First Warning: Acorna's Children

Chapter 3

The storage asteroid was not far by space-faring standards, basically only a wormhole away. One of the things Uncle Joh was teaching Khorii was how to navigate the way his father Theophilus had taught him, using wormholes and "pleated" space and other anomalies of physics as shortcuts. Of course, Maak knew how to do this, as did her parents, and Elviiz would probably have it in his data banks long before she flew solo for the first time; but at least she sort of understood how it worked, and everyone else didn't know all of the special Becker byways.

"See, this is really not on a commonly used corridor," the captain said. "So I don't have to worry about somebody disturbing my stuff. It's also, ahem, a bit out of the reach of the Federation, so I don't have to comply with a lot of stupid rules and regulations. It's all mine. My own little world-actually, I have several."

He seemed very relieved when they went through the worm-hole. For one thing, the huge liner put a tremendous strain on the tractor beam and the Condors engines, which were quite powerful compared to her size. "Whew," he said. "Now we're off the main track, and I don't have to worry about someone investigating this particular tail wagging this particular dog. We'll be able to maneuver the Blanca into position pretty shortly though. The company cache is coming right up. You'll know it when you see it. I made it easy to identify in case I ever forget to reinstall the coordinates when I change out equipment."

He was always using a newly salvaged piece to upgrade or replace one of the Condors parts. You couldn't say original parts. He said he figured the whole ship had been replaced quite a few times by now. In outline, it still roughly resembled the carrion bird for which it was named, but its texture reminded Khorii of the patchwork quilts some of the church ladies of Rushima had sent to MOO in gratitude for Mother's help in defeating the Khleevi.

Readily identifiable did not quite cover her first impression however. The name of his company was spelled out in salvage spread over the asteroid's surface followed by, keep off. danger! toxic waste! biohazard! explosives!

He watched her face closely, then beamed with pride at her expression. "Impressive, huh? I wanted to add that trespassers would be fed to the cat, but I was afraid that most salvage thieves who hadn't met RK wouldn't know what a serious threat that was and think I was kidding about the other ones, too."

That was the last conversation for a little while as the Condor coddled and prodded, tugged, backed, lifted, and very gently deposited the huge liner on the asteroid's surface before disengaging the tractor beam. Then they landed for a comparatively brief time while everyone suited up and anchored the liner firmly to the asteroid's surface, then camouflaged it with huge asteroid-colored protective tarps. Then all of them packed as much portable salvage as they could around the ship. None of this threatened the sign, Khorii noticed. Captain Becker had that well protected with a fence around its perimeter.

She reboarded the Condor, took off her suit, and waited for the others. "What about all of those people?" she asked, when everyone had arrived.

"What people?" Becker asked. "Oh, you mean the stiffs? They'll keep."

"They are people," Khorii said, with a fierceness that surprised her. "They have families and homes, and someone is going to be worried about them."

"You mean in the same way as we were worried about you when you just took off on that death ship and we didn't know where you were?" her mother asked sternly.

Oh, please, Khorii thought. They were psychic even if she wasn't yet. They could hear her mind and know if she was in trouble or not, even if they weren't actually reading her at the time.

"Captain Becker is just trying to protect the evidence, yaazi, until the Federation can conduct a proper investigation-back where we found the ship. But he's right, you know. Looters could have found it and spaced the bodies-"

"You mean looters who aren't us?" Khorii demanded. "He doesn't really care about the people at all. You heard him! Stiffs! He just wants the salvage and as much as-"

"That is enough, Khorii," her father said. "Come here, youngling, you are agitated. The sights you have seen today have upset you as they would any sensitive person." He reached for her, and her mother did, but she backed away from them. She didn't want a horn touch to make her feel better. The people aboard that ship would never ever feel any better. She could not believe her parents were going along with Becker's greedy scheme. She could not believe she had ever liked him or claimed him as kin. He was a horrible man. Horrible. She hated him. Well, maybe not hated. Hate was not a Linyaari thing to feel. But she was very, very disappointed in him. And ashamed, too.

Uncle Joh looked angry himself. "What's the matter with you, kid? Can't you see what we're doing? Those people are better off here. Someone else would come along and space them maybe, the authorities would have a devil of a time telling who was who or how they died. That ship is just too fraggin' big for us to cover and investigate as thoroughly as we should, and, besides, we might mess stuff up for the pros. It's a very delicate situation telling the cops that you've found some salvage you intend to claim, but meanwhile it's full of a lot of inconvenient corpses that you didn't cause to be in that condition. It's gonna take a little time and some finesse to report the wreckage and have it back where we reported it to be. It's not something we can just call in, you know. There will be questions and inquiries and a lot of other stuff."

"I have a list of the passengers," Khorii said. "All their names and where they are from."

"Good work," the captain said. "We can give it to the Federation when we report it and . . ."

"I'd like to do that myself," she said.

"Khoriilya." Her mother held out her hand. "I have heard enough from you for now, young lady. Give me the passenger lists. We will report this immediately."

Khorii began to protest, even in spite of her mother's tone, but Mother lifted one eyebrow, and she knew better than to argue.

"Okay, then, fine." She surrendered the various lists she had retrieved, then stomped to her cabin with Khiindi and secured the hatch. She did not feel like talking to anyone. She did not feel like going to visit relatives she had never met or had only met for a short time. She wanted to go home and be with the people she knew. The ones who were around while her parents were off on some mission or other.

Looking around her cabin, she wished she could see the face of Auntie Karina, Uncle Hafiz's wife, when she saw what Elviiz termed the "modifications" Khiindi had made in the decor Karina had chosen to embellish Khorii's quarters. Auntie Karina would not like it.

Her aunt was very impressed with the fact that Makahomian Temple Cats like Khiindi were sacred on their own homeworld. Aunt Karina set a lot of store by things that were sacred, holy, or otherworldly, and showed her respect for all of them by burning a great deal of strong-smelling incense that made both Khorii's and Khiindi's noses burn and by talking in deep, wavering tones. It had always seemed a little silly to Khorii before, but at the moment it was downright endearing. Some people could use a little more reverence.

However, Karina did not really know much about cats, sacred or otherwise. She would never have filled Khorii's cabin with so many little cat statues made of different materials and in all sorts of colors, patterns, sizes, and poses if she'd known what Khiindi would do to them. The fragile ones were all in pieces, which Khorii had stowed in a locker. The soft plushy ones had been clawed, shed upon, nuzzled, drooled on (and sometimes something else, though Khorii purified the spots immediately so nobody would know how naughty Khiindi had been), and torn. Most of them lacked heads or paws or tails and had stuffing hanging out. The "four-poster" effect, whatever that meant, that Aunt Karina had tried to achieve over Khorii's sleeping hammock with veils had ended up being fringe instead.

Aunt Karina had funny ideas sometimes, and Khorii knew the captain was not happy that she had tried to modify his ship, though he did it all the time. But Mother had said it was thoughtful of Karina to try to make the ship more homelike, by Karina's standards, for the youngling, since it would be the child's first major spaceflight.

That all seemed so long ago. After recent events, she definitely did not feel like a child anymore.