First Warning: Acorna's Children

Chapter 26

The Mana's shuttle was the largest and roomiest of the transports that they had, with chairs for three people and a couple of jump seats, besides having a large empty space and nets for cargo.

"Where are the maps I told you to get?" Marl asked Jaya.

"They're in the ship's computer," she said.

"I know they're in the ship's computer," he said, mocking her last three words, then shouted at her. "Where else would they be? Access them, you sniveling idiot, and let's have a look."

A schematic appeared on the screen at Jaya's fingertips. "Magnify the writing by each of those," Marl ordered.

She did this, and he looked until he came to the warehouses for the coffee cooperative, the precious gems and metalwork guild, and the herb and spice growers' agricultural cooperative. He made a pleased sound and stabbed his finger at the last one. "There. We'll start there. Our beloved teacher forgot to mention that this region is one of the top producers of medicinal and recreational drugs in the entire Federation. Not that the Federation likes it, but they can only control the importing of this stuff, not the exporting from here. Those people on Dinero Grande didn't get rich from hard work and saving their pesos, urchins."

"Did you plan this all along, Marl?" Captain Bates asked from the ship. "Is that why you really insisted on coming with me?"

"I'd like to say I was that farsighted, Teach, but actually I have just been well trained to take advantage of strategic opportunities, and this is a huge one. I've been thinking about these warehouses since I heard about the plague starting in Solojo and taking out so many of those pesky Federation plods. And when sweet little Khorii healed my wound I began to realize what an asset she could be. With the Mana handily vacated of anyone who could be a serious deterrent to a rising entrepreneur, I knew that fate was in my favor, the Cholabrian gods of pillage were with me, and here we are."

"Touching success story," Captain Bates said.

"Oh, shut up and orbit," he said. "And let me remind you not to try anything on the ship while we're gone. I've also rigged my bomb with a timer that will go off if I don't come back in time to deactivate it."

When they had docked where he told them to, he said, "Khorii, you first, my dear. Make the atmosphere safe for us all. Android, you get us inside. Then Khorii will do her thing again and decontaminate all my souvenirs."

Khorii left the shuttle, but she wasn't sure what he wanted her to do out there. She saw none of the specks that had vanished before her horn in contaminated areas of the past. Of course, it might be a good thing if Marl imagined the very atmosphere was deadly without her. So she held her head up and walked a zigzag path to the door of his chosen warehouse, and touched it briefly with her horn. Then looked back to the shuttle and nodded.

Elviiz in the lead, the others emerged from the shuttle and joined her. Marl came last. "Do it, droid," he said. "The rest of you stand back and give it room." He said the "it" with enjoyment, speaking of Elviiz as if he were a thing.

Khorii looked at her foster brother's stoic face and rolled her eyes. The sides of Elviiz's mouth turned up slightly, and he waved her back. He put his hand on the lock and, with rapid calculation, computed the code key and opened the lock, then the door.

"You are no fun, monster," Marl said. "Khorii, debug it."

Khorii stepped forward, but Elviiz pushed her back and stepped in front of her, striding through the door.

Something inside exploded, and Elviiz staggered back into the street and fell, a huge hole in the skin of his chest revealing the metal shell underneath.

Khorii rushed to his side, and lowered her horn to the wound. Marl stepped across Elviiz's legs and grabbed Khorii by the arm, jerking her to her feet.

Sesseli screamed, her high, piercing cry echoing in the sudden silence.

A man's voice called out from the warehouse. "Nina?"

With one fluid move Marl swept the little girl into his arms, holding her tight to him. She tried to turn and glare at him, but the older boy grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look at the warehouse.

"Hey, you, in there! I'll kill this little girl if you don't throw out your weapons right now!"

From inside, heavy footsteps stumped toward the entrance, then they all heard a string of profanity as two pistols flew over their heads and landed in the street beyond them.

Sesseli's face twisted with rage, and Marl suddenly let go of her, his arms flung away from the small child. She turned back toward the warehouse and ran past all of them, crying.

Seeing her chance, Jaya snatched both pistols up and pointed them at Marl as he rushed after Sesseli through the doorway. The man shouted, then let out a yell that ended with a loud crash against something at the opposite end of the warehouse. Jaya reflexively pulled the triggers of both guns, but the bullets burrowed harmlessly into the side of the building, and Jaya herself flew backward and hit the side of the shuttle, sliding down to the ground unmoving.

"The force of the recoil of the Colt 54 Alhambra model pistol is exceeded by the velocity of the projectile by a mere fifty percent," Elviiz said to no one in particular.

Khorii had pulled away from him as Jaya shot and now ran back to help the other girl. She was stunned but otherwise uninjured. Khorii picked up the pistols with two fingers of each hand on each barrel and flung them across the street. They might have come in handy, she could almost hear Hap saying, but she felt a racial revulsion inherited from generations of pacifist Linyaari forebears. Handling firearms was definitely ka-Linyaari.

"You coming, Khorii?" Marl asked from the doorway, apparently unfazed by recent events. "Didn't anybody ever tell you that little girls shouldn't play with guns?" He sounded amused rather than threatened and when she drew near him, shoved her forward into the warehouse.

"Purify the loaders over there and start on the stacks," he told her, then stepped back through the doorway.

A figure lay sprawled against a pile of cartons and Khorii ran past the loaders to it. An old man looked up at her, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. Still she saw none of the plague aura, as she had started to think of the tiny specks associated with it, surrounding him.

He had a big white mustache and thinning hair on top and looked very angry. "This is ours," he was thinking, though he did not speak.

"It will do you no good if you're dead," Khorii told him in thought-talk as she lowered her horn to heal his wounds. "The boy you shot and all of us girls are innocent and mean you no harm. But the tall boy in the doorway is a looter and possibly a killer. I do not know how you survived the plague, but I advise you to run away or hide quickly, before he uses your own weapons against you."

The man thought about it only a moment, then flipped himself onto his hands and feet and made a stooping run behind a row of stacked crates. She did not know if he was still there or if he fled through another exit. However, he was not in sight when Marl dragged Sesseli with him by one arm and Jaya by the other. Jaya's right eye was blackening, and her mouth was bleeding. It had not been a moment ago. Khorii regretted throwing the guns away. He was not going to let them go ever, was he? They were going to be his slaves, his minions to create his own little empire, stealing things that belonged to the dead and selling them to anyone who had the money to meet his price, she supposed. Since the Federation forces had been hit very hard by the plague, there was no longer anyone to oppose Marl and people like him. No one but she and a power to heal and purify that, unfortunately, didn't seem to extend to the evil part of human nature.

If her parents were there, she knew they'd think of something clever to do, something Marl wouldn't be expecting. She wished they were there to take charge. This adventure had ceased being fun when Marl had hijacked the ship. Better yet, she wished she were with them and nowhere near Marl Fidd. If she weren't here, if he hadn't figured out her secret, he wouldn't have dared to exploit the plague as he was doing. Maybe she could convince Marl to go to Paloduro. Then he'd be sorry he tried to use the Linyaari to help him carry out his illegal, immoral, and repulsive scheme.

Meanwhile, she went through the motions of purifying the loaders and the stacks of cartons of drugs he pointed to. Actually, they did not appear to be contaminated, showing none of the plague aura. But she pretended to cleanse them and helped stow them on the shuttle anyway.

"Snap to it, kiddies. This is just the first load. There's a lot of room in the cargo bays for valuable stuff like this. I want as much of this warehouse as you can fit in those cargo bays."

"It will go faster if you'll let me repair Elviiz," she said. "He's very strong."

"Fine, but try anything, and we're going to have to load up another ship because the Mana will go nova." Marl lorded over them with a superior smile on his face, like a man who held all the cards. Right then Khorii knew that, pacifist nature or not, she would do whatever she could to make sure he didn't get away with his despicable plan.

Khiindi was right where he wanted to be, but now what was he going to do? He sat down and thought about it for a while and caught Hap's thought, "Come on, kitty, it's you and me, why don't you help me?" It wasn't that Hap knew what Khiindi really was, or that the cat could understand his thoughts. Hap was simply in the habit of talking to, and thinking at, his friends who were gifted with more than two legs. Khiindi considered the situation.

Stupid boy. He was nice enough, but how had he managed to get himself so thoroughly taped up anyway?

Unseen, Khiindi had managed to slip into the engine room behind Marl and Khorii. His original impulse was simply to go where Khorii went since he did not want her anywhere alone with Marl. Unfortunately, there had been no opportunity to slip out of his hiding place before Marl sealed the door again. Not able to reach the control panel set into the wall, Khiindi could not open the door himself. He thought about leaping at the control panel in an effort to open the door, but the nearest counter was several feet away, and while he could cover the distance, the chances of his hitting the correct button were very small, while the chances of him bashing his head into the wall were fairly high. Captain Bates was on the bridge and was the only other human aboard except for Hap. She was much too far away to help and even if he went to the intercom, what was he going to do? Mew at her? He doubted she'd get the point. Besides, even if she did come down, she couldn't get through the locked door either.

No, the hapless Hap was his best hope for release. He was not about to gum up his fangs with that vast amount of tape binding the boy, however. Maybe the hands.That was where those handy thumbs were located. He slid in close to Hap's fingers, which automatically moved to scratch his fur. In spite of himself he purred, but then set to work on the tape. It was not that difficult to puncture, but Khiindi found that he could not position himself properly to tear it away. He stood with one hind paw between Haps hands and the other outside, while using his jaws to try to rip the tape away without ripping Hap. Hap, ungrateful lout that he was, kept complaining that Khiindi's tail tickled his nose and ouch, he felt that. So Khiindi then tried it from the other direction, back paws on the deck, forepaws and teeth working at the tape from between Haps wrists. It got too slippery from blood to be of any use, and Hap's mental cursing offended Khiindi's pointed ears. He was just trying to help after all. His claws and teeth wouldn't be any good to Hap if they weren't sharp enough to pierce a little flesh. Some humans were entirely too delicate.

Finally, he clawed a strip about a half inch deep in the tape. Then it wouldn't budge any farther. He grabbed the edge in his teeth and pulled with all his might. Maybe it was true he dug his claws into Hap's hands while he pulled, but even a cat needed traction.

And for all of Haps mental cursing and muffled moaning, Khiindi finally found the way to free the boy's hands of tape. Hap bled into it so much, it came loose, and between him and Khiindi they managed to wiggle it loose.

By that time Hap had managed to rub the tape off his mouth as well. "Okay, boy, I don't know how I'm going to stand it, but you have to do my arms next."

Khiindi sat back on his haunches, panting like a dog. The hands were free, and not lacerated seriously enough to be life-threatening. Nothing Khorii couldn't fix when she returned. But he simply didn't have the strength to go through all that again, and it was entirely possible that by the time they were finished Hap wouldn't have a sufficient amount blood left in him to do anything either.

Let the cursed kid free himself the rest of the way, Khiindi thought, washing the blood from his fur and whiskers with a pristine paw. He would get all matted if he let it set.

Meanwhile Hap was making a nuisance of himself, mentally urging, "Come back here, you wretched cat, and finish this, will you?"

No, really, he needed a nap and some refreshment before continuing. He hopped up on the table Hap had set up to repair or fabricate some of the things these people used in their spaceships. Khiindi had no idea what they were. Much too primitive for his taste. However, among the tools was a pair of cable shears. Picking these up in his teeth, which would probably be falling out after the abuse they'd just taken, he used the chair, then Hap's leg for steps to get down, stepping carefully. If he jumped too fast, the shears would fall out of his mouth and be much harder to pick up from a flat position.

He did drop them before he got them to Hap's hands, as they were just too heavy for a cat's mouth. However, there was more than one way to free a human without skinning him. Khiindi was a powerful batter, and he slapped the scissors between his forepaws until they rested within Hap's reach. Once he saw the boy's fingers touching the handles of the shears, he figured his work was done and jumped back up on the table to curl up for a well-earned nap. Everything was in Hap's hands now.