Third Watch (18 page)

Chapter 14

A
t least Ariin can’t blame me for the plague,
Grimalkin thought as he meticulously licked his coat into gleaming, top-cat shape. He had been with Aari, Acorna, Lariinye, or Khorii during the times in question, and had been confined to small cat form since the end of the second Khleevi invasion. He eyed Ariin warily. Of course, a skilled time traveler like him might have looped back to bring the plague and its aftermath down on humanity, but why would he? He only meant the best for his Linyaari descendants and their human friends and all of his descendants on all of the other worlds he’d visited as well. Anyway, he was sure he wasn’t responsible. He’d have remembered something like that. He remembered things that hadn’t even happened yet.

As for his fellow “Friends,” he was much less certain of their innocence in this matter. Some of them were explorers, as Pircifir had been, some were not mere explorers but diplomats, problem solvers, and the founders of great races, as he himself was. But some were tinkerers.

Odus and Akasa came to mind. They, like the rest of his race, had been gone from Vhiliinyar long before the Khleevi invasion. Personally, he’d been away off and on long before that. He remembered well the day he stopped back to pick up a few things at his old dwelling only to find that the city was no longer there. He’d had to find it underground, and use the time device to pick up his clean laundry! That was the trip during which he discovered poor Aari restrained on a laboratory examination table, the victim of the tinkerers who were trying to use him to invent his own race.

Then he and Aari had gone traveling in time and space, and he had simply never bothered to find out where the rest of his own race went while he was off adventuring, founding the Makahomian noble dynasty and inspiring their religion, rescuing Acorna’s parents, and helping defeat the Khleevi. He’d just been too busy to track down the rest of them.

According to Linyaari legend, his people had traveled to other worlds to help other people. But the legend probably confused his own intrepid deeds with those of his fellow shifters, most of whom were not as kindly, well-meaning, and empathetic as he was. So if one of them had done this, had mutated what remained of the dwelling and serpent races into the plague and its aftermath, who had done it and where had they gone? There was only one way to find out. Khorii and Elviiz were absolutely correct, of course. It was much too dangerous. He wished there was some way he could send Khorii at least to one of the other ships while he did what was needed, but he didn’t see how he could manage it while trapped in small cat form.

He could, however, manipulate the cronos Khorii carried. Ariin kept the one she had stolen on her wrist and up her sleeve, but Khorii still had Pircifir’s in her pocket. Khiindi had a very light paw as a cat burglar, although Khorii had never been aware of that particular talent. He’d had to shelter the child from a few of his more unsavory accomplishments, but she knew who he was now, and, besides, she had to grow up sometime.

As she engaged in earnest discussion with Neeva and Jaya while Ariin coached Elviiz on the finer points of plotting their course, Khiindi snaked a paw into Khorii’s shipsuit pocket. It closed with a tab in the middle but he easily slipped his paw into the wristband and pulled it out the side without her noticing.

To find the right time, he focused on the ship that would have landed here, and the place it landed. He narrowed his search to that single vessel and tried not to include any other features of the planet. Pircifir’s ship, the only other ship from Vhiliinyar that they knew for sure had landed here, lacked the distinctive egg shape and fanciful decorated hull featured on the Linyaari ships. A VL58PK was egg-shaped, and the hulls tended to be particularly gaudy for some reason. His mind blurred that image a bit, concentrating on such a ship landing here at some point in the past.

A point without Khleevi, he fervently hoped.

It would be really helpful as well if it were a point farther back than when he had been frozen in small cat form, but there was no way to guarantee that.

“Jaya? Neeva? Where are you?” Khorii asked. Then she asked Elviiz, “Where did they go?”

Ariin exclaimed, “We’re time traveling. That blasted cat!” She lashed out with a kick that should have sent Khiindi flying across the room but only succeeded in grazing Grimalkin’s shin as he reached for Pircifir’s spare robe, still hanging from a hook near the hatch.

“Tsk, tsk, Ariin, I’m surprised at you. After all, isn’t this what you wanted in the first place?” Grimalkin asked as he shrugged into the robe.

“So I
can
time travel?” Elviiz asked. “Father will be so pleased!”

Grimalkin studied the viewport. The egg-shaped ship was just landing. No Khleevi were evident.

He hailed the ship, “Linyaari vessel, identify yourself immediately. You are in grave danger and if you proceed, will bring even worse danger to the entire universe.”

“Grimalkin, you wily cat.” Odus’s smug face appeared on the com screen. “You’re only saying that so you can keep the secret of our dwellings to yourself. On our new world there is room for much grander homes, so I’ve come to acquire more of the creatures to serve us.”

Before Grimalkin could utter another word, Ariin snatched the crono, which he still held only on the tips of his fingers in the same way his paw had held it in cat form. The viewport blurred, cleared, and Neeva’s voice demanded, “Where are you?” followed immediately by, “Oh, there.”

But her voice was muffled by the folds of Pircifir’s robe covering Grimalkin/Khiindi’s ears as it settled on top of him.

Ariin scooped him up roughly and tossed him off the bridge into the corridor, then closed the hatch.

Khiindi turned to scratch at it, and had opened his mouth to utter his most heartrending, plaintive, offended meow when the hatch irised open again and Khorii scooped him up, cuddling him, kissing him between the ears and petting him. “Even though you only do it part-time, you are the cleverest cat in the universe, Khiindi. My sister didn’t even give you time to explain that you knew we could go back in time while in orbit without risking the plague, and we both heard Odus, so now we know he was here. He must have had something to do with it. He’s such a nasty man.”

“Stop that,” Ariin said. “Honestly, you and that—that being—are making me ill. You know what he is—how can you coo to him as if he were a sweet little animal instead of a wicked, manipulating, cunning, selfish, scheming shapeshifter.”

Khorii looked levelly at her sister, “You need to be more
linyaari,
twin girl. You hold a grudge far longer than is customary or healthy. Khiindi as a cat has never done you any harm, and the harm Grimalkin did you is long over.”

“That’s easy for you to say, you with the loving family and the normal childhood frolicking through the fields and grazing at will, not being questioned about your every movement or thought.”

“I can see why you would be annoyed about that. However, that’s no excuse for mistreating Khiindi when he’s just trying to help. Even as Grimalkin, he has only done his best to keep us safe and has never raised a finger or a paw to you in any form. He’s sorry for what he did. He’s trying to make it up to you, but you just keep being nasty to him. If you can’t forgive someone who is only trying to help undo the harm he was compelled to do to you and all of us—we were deprived of you after all, and now that we have you, you’re too angry to be much fun—then we will never solve the problem and find a cure for our family and everybody else.”

After glowering at Khiindi so hard his little cat body trembled in Khorii’s arms, Ariin’s face shifted moods, her eyes lowered for a moment, and when she looked back up there were tears in them. Khiindi knew she had been reading her sister as well as listening to her. The truth—that they were all in this together and the plague was more than an obstacle to keep Ariin from her family—was finally sinking in.

“I’m sorry, Khiindi, Grimalkin. But you shouldn’t have stolen the crono.”

“Two of the cronos are his,” Khorii pointed out. “And the other one was his brother’s.”

Khiindi mewed. He really did miss Pircifir, but there was no harm in vocalizing it to emphasize to Ariin that she was not the only one with feelings.

“We are the ones borrowing the devices from him, not the other way around,” Khorii said judiciously. Khiindi purred with satisfaction. She was such a fair girl. Sometime when he was back in two-legged form again, he must remember to compliment her on that.

“So Odus is the one behind the plague?” Ariin asked. “It figures.”

“Actually, we don’t know that. We just know that he was here after the Khleevi and before we learned about the plague. Shall we continue talking to Neeva and our friends and decide what our next move should be?”

Ariin nodded. Elviiz looked at her expectantly, and she said, “Yes, that will no doubt be helpful.” Khiindi, absolved and vindicated, decided it was time to lick himself back into shape again.

“What happened to you?” Jaya asked.

Knowing that his sisters were still a bit upset, Elviiz answered for them, “It is nothing, really, Jaya. My sister’s feline companion Khiindi is actually a time-traveling shapeshifter from one of the two races that created the Linyaari. He took it upon himself to take us back in time while still in orbit here to determine if the ship I had detected belonged to the person he suspected. This person is of his own race, and apparently has been known to exercise poor judgment in the past. It was indeed this person, but before Khiindi could remonstrate with him, Ariin became alarmed and returned us to this time.”

“That certainly explains it,” Captain Bates said.

“Yeah,” Hap said from behind her. “I was going to guess that next.”

Sesseli smiled proudly. “Khiindi is such a smart kitty.” Khiindi gave a little purr. Sesseli was his favorite human. Khorii, of course, was his favorite Linyaari, but humans did not come any better than the little girl who had once used her telekinetic gift to save him and who had always understood him better than anyone else, even Khorii. She had always simply accepted that he was the most splendid and admirable creature she had ever encountered. He could accept any amount of childish mauling from someone like that.

“So who is this character your cat suspects?” Captain Bates asked.

“Odus the Odious,” Ariin answered. Now that she had decided to be nicer to Khorii and Khiindi, the full weight of her scorn and disgust went into pronouncing the name of the being who had been, she realized now, not her mentor, as he’d liked to claim, but her tormentor. “He was there. We saw him and heard him on the com unit.”

“Can you go back to that time and stop him from doing it?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t see how we could without landing or making direct contact that might also infect us or our ship.”

“If you think he didn’t do it intentionally, you could use the com to warn him of the consequences of his actions,” Neeva suggested.

“Odus? Excuse me if I scoff, Mother-sister, but he doesn’t listen to anyone ever.”

To Khiindi’s amazement, Ariin turned to him, and asked, “Am I right, Khiindi, or do you think we ought to go back?” She held out the cronos. “We will go if you want to, and I won’t interfere this time.”

Khiindi stared at the device, considering. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but the child, however misguided about his own noble intentions, was correct in her assessment of Odus, never a favorite of his among his brethren. Perhaps she had some potential after all. He turned his back on the cronos, raised his foot, and proceeded to cleanse the area under his tail.

Chapter 15

I
don’t imagine it’s worthwhile to try to find this Odus now,” Neeva said. “He probably died of the plague, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps not, if he was the one who deliberately engineered it,” Ariin replied.

“Ariin, I agree he was totally odious,” Khorii said, “but I don’t think he was actually evil. Why would he do such a thing?”

“I don’t know. He probably didn’t know he had until it was too late to undo. But I very much doubt he suffered by it. His sort never do.”

Since Odus’s sort was the only sort Ariin had known until recently, Khorii decided that although her sister’s viewpoint might be a bit warped in some instances, she was probably generally correct.

“In that case, we should find him and see if he can help undo this latest scourge,” Neeva suggested.

“Okay, but where do we look?” Jaya asked.

“His race left Vhiliinyar long ago,” Neeva said. “Well, most of them anyway. I am unsure how to explain the continuing presence of Khiindi’s alter ego.”

“Khiindi is part of our family,” Khorii said. Khiindi looked up from his bath and blinked twice before returning his attention to his tail. “Grimalkin is the name of his alter ego, and he befriended my father. It got—well, complicated, and as Ariin will tell you, sometimes what he did didn’t work out very well, but—”

“But he was your family, just like he’s your kitty now,” Sesseli said, having apparently no problem with the change in her feline friend’s status.

“About like how the tribes were my family,” Captain Bates said, with a wry twist to her mouth. “Although my mother was the only blood relative I had, sometimes I thought my adopted ones screwed up my life so much I’d have been better off as an orphan.”

“But no matter how good they are, sometimes you feel that way anyhow,” Jaya said. “Sometimes I wanted to believe my parents—and my aunts and uncles and cousins, who were other crew members on the
Mana
—”

“I didn’t realize that, Jaya!” Khorii said. She felt bad that she had failed to understand, or even sense, that part of Jaya’s predicament as the sole survivor of the
Mana
’s crew.

Jaya nodded. “Yes, there were a lot of them. They all had opinions about everything I did, everything I said or wore. Sometimes I used to just feel smothered and as if there was nobody left for me to be because they were so overpowering. And they did things that upset my plans and hurt my feelings and embarrassed me. I never had any privacy.”