Grandam put her hand on Maati’s shoulder. “Maybe next time, child. This time I need you here. We have lost too many already.”
“Well, then, he should stay, too,” Maati said stubbornly. “He only just got here. Captain Becker hasn’t had him always. He can do things by himself or with the cat orKhornya can help him.”
“Being traded in, am I?” Acorna asked, chiding just a little. She squatted on her heels and said, “Maati, I don’t think Aari can stay right now.”
“Why not? We healed him. All but his horn.”
“The thing is, we didn’t. Not entirely. He is not used to being with people any more.”
“I will tell you a state secret, child,” Grandam said. “Do you know why the Council decided that the graves should be spread out according to clan?”
“I don’t care about that!” Maati said.
“No, but Aari does. Do you know that if we had buried them all together, all he wanted to do here was what he has done these last few ghaanyl and made himself guardian of the graves’
“You felt that, too?” Acorna asked.
“He broadcasts quite well, even without a horn,” Grandam said. “I-rather think he believes he belongs with the dead, no matter how much the living may care for him.”
“That’s Khieevi!” Maati declared. “Why would he think that?”
“That’s just it, Maati,” Acorna said. “He spent a long time with the Khieevi, You saw some of what they did to his bodycould you feel what they did to him inside?” “Yes,” Maati said. “Yes, but he’ll get better.” “Yes, he will,” Acorna said. “But he needs time to get used to being alive. If he stays among our people now, they will never forget how he is now, and it will be much harder for him to grow into his life and become again the man he once was or could have been. Captain Becker may be a little Khieevi around the edges, but he is a good man and he does not let Aari go into himself too much. I will go and make as sure as I can that he comes to no harm and comes back to you. Then, when you’re a little older, you can come into space with us if you like.”
“Into space-with you? Aren’tyou coming back, Khornya?” “I’m not sure,” she said. “But my adopted uncle is out there in trouble.”
“So is your aunt, don’t forget, child,” Grandam said, taking Maati by the shoulders. The girl was only partially mollified and later, as Acorna, Aari, and Becker watched the ground from the comscreen, they saw her looking after them as the ship lifted off.
twenty-One
The Shahrawu) was still transmitting her distress signal when she was boarded. Hafiz had taken the helm after the captain was hit by falling debris from the first volley fired against the ship. It had come from nowhere, before the Shahraza() was able to deploy her shields. Their attacker was cloaked.
Fortunately, the Shahrazcu) was as spacious vertically as the villa on Laboue was horizontally. And there was only one entrance, on the lower levels, and in between, the ship had a labyrinth of defenses.
Karina watched, with a sort of horrified fascination, as pressure-suited individuals entered the main air lock, brandishing large, gleaming, fearsome-looking weapons. The leader, a small person, shucked off her garment to reveal a form-fitting silver garment much like the ones worn by ancient film starlets in vintage Asian space operas. The invader fluffed her hair and demanded of the ship at large, “Hafiz Harakamian, your guests have arrived. Surrender now and save yourself a great deal of pain later.”
Hafiz smiled and said softly to the computer, “The baths.”
Dr. Hoa, standing nearby, nodded, and pressed the control buttons for the little bubble of weather he was not averse to using as a weapon under these circumstances.
Kisia and her phalanx of soldiers blasted open the air lock from the inside, as Hafiz had known they surely would do, disrespectful as they were of his investment in the finest, smoothest, and most aesthetic possible technology. The blast caused the onion-domed portal to the air lock to disassemble into a waterfall of beads which then tinkled away to a mere shimmer of energy as they were penetrated.