardi and Tomás Prananda find something hidden in the woods. Their discovery could change the world.
A Cat Among Dragons
Rafa Ni Drako just wants to be left alone. Her father’s enemies have other ideas. When a Cat befriends Dragons, anything can happen (and it probably will).
Staré: Shikari Book Two Page 28