Second Wave (22 page)

“Naturally they would have that sort of vessel,” he said. “It makes sense. They might have to transport all manner of liquid assets from place to place—drinking water, for instance, or liquid fuel for planet-bound vehicles.”

“The next step is to have our people check each of the Federation bases and outposts for such a vessel,” Maati said, and relayed the request via LaBoue. For three sleep periods as the
Nheifaarir
drove deeper into Federation space, they received a monotonous series of brief, negative responses. No tankers were located on any of the worlds or moons currently being visited by Linyaari, nor did any of their people recall seeing a vessel they could identify as a tanker.

“Do they look different than other Federation ships?” Ariin asked.

“Bigger,” Thariinye said. “They’d have to be larger. After all, if you’re transporting water, or the younger portion of an aquatic population, you could hardly dehydrate them, then just add water later.” Ariin laughed a little at his joke in spite of herself, but Maati gave him a pained smile while he snorted and guffawed and chortled and chuckled until his eyes ran, he was so tickled by his own cleverness.

“LaBoue Base, please access Federation database for images of tanker-class vessels and transmit,” Maati requested.

“We don’t really need all that, dearest,” Thariinye said. “We can extrapolate from what we’ve seen of their vessels and surmise that—”

“Perhaps you can extrapolate, Lifemate, or I can, but we need the image for those among our people who are less imaginatively gifted than ourselves. And don’t call me dearest, please, dearest. You only use that sort of endearment because you used to court so many females it taxed your memory to call each by her proper name.”

There followed a lengthy discussion of what he should call her, what she should call him, the impression of their relationship such endearments would evoke in outsiders, the impression
other
endearments would evoke in outsiders, the deeper psychological implications of addressing each other by such endearments and what each conveyed to the other and others about the person being addressed by such endearments.

Ariin found all of this only slightly less interesting than the questions the Friends had posed during their daily interrogation sessions. Her mind wandered, as did her gaze. There was nothing new to look at, and she could hear the argument even when her aunt and Thariinye switched to thought-talk. The only thing that changed was the size of the blip on the sensor screen. It grew bigger and bigger, unheeded by her contentious fellow crew members. It occurred to her that the kind of discussion the two were having was a device they employed to relieve the boredom of space travel. Still, some times were less boring than others.

The blip in the screen approaching the central light hypnotized Ariin to the point that when she looked up and beheld a vessel in the viewport, she was quite startled to see it seemingly hanging there in front of them.

“Excuse me!” she said out loud. “Do you think a tanker-class vessel looks anything like that?” and pointed to the ship, which seemed to be on a collision course with them.

Maati let out an exclamation and took evasive action, which rolled the
Nheifaarir
out of the other ship’s path. When they were clear, and all three of them could breathe again, Thariinye said, “Oh, I doubt it, dea—Ariin. That would be a huge coincidence, and besides, that ship looks much too—”

The com screen lit up and an image of a ship very much like the one they had almost crashed into appeared on the screen, the image morphing into various views that continued to look very similar to the reckless vessel.

Maati said, “It looks the same to
me,
” and, seeing a signal light indicating a waiting transmission, switched from remote relay to a local frequency.

A voice, mechanical-sounding in tone and yet with an underlying anxiety that was palpable to a telepath, even many months later, said, “Mayday, Mayday. This is niner two seven three zed Federation tanker-class vessel en route to Rushima with freshwater for plague survivors. Since our ship left base, sixteen crew members have died of plaguelike symptoms, including the entire command staff, our pilot, copilot, navigator, and engineering crew. Six others are exhibiting similar distress. Mayday, Mayday.”

Maati hailed them, but received no response except a repetition of the distress signal.

“Sad, but convenient,” Thariinye said.

“Yes,” Maati said, casting a sideways assessing glance at Ariin, “isn’t it?”

“I didn’t DO anything!”
Ariin responded.
“I can’t!”

“No, I suppose it is only luck that we encounter a ship we need en route to where the sister that you so desperately wish to see is.”

“YES!” Ariin said, but she didn’t think Maati believed her.

They boarded the ship, and that part was quite interesting, though Ariin was not allowed to board but was told to stay on the bridge of the
Nheifaarir,
while Maati and Thariinye checked for survivors. At least Ariin didn’t have to worry about the larger ship crashing into theirs, since the Linyaari ship locked itself magnetically to the hull of the tanker. Thariinye proved himself useful by detecting the code necessary to open the hatch to the docking bay. A bit of remote conversation between the ships’ computers, and the hatch irised open. Maati, having already attached her helmet, gauntlets, and gravity boots to her shipsuit, was out the Nheifaarir’s hatch before Thariinye left the bridge.

The helmets carried AV communication chips, so Ariin didn’t feel too left out as she watched while Maati and Thariinye boarded, floating into the ship at first. When Thariinye had closed the hatch, pointedly speaking the code aloud as he punched the keypad so Ariin could clearly see and hear everything he did, their boots touched the deck and Ariin saw Maati’s back and the brightly lit interior of the bay ahead of her on half the screen, while the other half of the screen transmitted the image from Maati’s helmet showing the bay, the room where the mechanics and other crew accessed it, and the corridors beyond.

“Someone must be alive!” Ariin said excitedly. “They turned on the lights for you.”

“Sorry, youngling,” Thariinye’s voice answered. “The power cells on these Federation ships last for years and the interiors stay illuminated except in designated sleep areas.”

They entered the room and found two bodies, both badly decomposed.

Maati removed her helmet. “Life support is still functioning, even though life seems to have ceased,” she said.

“How do you know?” Ariin asked.

“For one thing, the suit’s sensors tell us. And the bodies would not decompose without the presence of oxygen.”

“They could have decomposed before the oxygen supply ran out,” Thariinye said.

“Yes, but that’s not the case, according to the sensors. However, I’ve purified the air here so you can safely remove your helmet without smelling the deceased.”

“Please don’t!” Ariin said. “I want to see, too.”

“This is not pleasant, youngling,” Thariinye said, “not a fit experience for one so sheltered—”

Maati, however, replaced her helmet on her head, and said, “Sorry, Ariin, I forgot. Of course you want to know what’s going on, and it’s safer if you do. We’ll have to remove them if we need to purify something or if someone has survived, but otherwise you can monitor us throughout this phase of the mission.”

“But corpses, Maati—” Thariinye protested.

“If she is to participate in this mission, then she will be seeing some, I imagine. Are you bothered by the state of these humans, Ariin?”

Ariin peered closely at the screen. The human bodies did seem altered from their normal living state, with parts of their interiors visible, parts of the exteriors sloughing off, and their colors somewhat unusual. “I am not familiar enough with the usual form these creatures take to be unsettled by the alterations,” she said after thinking it over.

“True enough,” Thariinye said. “Perhaps the smell is the worst of it. It will be easier to work here if we designate a certain area for the dead and take them there.”

Maati’s helmet view nodded in agreement. Thariinye looked at an instrument panel and pointed. “Here. There is a cold locker off the infirmary. Many of the bodies may have been taken there already.”

“I doubt it,” Maati said. “If the living suspected the dead died of the plague, they wouldn’t have touched them. But I agree it is a good place. We are unlikely to need anything in the infirmary, since that is where humans keep their healing devices.”

They collected more bodies, a process Ariin was happy to have no part in. Time and again Maati and Thariinye lifted a human in the unattractive state they attained after death and bore the body down the corridor to the infirmary. After the first six, the cold locker could hold no more, so they laid the other bodies on examining tables and the floor. On the bridge, four people had died at their duty stations. The latrines were where most of the dead had congregated. Ariin didn’t see too much of this because Maati needed to remove her helmet to use her horn. The mess was only tolerable, she said, because their horns lessened the stench.

When the last of the remains were inside the infirmary, the internal temperature of the entire room reduced, and the hatch sealed behind Maati and Thariinye, the two located the sonic showers, cleansed themselves and their garments, and returned to the bridge of the tanker.

The com unit switched to full screen, and Maati spoke directly to Ariin. “According to the cargo manifest, the shipment of freshwater is still in the tank. If Rushima still needs it, the most practical course would be to deliver the water, then proceed with emptied tanks to LoiLoiKua. We’ll delay as little as possible, but there seems no other logical course. Rushima is by far the closest inhabited world, and if we triangulate back to LoiLoiKua and have the others waiting for us there, we should be able to effect the rescue within the next week.”

“How will the three of us fly two ships?” Ariin asked. “The tanker had a huge crew.”

“Ah, but the
Nheifaarir
has a powerful tractor beam,” Thariinye said. “We’ll tow the tanker to Rushima.”

Chapter 20

E
lviiz could not seem to power down. He should have gone with Khorii. His primary function was to instruct and protect her, and he had for the first time in their lives neglected that task.

It had seemed more urgent to assist Jalonzo in finding a cure for the plague, but the plague no longer manifested itself. The sea dragon specimen had proved disappointing, if somewhat puzzling. It contained not one strand of DNA but several, as if it were a collection of creatures instead of a single specimen. It was whale, fish, octopus, crab, coral, shrimp, krill and other fish, plankton and other seaweed, and LoiLoikuan.

Jalonzo had grunted disapprovingly. “Somebody’s pulling somebody’s leg. This isn’t from a creature. It’s a collection. A hoax.”

“But I can assure you, it was real and the LoiLoiKuans feared it. It attacked one of them. Had Khorii not been there, he might have died.”

Jalonzo shook his head.

“You can verify my account by cross-referencing it with testimony from Neeva and Khorii,” Elviiz said. “I do not lie, Jalonzo.”

“No, but anyone can be deceived. Perhaps these sea people just want a free ride off their dying planet to one where they can be with their grandchildren. Living among the Linyaari seems very safe at the moment.”

Elviiz could not understand Jalonzo’s reaction. While he found the sea creature’s multiple nature confusing, even mysterious, Jalonzo found it suspicious and literally incredible. Perhaps he was disappointed at not being able to cure the plague, and it was making him cynical. Perhaps he was belatedly undergoing the grief experience that affected some peoples in profound and peculiar ways.

Whatever the reason, Jalonzo had now deserted the lab and was dedicating his energies to instructing himself and others on the proper care and maintenance of the city the adolescents and children had inherited. The older people provided some of the instruction, but many had been unable to function even before the plague, their bodies inadequate for the tasks they had once performed every day. Elviiz kept busy during the day accepting data from these elders and collating it, filling in places where their memories were faulty. But the best he could do was either perform the tasks himself or provide a tutorial. He was not a mentor with years of experience and anecdotes to illustrate his lessons, as he observed the elders doing.

So Elviiz had taken to watching the city square through the windows at night. He often thought he saw movement, though it had been indistinct and fleeting. Now that the rainy season was ending, the night before had been a period of high winds but clear skies. The moons, one of them full, the other a crescent, cast deep shadows of the buildings and trees. The howling wind gave the illusion that the shadows moved.

Tonight was another such night. He scanned the same cityscape as he stood at a second-floor window, while in the background he processed data he had collected from elders earlier that day.

There it was again. Definite movement, not a reflection or shadow. Someone was moving from the communications tower. Though the movement confined itself to shadows, Elviiz attuned his visual sensors to the discrepancy in the light and picked out the familiar face and form of Marl Fidd.

How had he escaped the jail? What had that scoundrel been doing in the com tower? Before Elviiz had made up his mind to go apprehend the fellow and question him, he detected a small vessel descending toward the docking bay. A shuttle? Marl was
leaving
? It was not authorized, surely, but neither was it necessarily a bad thing that the thug would no longer be in Corazon for them to worry about.

But who was that behind him? Had he acquired a gang?

Elviiz shut down his background function to add power to his kinetic faculties. He would have to be a posse of one, apprehending Corazon’s foremost criminal and what appeared to be his gang.