"Then we'd heal them. We could heal all of you with no problem," Khorii said.
But Calla was shaking her head. "You'll just have to sit it out up there, dear. Quite aside from breaking the Federation's rules, despite your assurances we cannot risk infecting the other students with the plague. I'll send messages to the Federation and anyone else I can reach to relay to your parents the facts of your situation, but that's all I can do for now. I'm terribly, terribly sorry."
"But can we not at least land?" Khorii asked. "No one would need to come near us until you were convinced that we are not sick or carrying any disease, but even though the ship has plenty of fuel at present and the requirements for maintaining orbit are not high, eventually it will run out. It might even crash into the bubbles, then everyone would be dead."
"We'll simply have to hope that the Federation finds a cure for this soon and lifts the quarantine," Calla said, shaking her head. "When you first docked on Maganos, you came from a clean vessel that had not yet been exposed to the plague. That's no longer the case. You must all remain aboard until the quarantine is lifted or the ship can be tested and we have clearance from the Federation."
Khorii almost told her how wrong she was-that she had been exposed to the plague before she even got there. But that would be telling a secret that was Uncle Joh's. He had been so right about not trying to do anything about the dead people on the Blanca. She'd apologize to him as soon as she saw him again.
Stupid fraggin' bureaucrats! Darn suckers are gonna kill us all,"
Hap said, overhearing the transmissions between the Mana and Moonbase.
Sesseli patted his shoulder, and said, "It's okay, Hap. But one thing's for sure. We can't just stay in the shuttle all the time. Let's go find Khiindi and Khorii and Elviiz."
"Okay," he said. "But we might get sick, too."
She said, "If we do, Khorii will fix us like she said, like she fixed Khiindi."
He smiled at her certainty. Little kids. Even one who had been through what Sesseli had suffered still believed everything would be fine and someone would save them. He'd thought that, too, at one time. He'd thought Maganos Moonbase was his salvation. Think again.
It was okay for him. He was used to it by now and had learned to take care of himself. But Sesseli was just a child. It wasn't fair to leave her on her own like this.
She was right though. The two of them couldn't stay inside the shuttle indefinitely. He hailed the Mana's bridge. "Khorii, don't forget Sesseli and me. Let us know when you've cleaned the place up enough that we can come out."
Elviiz appeared in the screen. "Decontamination of the landing bay and corridors up to the bridge has been completed, Hap. You and Sesseli may join us if you wish, but it will not be pleasant. There are dead crew members here, and the one survivor is rather upset."
In the background he heard Khorii speaking soothingly while another girl ranted.
Hap turned to Sesseli. "You better wait here till I come and get you, Squirt. We'll get the bodies moved from the bridge."
Sesseli put her hands on what would someday be her hips, and said disparagingly, "Really, Hap, I can handle it. Almost everyone in my colony got killed before the Federation came to help us. Besides, I'm worried about Khiindi."
Chapter 18
Khiindi was getting worried about himself. He didn't feel at all well. It was probably all that talk of illness. He had never actually been ill before, but then, he'd never been slung into a pool-well, almost into the pool-by his tail before either. Much as he liked novelty, all new experiences were not necessarily good just because they were new. The truth was, being frozen in this one shape all the time made him less inclined to accept change in other ways, too. Not that anyone sane would like being flung by their tail, but he found it all too easy to degenerate into a purry, lap-sitting, nip-sniffing, kibble-vacuuming, common pussycat, and that alarmed him. Still, his personal philosophy aside, he couldn't see any upside to being ill.
He found a cargo bay and hopped up onto the topmost container for a contemplative scratch and wash. He needed to scratch far more than usual. His left ear really itched, and something bit him near the base of his tail. Fleas? They had fleas on this tub? He hadn't seen a flea since way back before he became Khiindi, while traveling to the more rustic agro colonies. Back then, for the most part, he'd had no fur to infest and did have opposable thumbs capable of wielding antidotes to the nasty bugs.
But now it seemed that as soon as he got one spot quieted, another two itches flared up on other parts of his body. He scratched and bit himself in first one place, then another, until the blood seeped through his fur, but that didn't help anything. What would help was a horn touch, but those among his kind who felt he was so self-centered that he would consider personal comfort above explorations possibly beneficial to the good of all mistook his inherently noble nature.
Besides, there might be something tasty back here that Linyaari and humans would overlook because it chiefly concerned cats.
Not that he had his usual healthy appetite, of course, as poor as he was feeling. But he would need to keep up his strength, no matter the sacrifice involved or his personal feelings on the matter.
He tried stalking stealthily through the labyrinth of containers but had to keep stopping to scratch. And suddenly, with his foot in midair after a swipe at the patch behind his left ear, he heard his scratch being echoed. An echo of a scratch? That was a new one, surely.
"Someone's out there."
"Of course someone's out there. Someone has to fly the bloody ship, don't they? Unless you've grown opposable thumbs recently."
"I don't mean one of those. I mean someone on four feet. Our sort of feet unless I miss my guess."
"Are you sure it isn't the quarry?"
"Oh, yes, of course I'm sure it isn't the quarry. I can see through these big opaque containers, can't I? How should I know!"
"Just asking," the other voice said, making itself small.
"Mmyow?" Khiindi inquired. And since the rest of the dialogue was, as best he could tell, conducted by thought transference, he used that mode to ask, "Who's there?"
"Vermin Eradication Specialists," replied the loudest and most mature of the voices. "This is our patch, you know. You're intruding. Move along now."
"Where are you?" Khiindi asked, looking around. Were his eyes growing dim? There was very little ambient light in the storage hold-only a faint glow tube around the perimeter of the bulkhead. But as he rounded the edge of a container the light was sufficient to glitter off three sets of coin-bright eyes. Between him and the eyes were crude bars. These belonged, it seemed, to the ordinary sort of cats. It did not surprise Khiindi that he understood their language, as he had been, in his time, widely traveled, and although his ability to change forms had vanished, his knowledge of languages and customs had not. Also, quite possibly these cats were not as ordinary as they seemed. Khiindi had sired many offspring throughout time and in many galaxies. Some resembled one form and some another, but the most common shape was felinoid. These could therefore be distant descendants of his own, but they wouldn't realize that, and he did not feel it prudent to treat them as anything but common house cats. Or ship cats, in this case. He had, after all, been rather generous with his-uh-affections-and being related to him did not necessarily recommend them as creatures worth cultivating though they would, of course, be superior to creatures who were not of his line. "Oh, yes, of course, you're incarcerated for the journey," he said, with an approving glance at the bars partially concealing their faces. "You would be. Mustn't have animals running loose on shipboard, or they make an awful mess like that beast aboard Becker's Condor . . ."