Third Watch (15 page)

“Where’s Pircifir?” Khorii asked. “We need to go now.”

“He’s gone,” Grimalkin said, and was amazed to find his face was wet with more than sweat. “They killed him. Beheaded him. Even we cannot survive that.”

T
he horsemen thudded up to Khorii and halted, looking puzzled. She tried to look as innocent as possible, keeping her head still so that the hood of her garment covered her horn.

The leader bore a great bloody sack slung across his saddle. “What have we here?” he asked his men, regarding Khorii. “Little maid, we hunt a herd of unicorns. Have they passed this way?”

Trying not to look at the sack, she pointed down the road and said in the most archaic language she could remember from Uncle Joh’s vids, “They went thataway.”

The men clattered away, for the moment taking no more interest in her. She ran back down the road to where Pircifir had fallen. If the men thought to be rewarded for bringing back a unicorn’s head, they might be disappointed. Upon death, presumably after the men took his head, Pircifir had returned to his humanoid shape. There was nothing she could do for him, she knew, but she tenderly removed his crono from his lifeless wrist. She galloped back toward the hill.

The ship reappeared, which meant that someone had deactivated the cloaking device Pircifir had carried in his uniform. The unicorn herd, trembling and wild-eyed, walked out of the hill, followed by Grimalkin in a shipsuit, then Pebar, Sileg, and Ariin.

As the others entered the ship’s open hatch, Khorii compressed the hill as much as she could, handed it up, and climbed in after them. As she did, the king’s men returned, looking up in awe at the ship. A unicorn glared down from the hatch at the men, daring them to hurt Khorii, but they made no move to do so.

“Look! The maiden was a fairy, and she is carrying the beasts into her magic castle.”

With a touch of the crono, the men, the forest, and the castle vanished. Khorii imagined that they had probably decided her magic castle was a vehicle after all, but she didn’t care.

They returned to Sileg’s and Pebar’s time and silently, the two men departed. Before they left, Khorii returned the original alien dwelling to them so they would be able to make a living. The crono was firmly back on Ariin’s wrist, the crono of Grimalkin’s Khorii had kept back on his own. Khorii carried Pircifir’s crono, and was not sure what to do with it. Grimalkin was surely the late captain’s next of kin, but he had no need of the instrument now.

The journey through space was longer and harder than it had been on the way there. Grimalkin said very little and seemed preoccupied. Khorii thought he might be grieving.

“You can return to an earlier time and bring him forward, can’t you?” she asked. “You did that with my grandparents and my uncle, I’m told.”

To her surprise, Grimalkin shook his head. “They were not of our race, and their demise or survival made no difference on many time paths.”

“So Pircifir’s dying was more important than when our relatives died?” Ariin challenged him.

“I’m not sure. But he never returned from this journey. Originally, you didn’t either,” he told Ariin. “But I think, if Pircifir came back, the Others, your ancestors, would not have been saved. I must consult all sorts of archives and ancient time lines to sort it out, but I think that’s the way it goes.”

The sneer faded from Ariin’s face even as she said, “Oh, come on. That can’t be right. You’re immortal, aren’t you?”

“Apparently not,” he said, and spoke no more of the matter for the rest of the trip.

B
ack on Vhiliinyaar, a flurry of training and building occupied Kubiilikaan and its inhabitants. The unicorns were the second great wonder to emerge from the ship in a very short time. Khorii and Ariin stayed on board the ship this time. “I think seeing the unicorns just now will confuse them enough,” Khorii said. “They can worry about our kind later on.”

To her surprise, this time Ariin agreed with her.

Grimalkin off-loaded the unicorns by himself and arranged for their care and feeding. Then he returned to the ship. “It is time to continue our true mission,” he said.

Chapter 12

N
ow I want to go home, to our own time. I want to see how Elviiz is and tell our parents what we’ve discovered,” Khorii said. “And Ariin, I think you’ve gathered enough credit, helping to discover the source of the Friends’ shapeshifting houses and rescuing the Ancestors of our race.”

Grimalkin inclined his leonine head, shrank back into his Khiindi body, and hid under Khorii’s chair.

All Ariin said was, “We’d better take this ship. We might need it.”

Before she could change her mind, Khorii concentrated on the quarantine compound where and when they’d left their parents, Elviiz, Maak, and Uncle Joh.

The countryside blurred past the viewport, moving through centuries of time. The unicorns they rescued had meanwhile bred, been born, bred among themselves, and eventually died, and at some point the Linyaari race had somehow been created.

The blurring cleared. Outside it was morning again, and Khorii saw a meadow, with Ancestors ranging around it. In the center was the
Condor,
Uncle Joh’s patched-together ship. Beside it was the pavilion where her parents lived now. Some distance away sat two other pavilions, their flaps fluttering in the breeze.

She reached down and picked up Khiindi, who mewed mournfully. It was easier than she had expected it would be to forget that her lifelong companion could at times transform himself into a man, a flying tiger, or a unicorn. She petted the stripes between his ears and patted his side consolingly. He hadn’t said much about missing his brother when he was in man form, but now that he was a small cat again, his grief showed in his eyes and his plaintive cry. The crono hung around his furry neck.

“You two took your time!” Elviiz said, sitting up when they stepped into his pavilion. Maak had assembled tools and surgical instruments, chips and diodes, and was methodically laying these on a pallet lying beside Elviiz’s.

“We found a spaceship!” Ariin told him cheerfully.

“Where?” Elviiz asked.

“On the shore when we went to see the LoiLoiKuans.”

“How is it that no one found it before?” Maak asked.

“I don’t know,” Ariin said. Khorii stayed out of it. This was Ariin’s story. Let her talk her way out of it. “It’s very old. I think it might have been buried, and the terraforming dredged it up somehow.”

“Highly improbable,” Maak said.

Ariin shrugged, and said, “Maybe…”

Khorii sighed.
“Just tell him we’ll explain later, when the operation is complete, and we can explain to the others as well. We’ll have to tell them. We need to figure out the significance of what we found out about the dwellings and how the information might help us with the plague creatures. Unless you’ve figured it out already?”

“I’m working on it,”
Ariin said.

“It is good you have returned,” Maak said. “It is time to neutralize my son’s nerve centers so he will not feel pain. I will need you to heal the incisions I make once I have inserted the necessary modifications.”

“Father,” Elviiz said, “will I still be able to thought-talk once my nonorganic functions are restored?”

“That is one of the few things I do not know, son,” Maak replied.

Just then they heard the sound of a flitter. A moment later, seven tall Linyaari, five in white tunics, two in multicolored clothing, entered the pavilion.

Maak looked up at them from where he knelt beside his instruments. “I am required to warn you that you are in an area bordering a quarantined enclave. I have been declared disease-free but—”

The entrance of the seven had masked the sound of a second flitter. Now they were joined by Neeva, Melireenya, and Khaari.

“It’s all right, Maak,” Neeva said. “These five are esteemed physicians who are deans of the new medical college on narhii-Vhiliinyar. They are Riiri, Kaafri, Naarli, Raarilya, and Hruf. These two are techno-artisan Guild Masters Faari and Hriinye, the most skilled electronics and bionics engineers among our people. They offer you their skill to assist with the repair of Elviiz. Since Melireenya, Khaari, and I performed the initial healing of the organic modifications necessary to preserve Elviiz’s life, we felt our insights into his condition would be helpful as well.”

Neeva introduced Khorii and Ariin to the new team.

A flicker of curiosity showed in Riiri’s eyes as she addressed them. She had no doubt heard of Ariin’s return from the past and Khorii’s work on the plague. In fact, she might have been among the rescue teams Khorii had assisted in the past, but she did not remark on the fact. Instead she said, “Invasive forms of healing are best performed by others whenever possible.”

Neeva placed a hand on each girl’s shoulder. “She is correct. This healing will involve far more than the application of horns. We are here to assist Maak because our intervention in Elviiz’s case has made his reconstruction far more complicated than even his father realizes.”

Ariin looked puzzled, but turned to go with a shrug. Khorii started to protest.

Elviiz reached up and touched her arm. “It is true, little sister. Some disassembly of my organic parts may be required to make room for the inorganic enhancements with which Father originally endowed me. If you were an android like me, you would no doubt find the procedure instructive. However, since you are an organic being with certain emotional sensibilities of which I have recently become aware, you would probably find it more upsetting than helpful. Therefore, since there appears to be adequate technical and medical support to Father’s endeavors, I would appreciate it if you would wait outside until I have been adequately modified. I trust the results will be worth the wait.”

Looking into the dim gray of his weak, organic eyes, Khorii perceived an unexpected emotion. She realized her brother was embarrassed for her to see him with his skin off.

She knelt and touched her horn to his forehead. “I’ll wait outside, Elviiz, if that is your wish.”

“It is,” he said. “Your presence may also have a beneficial effect on the emotional state of our mutual parents.”

She nodded and stepped out of the pavilion. Ariin was already grazing outside the quarantine circle, deep in conversation with their parents between mouthfuls of succulent grass. Mother and Father nibbled thoughtfully while Uncle Joh paced the meadow around them like the tiger RK thought himself to be.

The situation would have seemed calm and in hand except for the mournful meowing of Khiindi, who prowled beneath Pircifir’s ship as if looking for his lost brother.

“Can’t you shut him up?” Uncle Joh demanded. “What the coz is wrong with the critter anyway?”

“He’s sad, Uncle Joh,” Khorii told him, having to shout a bit to be heard across the quarantine circle and over Khiindi’s cries. “He’s suffered a loss.”

The
Condor
’s captain stopped pacing and, with more patience than most people would have thought he possessed, said, “Then pick him up and pet him or heal him or something, can’t you? I don’t see how anyone can concentrate on major surgery with that yowling going on. Tell the cat we’re sorry for his loss, but we don’t want to lose Elviiz, too.”

Khiindi’s cries stopped in midhowl. Perhaps he remembered that it was Elviiz who had stopped Marl Fidd when the young thug had swung Khiindi by his tail and thrown him into a pool. Elviiz had always treated Khiindi as if he were a feline younger brother, in the same way that Khorii was a Linyaari younger sister.

Her sometimes-cat ran to Khorii, who scooped him up and petted him, consoling herself with the softness of his coat.

E
veryone waited all day long. They knew the surgery must be intensely difficult, because for many hours there was no direct thought contact from any of the people working on Elviiz.

“On the other hand,” Mother told the girls when Khorii wondered again what could possibly be taking so long, “nothing very bad has happened, or we would know it already.”

At one point Uncle Joh looked up at his ship and excused himself. When he came back, he said, “Just Hafiz and Karina checking in to see how the boy’s doing. I’m surprised Hafiz didn’t have a device installed in the tent so we could have an Elviiz-cam broadcasting from here to narhii-Vhiliinyar to MOO.”

Mother rolled her eyes in amusement. “Don’t say that too loudly, or Uncle Hafiz will hear you on his
Condor
-cam and make it happen.”

Finally, at sunset, Maak came to the pavilion flap. Khorii rushed over, followed by Ariin. “How is he?” she asked.

“As well as can be expected, I am told,” he said. “You can see for yourself. He wishes to see you.”

She entered the tent cautiously. Maak’s voice had never become as expressive as Elviiz’s but even so, there was some disappointment in it, a lack of conviction about the success of the restoration.

Elviiz was listening to what sounded like instructions from the two techno-artisans. Neeva, Melireenya, and Khaari passed Khorii as they left the pavilion. Neeva’s expression was apologetic, and she touched Khorii’s arm consolingly.

Khorii couldn’t see why. Elviiz looked perfectly healthy. He was even sitting cross-legged on his pallet as he touched various parts of himself in response to the techno-artisan’s instructions.

The techno-artisan handed him something. Elviiz lifted a pair of goggles, then seated them over his nose and ears. “Our people are working even now on a fully functional adjustable lens that will be able to superimpose all of the functions of your bionic eyes on your organic ones. But until then, these should work. There is also a full sound-modulation function built in and enhanced olfactory sensors, all controllable from your implant.”

“Thank you,” Elviiz said politely, and put the goggles in place.

“Elviiz,” Khorii said, as the techno-artisan rose to go. “How do you feel?”

“Enhanced!” he said. “Not as good as before in many ways, but they were able to augment my skeletomuscular system and nerve synapses, restoring most of my strength. Chip implants have restored my memory banks, although frankly accessing them is a bit more of a problem than it used to be because my brain is almost entirely organic. But that is a good thing, I think. Say something to me.”