She had been sending. Ulp. Aunt Maati had told amusing stories about Mother when she first arrived on narhii-Vhiliinyar, after she first began realizing and developing her psychic abilities. She was a strong sender. Everyone on the planet could know what she was thinking almost before she herself did. Of course, that was on narhii-Vhiliinyar, where everyone else past puberty was also psychic, but a strong sender could influence nonpsychics as well. Oh, dear.
She should tell Captain Bates and she would. She would. Only, maybe not right now in front of everybody.
Unfortunately, Captain Bates had to rush off after class, and Khorii had no opportunity to speak with her. She started to go after the teacher, but suddenly she smelled food and the thought occurred to her, Why bother? It's not like we're real students here anyway. We're only observing. Our education in these matters already far surpasses what they're learning. If everyone else heard our answers, then they heard the right answers, didn't they? Maybe they learned something. Isn't that the point?
But then she wondered, What am I thinking? Our answers? They were mine. Elviiz certainly isn't telepathic. It's not the kind of thing his father could program into him. But before she could pursue that line of thought, Khiindi looked up at her with a wide-eyed stare, whiskers, ears, and tail tip all atwitch. Hmm. He hadn't had a nice fish since the first day they were there, at least, not that she knew of. And some tasty varieties of reed grew in the poopuus' pool. Really, it would be more interesting to lunch with the waterbound students than sitting in the cafeteria while her own lunch wilted watching that nasty boy, Marl Fidd, make threatening faces at Khiindi and make fun of Hap for talking all the time. She wondered what made him so unpleasant. It was as if he wanted to do her harm but was waiting for just the right moment to take her on. Right now, for instance, she knew very well that he would have been nasty to her, too, but Shoshisha made a point of sitting with her and showing everyone what great chums she and her "alien" roommate were. And Marl liked Shoshisha.
Most of the boys did, in fact. Shoshisha, Khorii had noticed, depended on this fact and cultivated her male acquaintances carefully. All except Hap. She wasn't very nice to him at all. She laughed at the jokes Marl and Fawndra made at Hap's expense. Like there was something wrong with him. Really, he was just smarter and a lot more skilled at so many practical things, he ended up doing much of the maintenance in their bubble. For some reason, according to the ranking among the students, that was supposed to make him inferior.
Khiindi put a paw with claws slightly extended against her knee and narrowed his eyes at her.
"Fish," she said. "Very well, Khiindi. We will visit the poopuus." So she and Khiindi headed for the iris door between the bubbles. Meanwhile Elviiz explained to anyone who would listen how the laws of probability were against all of the students in their class coming up with identical equations in answer to the questions as they all headed to the cafeteria.
Inside the air felt fresh and moist. Light dapples danced on the inner skin of the bubble, diffusing the businesslike illumination into something slightly mysterious.
Khorii did not need to call out. Her friends of a few days ago bobbed in the water at the pool's edge, watching their approach.
One of them dived and surfaced with a wriggling fish, which Khiindi pounced upon the moment it hit the deck.
Khorii didn't disrobe this time. There was no practical need to since her shipsuit was waterproof as well as fireproof and windproof. It was made of a lighter version of the same fabric from which the pavilions of Vhiliinyar were constructed. She'd undressed on her previous visit to be polite, only to be told that it was actually considered not merely rude but shocking to the other students. The poopuus did not appear to care. No one greeted her in the conventional way, but once she dived in, she was surrounded by so many swimmers the water lapped in waves around her chin and face.
She noticed that the bobbing in the water and the swimming back and forth was rather nervous. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"What do you know of the sickness?" one of them asked.
"I know that it's very widespread," she said. "But my parents have gone to the place where it's the worst to try to contain it at that source and cure as many as possible with-our Linyaari technology."
"What place is this?" asked another one.
"A place called Paloduro. Why?"
"Because the disease has come to LoiLoiKua, according to the 'puters," another said, pulling her underwater and pointing at the screen which, beneath the lessons being transmitted, had a plague status banner scrolling through the current statistics, place names of the newly quarantined areas, and, in some cases, links to find the names of the dead in certain locations.
"What's LoiLoiKua?' she asked.
"It is our homeworld. Our parents and elders are there. They sent us here to learn in fresh new waters, hoping that if we do not find a way to save our own world, we might at least escape the destruction of our seas. But all we learned is that now we are far away from our kinsmen while a sickness comes upon them that strikes elders but not children. And we are not there to care for them. I am Likilekakua. I want to go home."
"I know what you mean. I want to go home, too. This trip is not working out at all in the way I thought it would. But the Federation won't allow any of us to go home now."
It came to her that she and the poopuus had in common something the other students lacked: living parents.
Khorii did not sleep well that night. She dreamed she was looking through a telescope and saw her mother drowning, much too far away for Khorii to save her. She scanned the pool-which turned out to be a sea, and saw something circling overhead. It was RK, carrying Khorii's father in his mouth as if he were a mouse. Khorii wanted to tell RK to put her father down, but if he did, then Father would drown, too. But someone had to save Mother. Then the dream turned around and it was Khorii who was drowning, though she was actually her own mother. But then RK knew about it and reached out for her, fishing for her with one paw, claws cruelly extended, digging into her shoulder.
She cried out and RK gave her a disdainful look and turned tail. The underside of the tail brushed her face, which was not so bad, but RK also "marked" her at the same time with some of the hormonally charged tomcat urine that Uncle Joh claimed could eat through steel.
Khorii was really drowning now, gagging and coughing and wiping at her mane. Of course, the smell was dispersed almost immediately by her horn, but the sound of her mother screaming was not.
However, it did change. It was not her mother. It was Shoshisha screaming. "I'm going to kill it!" she wailed. "That cat just sprayed all of my new silk underwear. I waited months for it to arrive!"
Khorii sat up, fully awake. That part of her nightmare, at least, was quite real. Shoshisha was on her feet, brandishing a shoe and dodging back and forth around her cot in an effort to head Khiindi off. Khiindi, of course, thought it was a great game. Khorii rose, lay across Shoshisha's bed, and picked her cat up by the nape of the neck before holding him firmly, though perhaps not tenderly, against her.
"Bold, bad cat," she scolded, but stroked his head as she did, so he broke into a loud purr.
"He ruined it!" Shoshisha was crying. "I forgot to close the drawer all the way last night and he got in and soaked it with that horrible smell."
"Let me see," Khorii said. "Maybe it's not as bad as you think."
She wasn't surprised Khiindi had found her roommate's clothing. Shoshisha was very untidy. No doubt this was the result of having been brought up with servants who picked up after her. She left things lying around, drawers half-open, clothing draped from every possible surface. Anyone could have told her that you just couldn't do that around a cat, especially not with anything you prized. But she probably wasn't used to cats.