When Khorii arrived at the reservoir, she could see two or three hundred people already in the water. She stripped off her shipsuit and jumped over the side of the round sunken pool. She clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "When I dive, duck the heads of the sick people into the water at the same time," she told them with both her voice and her mind. She saw nods of understanding, heard a few spoken or shouted replies of "Si'," and many questions from many minds she could not take the time to answer.
She nodded and dived under the surface. At first she could not see even the nearest faces and bodies, only the countless plague specks that clouded the water around her as if dirt had been poured into it. But almost at once, the specks flowed away and vanished, and she beheld the faces and bodies of a lot of people who were having trouble holding their breath. By then she knew that once the specks were gone, the people would be cured.
"Up!" she ordered, and surfaced herself.
Once the others saw the condition of their friends and loved ones, the main problem was to keep them from drowning each other in their hurry to get into the water with her.
It took about thirty immersions to free everyone of the disease. At the end she felt a bit soggy but nowhere near as exhausted as she had been after purifying the ocean for the LoiLoiKuans.
"Does Luna Frida have a pool like this?" she asked the nearest convalescent.
"Si, senorita, gracias, you are an angel, a saint . . ."
Khorii shook her head, water droplets flying from her silver hair. "Gracias. That's very nice of you, but I'm not. I simply have access to powerful alien medicine that works the way you just saw. Would someone please get on the com unit here and tell the people of Luna Frida I'm coming and what to do? But tell them not to dunk anyone until I get there, okay?"
Someone met her on the path in a little curt. "Senorita, we do not normally swim in our pool. How can we clean it so we can use it again to drink from?"
"I think you'll find it cleaner and more pure now than it was before we went for our swim," she told him with a smile. "My medicine also has that effect."
The healing process on Luna Frida began in much the same way. But it was a larger colony than the one on Luna Diego, with fifteen thousand people, and by her twentieth dunk, Khorii realized that she was too exhausted to continue. More people were ill here because, since she visited Diego first, more had had a chance to become infected or to get sicker. She couldn't bear just to let people die, but her parents were right. Could she really risk the lives of Captain Bates, Jaya, and maybe even Sesseli, not to mention the people who were expecting to be saved and might not be because of her overextending herself? Also, if she became too tired to finish this job properly, the ones she had already cured could become reinfected if her parents were correct about Uncle Joh's and RK's first contact being no protection.
She felt protest from some of the minds of the more receptive Luna Fridans who were aware of her conflict. How could she let them down? She was as good as killing them!
Khorii thought and thought, then came to a decision. If she exhausted herself trying to save as many as possible, she could be with her parents again. That was a better alternative than what these people had to face. She took a deep breath, readying herself to plunge back into the water.
"Hey, Khorii! Are you going to hog the swimming hole or can anybody play?"
"Great-aunt Neeva?"
"Right behind you, youngling. Flying around trying to decontaminate all of those smelly old Federation outpost relays is dry work. Can we come swimming with you and your friends?"
"We?"
"Melireenya and Kharii of course, and Maati and Thariinye. We contacted the Condor, then the Mana, to find you. Don't worry, little one. We, as the humans say, have got your back. And we heard what you did on LoiLoiKua, so we have cleverly divined the moistened nature of your master plan."
The hard footfalls of two-toed Linyaari feet clattered behind her, and what parts of her had begun to dry while she was debating her decision to continue healing were soaked all over again as five Linyaari bodies dived gleefully into the reservoir, leaving a grateful Khorii to sink to her knees, smiling and crying with relief at the same time.
Standing outside her parents' cabin door aboard the Condor once more, Khorii came to believe something she had always thought was mere folklore concerning the origin of the Linyaari people. It was said that the Ancestors who lived in a secret place on Vhiliinyar were part goat. They looked very much like small, bearded, cloven-hooved, horned horses, and Khorii had never wanted to believe they could be related to a lowly animal from old Terra mostly known for providing smelly cheese. But now her parents' stubbornness made her think of the legendary hard heads of the goats, and she was pretty sure that she numbered those humble animals somewhere in her evolutionary chain.
"Okay, I understand. You are trying to protect me and everyone else in the multiverse, as usual. But, look .. . There's something I forgot to tell you, probably because you haven't let me see you yet and it slipped my mind. I can see the plague."
"Are you sure?" her father asked. "How?"
"The same way Mother can tell the mineral content of asteroids and that sort of thing. I can see the life-forms that make up the plague. I've been able to ever since we found the derelict. I see all these little specks, and when they see my horn coming, they run for it and just vanish."
"I'm very proud of you, darling," Mother said.
"But the thing is, if you are still infected or affected or whatever, if you'd just let me see, I could tell you for sure. Then you'd know."
"Khorii," her father said a little sternly, "we've already explained."
"Si, si, si," she said in the rather mocking singsong she'd picked up from Jalonzo over the last few days while she'd been trying to decide what to do about her parents and the mission in general. "But as I've already explained, and the boys assure me that this is true, and furthermore Grandsire Kaarlye and Grandam Miiri think they are using sound scientific logic, kids don't get the plague. At least, not yet. The odds are we don't get any mutations either because we think this was deliberately set to attack active healthy adults during their reproductive years, not kids or elders. So-so you should let me in so I can tell if you are carrying the plague." Khorii's voice quavered for just a moment, and she sucked in a deep breath, trying to be strong.
What if they still refused? Would she ever see them again? Don't be silly, she scolded herself. Of course you will.
Very much to her surprise, the door irised open. Although Khorii wanted to rush inside, she stepped in slowly, and the door shut behind her.
"Oh," she said. Blue specks floated around each of her parents as they moved. None seemed to be trying to drift toward Khorii, but they didn't vanish either, despite the fact that her parents' horns were once again their usual color and shape.
"Blue specks," she said.
Her mother nodded. "We told you. It's a mutant strain. It would almost have to be. And it could infect you or other Linyaari."
"Not me," Khorii said. "Not yet. And not elders or other Linyaari kids. So I want a hug. If you infect me, the worst that can happen is I get to stay with you. But I'll know if I'm okay."
Stiffly at first, then with great enthusiasm, all of them hugged and kissed and cried, and Khorii tried to tell them all of her adventures in one long thought.
When she finally stepped away, none of the blue specks clung to her but neither had any been removed from either of her parents.
Captain Becker's impatient voice boomed over the intercom. "So, what's the verdict?"