First Warning: Acorna's Children

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.

Although Jalonzo's first language was Spandard, he spoke excellent Standard as well. When he could not explain something adequately in that language, Elviiz translated for Hap, and did the same for Elviiz when Hap enthusiastically interrupted saying, "It's cool that you don't need cards, Jalonzo, but wouldn't it be fun to make up your own with some really amazing artwork? I can just see San-grojo on a card, all oozy and red, and Kuklukan as a wind dragon with an Aztec-looking face, and Santanina would be beautiful, kind of like a fairy."

"In addition to which, Jalonzo," Elviiz said, "cards or some form of tangible artwork present a marketing opportunity not to be overlooked. Perhaps instead of dice you could employ some more distinctive device?"

"Si", si," Jalonzo said. "Such as throwing bones-maybe shaped like vertebrae or small skulls-ahh, I have it, dice but with holograms of skulls inside them that glow in different colors, the colors representing the magical properties . . ."

"Ahem," Khorii said, clearing her throat and trying not to roll her eyes. "The laboratory is cleared now, Jalonzo."

"Oh, gracias, Khorii," he said, suddenly all of the enthusiasm turned to awkwardness as he looked down at the slender, silver-maned girl. "Uh, how are Aari and Acorna doing? Are their horns back to normal yet?"

She shook her head. "I do not think so."

"What do you mean? Haven't you seen them?"

"No. They wouldn't let me near them. They think they gave the plague to Captain Becker and RK, and they're afraid a variety that can attach to them might be fatal to Linyaari even when their horns are fully functional."

"Extremely unlikely," Jalonzo said in an authoritative tone surprising for one so young, "But I can see why they'd want to be careful. I mean, it makes sense, given, the shape that they were in, that they passed it on to their human-I mean, to susceptible beings of other species, since one was a gatito. But I don't see why that would change the plague."

"But Linyaari have always been able to destroy any illness or heal any injury with our horns," Khorii reminded him. "If those organisms I kept seeing were able to attach themselves to my parents and mutate into something that is immune to our healing abilities, then everyone is really in trouble."

"True, but there are still a few things that we don't know about this plague-like how it infects its victims," Elviiz said. "I have a theory about that that I have been collecting data on ever since this epidemic began. Jalonzo, besides people, what other kinds of animals died here on Paloduro?"

"We lost a lot of cats and dogs and horses and many other kinds of animals here, too. Not all of them, but quite a few. But we noticed something interesting. Lots of people died, and their pets didn't. A lot more feral cats and dogs died than pets, I guess because the pets got good diets and regular visits to the vet and … and a lot of them were neutered," he finished.

"As we were coming down, I saw fields with steers in them, but no cows," Elviiz said.

Jalonzo's brow furrowed as he pondered this information. "Aari, Acorna, naturally," he said, grinning at Khorii, who didn't quite understand his expression. "Is RK? Neutered, I mean?"

"No," she said. "Neither is Khiindi. He got sick, but I healed him."

"But all of the mousers we were carrying to Rushima were," Jaya interjected. She'd been silently watching the boys bat the conversational ball back and forth. Jaya hadn't always been a quiet person. Her mother used to scold her for chattering so much and singing to herself all the time. Losing her parents had made her feel empty of talk or feelings or even sensible thoughts for a while. But listening to the boys was giving her a lot of new ideas, even if she hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise. "Maybe that's why they didn't get the plague."

"Oh, what do you know about it?" Jalonzo said without thinking. Anger flared in Jaya's eyes. The older boy thought fast, needing to backtrack. He didn't want to make her angry. He only wanted to impress her with how smart he was. This new girl was so pretty, and he knew he wasn't especially handsome or athletic or anything.

Khorii was reading everyone's faces and feelings and thoughts effortlessly now as she had not been able to do on the Mana. Maybe her friends were less guarded out in the open, and without Marl to use everything they said against them. "I'm sure Jalonzo didn't mean what he said," she interjected, with a meaningful look at him.

"Uh, no, I'm sorry, Jaya," Jalonzo said, recognizing the opportunity she had handed him. Then his eyes widened, and he nodded and apologized again, this time sincerely. "Really sorry because you're actually right."

"Yes, of course-"Jaya said, then realized he meant more than that she knew which cats were sick and which ones weren't. "You think the neutering had something to do with it? But how could it? None of the people who survived were neutered that I know of, at least."

"No," he said. "Not that. And of course the usual stuff like how healthy they were to begin with made a difference-some of the kids in our group who died had other stuff wrong with them, too. It was part of the reason they got into the game. I'm not sure exactly what the trouble was, but I remember that one of them had a heart problem from birth and there was something wrong with the girl, too. Before the plague, I mean. But when you consider it, we were all exposed because everybody ate the nachos the dead delivery guy brought. And we are all, you know, kids."

"Hormones!" Hap said, snapping his fingers as he got the point. "All of the adults say kids going through puberty are a mess of hormones. Either too active or not active enough-that's probably why I got it, but Sesseli didn't. Jaya's younger than we are, but she's a girl and they-uh-girls are different."

"None of us had been eating well," Jaya said. "There was food, but everyone was too sick to fix it, and the air supply had really become polluted. I'd have had to be made out of plas-sorry, Elviiz, no offense."

"None taken," he said.

Khorii said, "But Elviiz, if it was hormones, why did your father get sick, too? Droids don't … do they?"

"Father had been experimenting," he said. "Making me instilled in him the joys of fatherhood, and he … wished to experience it again. But you know my father, Khorii. He always thinks the organic way is better than the electronic or mechanically engineered, even though I am living proof. . ."

"That's another thing!" Jalonzo said, so excited by his own idea he forgot to ask where Maak intended to find the hormone-enhanced female android necessary to complete his experiment. "It's engineered. The plague I mean. That's how come it selects certain people-or animals-based on hormones."

"You mean someone started it on purpose?" Jaya asked. "Why?"

Before the boys could speak, Sesseli spoke up. "That's easy-peasy" she said. "So that there would only be little kids and grandmas and grandpas, but no moms and dads to take care of them."

"Or teachers to teach them," Khorii continued. "Or police to protect warehouses and valuables . . ."

"Or Federation officials to investigate the plague itself or anything else," Hap finished. "Which is why we're the ones to figure all this out. Everybody who got close enough to study it got zapped. We've already seen how the incubation period varies so some people were infected for a long time before they got sick and died and had a chance to infect other people in the meantime. Or maybe it was their general health again that decided when the disease struck, I don't know."

"It worked really well, too," Jaya said. "Except for people who weren't in the area like Captain Bates or people lucky enough to have Khorii there to save them when they got infected, like you, Hap."

They all looked at each other, then Hap summed it up. "Well," he said. "That sucks."

Khorii said, "With the lab now ready for you to use, Jalonzo, perhaps there is something we can do about it after all."

"I'll help you, buddy," Hap said. "I want to kick its viral butt."

"I should be able to be of assistance, too," Elviiz said.

"I can help," Khorii said. "Definitely. But first I think we should also collect specimens from my mom and dad to see if they are incubating a new Linyaari-specific strain, as they fear."

She, Sesseli, and Jaya took the shuttle back to the Mana while the boys ran off toward the lab. Sesseli slipped one of her hands into Khorii's left hand and Jaya's right as they walked through the ship. Captain Bates half turned in her chair when they entered the bridge.

"There's good news and bad news, ladies," she said.

Khiindi, who had opted for the Mana over the Condor where his sire held the ironclad alpha cat position, deserted Captain Bates's lap for Khorii's shoulder.

"The good news is that the communications relays are now open all the way back to the Moonbase and Kezdet. Congratulations, Khorii, you are a great aunt. The bad news is that we've had a number of other distress calls from colonies in the next system. The nearest two are moons, Luna Frida Kahlo and Luna Diego Rivera, colonized by a company based on Dinero Grande."

"None farther afield than that?" Khorii asked. If the plague was a deliberate attack, as they suspected, it must not have been as thorough as the perpetrators hoped.

"Not that I've heard about so far. The Federation posts were the hardest hit, and the word about quarantine got out elsewhere. But it seems that the moons were infected after every other place. Some of the first victims are still alive."

"We'd better hurry then," Khorii said.