"We will explain later, yaazi," her father said. "Please heal Job. and RK. We cannot for the same reason we are not there to embrace the stuffings out of you."
Jonas Becker, lately absorbed by the Condor which was absorbed by a wormhole, felt himself shrinking back out of the hull and into his skin. It wasn't unbearably hot and dry anymore, his skin. It was moist and cool and his throat and his butt and every other part of him didn't hurt anymore. His chest expanded and contracted without complaint while the air went in and out.
Opening an eye, he looked into Khorii's anxious face. "Uncle Joh, don't die, okay?"
"Does that mean I'm forgiven for being a greedy old goat who dishonors dead people by calling them stiffs?" he asked, and the words came out as smoothly as ever, though they sounded really loud to his ears.
"Mostly," she said. "You were right about most of what you did with the Blanca."
"Me? Right? My child, those are healing words, a balm to my soul and music to my ears. Hiya, Khorii, give your old unk a hug?"
Her horn touch had even done something about the sickly odor that had been clinging to him.
He sat back up, and demanded, "Now, what do you mean 'mostly'?"
RK barely felt the sweet touch of horn, for he was too far sunk in his misery. Even though he felt his skin tingling, his whiskers sensing the softness of someone holding him on one side, the brush of a hand on the other, he did not think he could possibly pull out of the nosedive he had been in for so long.
"Giving up that last life, are you? Good. You are a wretched old creature well past your prime. You should die and bequeath your cushy job as a ship's officer to some deserving young cat who will do the job properly. You're no good to anyone anymore anyway. You have been a fickle mate, an abusive sire, and the fact that your two-legged companion is fond of you owes more to his eccentricity and enjoyment of a good fight than to any virtue of yours."
Who was this unsympathetic, unperceptive, rude animal saying all of these terrible things to a dying hero?
"Hero?" the upstart continued. "Why, I saved my girl and all of her friends with nothing but my wits, my claws, and teeth. It's a good thing for all of those children aboard the Mana that there is so much more to me than just your sorry DNA. I freed a boy who had been held hostage, then let myself out to follow one who hid things that would have destroyed all of the others, including my charge. I peeked into the destroyer's mind when he thought nobody was looking and learned his secrets, and led the other boy to them. Together we spaced them so when he took our girl, he had nothing to use against her and, of course, she came back to us like we were her food dishes."
"Braggart," RK mumbled, the expression on his face changing from ill to furious. "Upstart. Ingrate. Heretic. Liar."
"Am not."
"Rrrrr, too," the older cat growled from his deathbed, then flipped to his feet, knocking the healing horn away from his hide, leaped through the air, his no-longer-dank-and-matted fur bristling, and gave chase to the other cat, who wore a mocking smile as he streaked out of the room.
Chapter 29
Khorii was more devastated than she would have believed pos-sible. She had waited so long to be with her mother and father again. How could they lock themselves in their cabin and refuse to come out to see her? She wanted nothing more than to be held by them and reassured that she was not an orphan like so many of the other kids she'd met recently. She had parents and they loved her and during the past few weeks she had come to realize that she loved them so much it made her throat ache from the huge lump that had appeared there as she tried to comprehend why they would not see her.
She felt as if she'd come through the desert, and they were withholding water. She stood touching the door to the cabin in which they had locked themselves and absently stroked the plasteel sheathing of it. She understood now what they had done and why they had done it, but it didn't make her yearn for them any less. But at least she understood. At first she had not when they tried to explain, and Uncle Joh tried to explain. Finally, it was Elviiz who explained it so that she could understand.
"Your mother and father carry the disease, although they are not affected by it," the android said. "They think it is possible they can give the disease to Linyaari now," he told her. "They do not wish to contaminate you."
She knew so much how lethal the plague was, but the idea of her parents having it was ridiculous.
"Although they have rested and returned many days ago, their horns are still transparent," Maak told her, looking none the worse for wear after having his own organic parts healed by Khorii and his nonorganic ones repaired by his son. "While they were exhausted and their resistance was lowered, the plague somehow attached itself to them, your father said. It was they who infected the captain, the feline first mate, and me."
Khorii had come to the door then. "Elviiz and Maak say you carry the plague? How is that possible?"
"We are not sure, yaazi, but it certainly seems to be," her mother said over the intercom. Since Khorii had not had her psychic powers when she left them, they were used to talking to her with their voices instead of sending thought-talk, and that took less of the precious energy they needed to revitalize the power of their horns. She did not attempt thought-talk herself because she liked the solidity of their voices. If she could not actually see and touch them, at least she could actually hear them.
Her mother continued, "This has never before happened with any Linyaari. This plague is extremely tricky. If you want to help, love, you might go down to Corazon and find Jalonzo Allende. He will show you a laboratory to decontaminate for him to work in. You'll like him. He's a nice young genius about your age. Take Elviiz. They'll be fast friends."
She wanted to whine that she did not want to leave them, that she wanted to see them both right now, but stopped herself. She was not a baby, after all. She was a six-and-a-half-ghaanye-old star-clad Linyaari with full psychic powers. Did Father whine about what had been done to him? Did Mother complain because she had been raised by humans far from Vhiliinyar? No, they had made the best of their situations, and as their daughter, she would do the same.
Khorii stood back from the door and asked through the intercom, "Can my other friends come, too? I mean, is the area decontaminated enough for them to land safely and leave the ship?"
"Yes, I believe so. Jalonzo and the others can show you where we've been."
"I think I'll be able to tell" she said.
Her parents sent mind touches. At last she was ready to receive them and accept reassurance and love. It was almost as good as physical contact, if not as satisfying. She could not smell their scent that was so much a part of her own. She could not feel her father's strong arms close around her like a fort, protecting her against any harm. She could not look into her mother's beautiful silvery eyes or curl her mane into rings for her fingers. But the mind touches relaxed her and made her smile, and she sent one back loaded with all the love she could muster for them, which was a lot indeed.
Straightening her back, Khorii put her hand to the door once more and nodded to Elviiz, who came into the corridor with Khi-indi on his shoulder, that she was ready to return to the Mana.
By the time Khorii returned from decontaminating the huge college laboratory in downtown Corazon, Jalonzo Allende, the large boy with the long black hair and brown eyes that were shrewd yet innocent at the same time, had thoroughly bonded with Elviiz and Hap Hellstrom.
"You should have seen them! Everybody got really involved in this game, and I just made it up. We didn't even use cards or anything." He explained to them the magical system he'd invented, and, as Khorii listened, it sounded to her as if Jalonzo had turned the plague into a game with each symptom being a monster or a curse and each person who survived being gifted with some kind of special protective amulet.