First Warning: Acorna's Children

Chapter 12

I think Maak programmed Elviiz to feel much of what I feel," Khorii said. "And I'm still really really angry. Why would that horrible boy do such a thing to a poor defenseless little cat?"

"I don't know," Captain Bates said, shaking her head. "Maybe if you fix him up, he'll tell you. Maybe," she said, lifting her eyebrows, "if he won't, you can read his mind. Although personally I wouldn't want to go there."

Khorii looked at her uneasily. Had she found out about the test papers before Khorii could confess to sending her answers to the whole class?

(Can you read me, Khorii? I'm a good friend of your grandfathers, you know. From things they've let slip, I've gathered that Linyaari are telepathic.)

(I read you, Captain. My telepathy has been dormant until recently, but I'm learning. Sorry about the exam papers. I'm like my mother. A really good sender.)

(At least you sent the right answers), Captain Bates replied philosophically.

"Where is Elviiz?" Khorii asked aloud.

"Phador was all for locking him in a maintenance closet, but I thought maybe it would be best if he were placed in the shuttle you arrived in until this matter is sorted out," Calla Kaczmarek said.

"I'll go there now," Khorii said. "He can't deactivate just because he defended Khiindi from that bad boy."

"He didn't just defend Khiindi, Khorii," Calla said sternly. "He badly injured another student, however much the kid had it coming. With his strength, Elviiz could have prevented Marl from causing more harm to Khiindi without damaging him so badly. Apparently his emotional range includes anger . . . and that's not something most people like to see in a being that is so much stronger, faster, and smarter than humans. For now, Elviiz is fine. If you want to help him, you should take your special poultice up to Marl and see if you can help. We got the arm and jaw set, but it was pretty painful for him. I know what you're thinking, but my guess is that this isn't the first time that kid has had his bones deliberately broken. The way Marl is carrying on, it seems he knows from hard experience just exactly what a broken bone feels like, and how long it'll take to heal. And he's saying things about revenge-'Just like last time,' is how I believe he put it. He's a wreck, and he's furious. I'm not saying you have to forgive him. Just think about cutting into his plans to get even by helping out a little."

It was all Khorii could do not to snort with derision at Calla's suggestion. She didn't want to go near Marl Fidd and didn't want Khiindi near him either. And in her opinion, Elviiz should be congratulated, not made to feel ashamed for defending his family. It was not a diplomatic, pacifistic, or particularly Linyaari way to look at things, but it was how she felt at that moment. Maybe she was a throwback to the Ancestors. The original unicorn forebears of the Linyaari could be rather fierce, according to the old stories about them.

Khiindi, and by extension she and Elviiz, were the injured parties. Just because they were outsiders, and Khiindi was "just" a cat, and Elviiz was "just" a droid, while Marl Fidd was one of the students, the teachers seemed to be implying she should make up to him.

Full of indignation, she stalked toward the infirmary, Sesseli following behind with Khiindi still in her arms. When they neared the infirmary, with its medicinal and antiseptic smells, Khiindi leaped down and sprinted away as if he'd never had his tail so much as tugged. Khorii forgot being mad long enough to say to Sesseli, who looked as if she might start to cry, "It's okay, honey," she said to the child. "You don't need to be here for this. If you could keep Khiindi out of trouble while I'm healing Marl, I'd appreciate it."

Marl was easy to find, being the only patient in the room. And since he was yelling all kinds of things about what he was going to do to her when he got better, Khorii paid him no attention. The health teacher doubled as the medtech. Hap had told her that students were examined by doctors before they came to the moonbase. They were not sent to Maganos until they had recovered from any illnesses or injuries they had. So, for the most part, the student population was healthy and required only a medtech to see to the usual minor health problems kids had. Ordinarily, if someone came down with something more serious or got badly injured, planetside care was within less than a two-hour trip.

Even if there had been a hospitalful of students, Marl would have been noticeable because he was so loud, what with his cursing and fussing and moaning with pain and yelling at the medtech, Mr. Singh, in a most disrespectful manner for refusing to give him more and stronger medication.

Squaring her shoulders, Khorii marched up to his bed. She would heal him, but not before she gave him a piece of her mind along with the touch of her horn. In truth, she felt more like goring him with it than healing him, feelings she knew should shame her, but didn't.

Khorii addressed the sadistic Marl, adopting the same no-nonsense voice often used by her Father-Sister Maati, who was raised by the legendary Grandame Naadiina and often had to bring her handsome but rather flighty mate, Thariinye, back down to earth. She hoped that Marl, like Thariinye, had some good buried in him somewhere. She'd seen no sign of it so far. "Some of my people tried to tell me that my coming here was dangerous because humans are aggressive, warlike, and barbaric people. I did not believe them, because until today all of the humans I have known have been as kind and caring as the Linyaari. But you are evidently a specimen of the bad kind. What is the matter with you, trying to kill an innocent little cat who never did you any harm?"

"Oh, get over it, you spoiled brat. It's just a stupid cat. You shouldn't have brought it here anyway. Everybody else here was lucky to arrive with their own skins. You come parading in like some kind of a celebrity with an entourage, no less. Who the hell do you think you are to judge me? All I did was give your fraggin' cat flying lessons. At home we killed lesser beasts all the time. The ones we didn't kill to eat we killed to keep them from eating our food. It's survival, brat. Something you have never had to face what with your famous mama and your important human 'family.' "

Khorii wasn't sure how much she was reading and how much he was saying, but the unfairness of it struck her anyway. "I can understand how you might resent me," she said. "But Khiindi is not me, and he is not a lower beast. His fellows are worshiped on his homeworld, sacred creatures who guard temples and possess great wisdom. If you want to wound me, try throwing me in the pool. But you wouldn't do that because you are afraid, are you not? You know if you attempt to hurt me, you might be hurt instead."

"Yeah, that robot of yours is vicious. I thought they were under orders in their programming not to hurt real people."

"That shows how much you know. I understand that at one time, Elviiz's father, whom I have known only as a learned and conscientious person, was evil and hurt people all the time to please his mistress. Perhaps Elviiz retains some model, if not racial, memory of that aspect of his father's past. Furthermore, I would not need Elviiz to hurt you to stop you from hurting me. I have other ways, nonviolent ways practiced by my people, of stopping aggression against my person. Right now I feel like forgoing them in favor of stomping on your broken arm with my hard 'alien' feet, but that would lower myself to your level. Instead, I am culturally compelled to minister to your injuries. So shut up and do not make me any angrier at you than I already am unless you wish to remain in your current condition longer than necessary."

"You're lying! You're going to hurt me! Singh! Stop her. She's going to torture me."

"Alas," said Mr. Singh, "I am much too busy to hold you down while she does so, evil punk of a boy. So be still and allow the gracious girl to heal you and get your worthless anatomy out of my infirmary."

Marl let out a low moan, and his eyes shifted back to her. She felt real fear radiating from him. Calla was right. He'd clearly been abused in the past. "If you are afraid of me simply because I'm standing and you are injured, how do you think poor little Khiindi, who has known only gentleness and love at the hands of bipeds, felt when you nearly killed him?"

"Cat's don't have feel-" he began.

Khorii saw her vision flicker and burn with shades of red. It was very odd, but she was too angry to think about the phenomenon! at that moment.

As she slammed the poultice container down on the table beside his bed, Marl decided that perhaps his statement was the wrong tack to take with her. "How was I to know you worshiped the damned things?"

"I did not say / worship Khiindi," she replied. "I said he comes from a planet where his sort are worshiped. He has been my companion since I was a baby. He is more like a brother or sister to me, as is Elviiz, than the subservient creatures you seem to think all four-legged animals should be."

"Well, you have a pretty mixed-up family, if you ask me," Marl said with a grunt. "Animals are only there for people to eat."

Khorii felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up in shock and anger. "I do not believe that I asked you for your opinion."

As she spoke, she concentrated on holding his gaze with her own as she had seen her elders do, and applied the poultice to his various injuries. In a very ka-Linyaari fashion, she hoped it hurt Marl like fury.

"I must remove part of your cast to finish the treatment," she said as formally as possible.

He flinched when she knelt to inspect his arm. She raised it and looked underneath it, as if looking for flaws in the cast. While doing so, of course, she laid her horn against the underside of his arm and imagined the bones mending straight and knitting whole. Then, as if still inspecting it, she took his hand and examined it. She was surprised to feel how warm and normal this hand felt. How could something that seemed so ordinary be so vicious? It had so recently held her poor cat friend in such a cruel grip and with such murderous intentions.

Feeling that the arm was mended, she began removing the boy's cast, smearing on the poultice as she pulled sections off.

He panted with fear at first, but then said, "Hey, that stuff works pretty good. Bet you could get plenty for it on the black market."

Her healing gift was a miracle, and all this stunted monster could think of was the profit there was in the process! She glared at him and turned her back. She had taken two steps away from the bed when he said, "I guess you did this to your cat, too, didn't you? I mean, I guess he's still alive. You didn't say I killed him." The words sounded both grudging and disappointed.

"No, he lives. But it was not for lack of trying on your part," she said. "Without my medicine, he would have died. And, yes, fortunately for Khiindi, our medicine works for all species." She turned suddenly and faced Marl. "For your healing to really be complete, you should attempt to make amends to Khiindi for what you did to him and to Elviiz for forcing him to deal with you so harshly." Once again, she gave the boy a chance to show any mercy or goodness that he had inside him.

"What? Are you crazy? Apologize to a cat? And that robot kid almost killed me!" Marl was almost spitting with his indignation.

"Elviiz is an android, not a robot," she said. "Your violence activated the aggression in him. He strives to be as Linyaari as I am, having been raised as my foster brother, and we do not believe in such aggressive behavior. You have done him more wrong than he did you. To feel better, you should attempt to mend the hurts you have caused."

"Yeah, right." Marl snarled. "In a million years, if ever!" So much for Marl's inner healing. Then she did walk away. Behind her she heard Mr. Singh say, "Now then, Marl, pick up the mess your cast has made and get back to your classes. No malingering, no malingering. Go, go. And it would please me if you did not come back."

It seemed that she wasn't the only person who didn't think much of Marl.

Hafiz brooded over the lists of supplies he had ordered from company headquarters-orders that were as yet unfilled, though some of them were more than six weeks old.

Miikhaye, the Linyaari communications intern, appeared in the doorway.

"Uncle Hafiz, sir, Comoff Harui sent me to inform you that Captain Ling and the Dervish are returning."

"So soon? Did they fix my relays? Did they see the supply ships en route to us? What in the name of the Prophets and Books is causing all of this delay?"

"No, sir, they did not do any of that. As they were entering Federation space they encountered a drone ordering all vessels to return to their last ports of call."

"Why in the name of all that is holy and valuable? Ships do not conduct interstellar commerce by remaining in port."

"No, sir. The drone refers to the need for treatment, decontamination, and observation of a quarantine. What is a quarantine, Uncle Hafiz?"

"A quarantine? Why a quarantine?"

Miikhaye shook his head to indicate he did not know and looked expectantly at Hafiz.

"Ah, yes, my son, a quarantine is a rule passed by health officials and other authorities to prevent those who are sick with a communicable disease from mingling with those who do not have it."

"Oh, well then, sir, that's a relief. At least we do not have to worry about Acorna, Aari, and Khorii. They are Linyaari and can heal any illness."

"Ah, yes, true. And yet-"

"Sir?"

Hafiz made a wave of dismissal. "Never mind, my boy. Ask Captain Ling to report to me upon his return, please. And you did well to keep me informed. Do the same when Captain Gallico returns from Makahomia. And, Miikhaye?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You are the son of Khaari, communications officer of the Balakiire, the ship commanded by my adopted daughter's aunt Neeva, are you not?"

"Khaari is my mother, yes, sir. Why?"

"Would you tell her for me please that I am desolate that it has been such a very long time since I have had the honor of her company and that of the rest of the Balakiire's crew. I am a lonely old man except for my beloved Karina, and I seek the solace of the companionship of my dear Linyaari friends, especially in the absence of my daughter and her family. Please convey my desire for their presence. As soon as possible. Sooner, even, if they can manage it."