"Phador, Calla, Singh," Asha Bates said, shaking her head. "You're all suffering from an overdose of overcautiousness, if you ask me. In case you've forgotten what life outside the ivory tower is like, everything involves some kind of risk. But there's a simple enough test here. I am now exposed. If I don't get sick and die as the other crew members did within 'whatever the incubation period is supposed to be. A week? Two? Then you'll know Khorii's gift worked, and you can accept the food and let us come back to the base. Okay? I think that should be perfectly clear even to the most hidebound bureaucrat. I also think that continuing to argue the obvious is a waste of energy. So on behalf of Acting Captain Jaya and the entire crew I will sign off now. Mana out."
Chapter 21
Jaya had never loaded the delivery shuttle by herself before, but with Elviiz's strength and Haps mechanical aptitude, the task went quickly.
Marl Fidd, unsurprisingly, was not a great deal of help. He was supposed to be hauling cargo, but instead felt it necessary to sample the more interesting varieties of food first, flinging the cartons every which way in his search for goodies. The Vermin Eradication Specialists flocked to the empties to see if there were any tasty bits left inside.
From a safe high perch, Khiindi hissed down at them. "Watch your tails!"
The team leader pulled her head out of a carton, glared up at him with gold eyes, and twitched her whiskers in disgust. "You stop watching our tails, you pervert."
"You wrong me again, female," Khiindi replied as he feigned a disinterested yawn. "Were it not for the tiny and rather charming products of your now-barren loins, which I assure you are of no interest whatsoever to me, I would not bother to warn you. But that big thug stuffing his face and tossing around the cartons and boxes from which you feast is a cat killer. He tried to drown me by picking me up by the tail and hurling me into a deep pool of water."
"I already think more highly of him," the queen said, with an upward jerk of her tail. But she called to her brood, saying, "Come along, all of you. We have vermin to catch and we don't want to spoil our appetites."
Marl didn't seem to notice the other cats at all, but Khiindi made sure that when he fell asleep it was somewhere high and hidden, but close to Elviiz and Khorii. He also made sure his tail was securely tucked beneath his belly.
When Khorii slept, he tucked himself up tightly against her, ready to defend her against Marl or anyone else.
Once the shuttles were loaded and ready to take to the surface, Mana's new crew hailed the moonbase again.
"See, Phador?" Asha said, when the other teachers were on the com screen. "Your canary in the mine is still alive and kicking. I told you Khorii's technology could overcome this, and it has. So if you're not dying to eat your shoes, could we please come back and bring these supplies?"
"We have conferred on this issue, and I have consulted the Federation directives on this subject. You may send the supplies down to us, but none of you may return until the quarantine has been lifted."
"Why?" Marl demanded. "Fewer mouths to feed, is that it?"
Phador glared at him. "The plan is this. I will expose myself to the questionable cargo. If I experience no ill effects, then we may unload it for the use of the compound at large."
"If it's not contaminated," Calla turned to him, looking nonplussed, "surely it stands to reason, since they've been handling it, that they, too, are safe to return?"
"Not necessarily," he argued. "We are still unsure about the incubation period. And some of them may be carriers. We cannot take the risk."
"Well then, you can starve for all I care," Marl said. "I didn't bust my hump so that you could take all the food and leave us up here like space trash."
"No," Khorii and Asha said together. "We'll take the shuttles down, unload them and return."
"You should leave one for our use-for later," Phador said.
"Ours belongs with this ship," Java said stubbornly.
"The shuttle we arrived in is the property of Captain Becker and the Condor," Elviiz said.
"And since you're going to be so unreasonable about this," Asha said. "The Nakomas is my personal property, and I will bring her back into exile with me. I suggest that if you need a shuttle, Phador, you do what you do best-run to the Federation."
They signed off before while the headmaster of Maganos was still spluttering a reply, with Asha muttering, "Pettifogging bureaucrat."
Khorii frowned. She didn't have to be a telepath to understand that Phador was very angry. "While I appreciate what you're doing for the people down at the base, Captain Bates," Khorii said, "aren't you worried about what Phador might do to you when this is all over?"
Asha regarded the girl for a long moment before replying. "Don't you fret about that, little one. He wouldn't dare fire me over this, or I'd spill the news about him keeping the supplies away from the moonbase, when there was absolutely no danger from it, to everyone who would listen, including the Federation. I'm sure this incident will quickly fade away once the plague has been eliminated." She pushed back from the com console and stood up with a quick smile. "Of course, if you and your mother had anything to add regarding my conduct, I would be very appreciative."
Khorii smiled back. "I think my mother will certainly have something to say about this when she finds out about it. But right now we should get those supplies moonside as soon as possible."
Elviiz and Khorii both piloted the little shuttle from the Condor, although it was packed so tightly the two of them could barely squeeze inside-accompanied by Khiindi, who insisted on going, too. The docking bays were barren of personnel as well as other spacecraft, and the three shuttles set down in an isolated area, with Kezdet shining huge and bright over them and her other moon floating in the sky nearby. Jaya and Hap, Asha Bates and Marl, and Khorii and Elviiz unloaded by hand everything they had used machinery to load on the Mana. Khiindi stayed aboard the shuttle and was the only one to see when the com screen, formerly containing Phador's disapproving face, changed to show the picture of a fish. As Elviiz and Khorii reboarded the shuttle, a song poured through the intercom, a complex harmony of many voices filled with melodic melancholy.
"The poopuus are singing," Khorii said. After the backbreaking work of moving the cargo, she was glad to be able to slump down in the command chair, wipe the sweat from her skin, and stare into space while the chorus of beautiful voices washed over her like the scented and softened waters of Uncle Hafiz's fountains.
"Nice of them to entertain us," Jaya remarked, from her own shuttle.
"It's not entertainment," Hap said. "It's like a hymn. Can't you hear?"
Khorii shook her head silently, but said nothing as the song on the intercom accompanied them back to the Mana. While they flew, she saw images in her head of groups of poopuus floating listlessly in their oceans. Then suddenly there was a picture of Khiindi with his paw extended to take a fish, but the fish was not shining, and it did not try to escape. And then Khorii herself appeared beside Khiindi and the fish, and she bent over the water, her body stretching as she reached out to the floating people who yearned toward her. Then she was in the water and all of the other people in it opened their eyes wide and waved their arms back and forth as the song ended on a celebratory note.
When the shuttles emptied out into the docking bay, she told them, "The poopuus' song contained a psychic message to me," Khorii said. "An entreaty. They want me to go to their planet and save their elders."