“No, man. Roadkill. Road. Kill. It’s a joke.”
“Riid. Kiiyi.” The figure tried hard, but his tongue couldn’t seem to cut through.
“Yeah, see, the joke is from back before flitters, when we all traveled in wheeled conveyances which rolled on the ground along paved stretches on planetary surfaces called roads. Critters like RK here-okay, Riid Kiiyi, if you insist-critters like him would wander out on the road and get squashed. Like he almost did.”
The figure stroked RKs back and the cat rose up to meet the clubbed-looking hand. Becker had thought something was wrong with the hand before, and now he saw that each finger lacked a knuckle, and the hand didn’t have enough fingers. The guy’s feet were screwed up, too. They looked more like a goat’s feet-cloven hooves-than like a person’s feet.
“Riid Kiiyi Khieevi?” inquired the figure-a male, Becker decided, from the overall stance and bearing of the creature.
“No, Riid-Roadkill isn’t whatever you said. Roadkill is a cat. A Makahomian Temple Cat, to be precise. -Makahomian Temple Cats are bred from ancient Makahomian Cat God stock to be defenders of the temples of-ah-Makahoma. They are very fierce fighters. I guess RK kinda thinks of the Condor as his temple now and me-I must be the pope at least! That’s how come the little guy waded into Kisla’s gang, even when he could have got away. Nice kitty,” he said, and petted RK, who growled a little.
That was when Becker noticed that the funny looking guy had a little boxy device he had positioned between himself and Becker. Becker touched it. “What’s this?”
The other guy pointed to Beckers mouth and made a shadow duck quacking in the flickering light cast on the wall by the fire burning in the-cave? It had to be a cave they were in. When had the fire been lit? Becker didn’t remember a fire. Maybe he wasn’t yet one hundred percent recovered. Must be still lapsing in and out of consciousness.
So-Beckers mouth, quacking-speaking maybe-then the man made a sweeping motion with both hands that clearly meant exchange-and pointed to his own mouth. “Linyaari.”
“That your name? Linyaari? I’m Becker. Me. Becker,” he said, feeling like the lead character in one of those ancient icons of classic film, Tarzan. He pointed to himself. “Becker.” To the cat, who rose up again, to allow himself to be stroked, “Roadkill.” Back to himself: “Becker.” He pointed to the man again and asked, “Linyaari?”
The man made a sweeping motion with both hands and arms to indicate either the whole cave or possibly the whole planet. “Linyaari.” Then pointed to himself. “Aari.”
“Art? You’re Art! Hi, Art. Jonas Becker. Much obliged for the rescue.”
“Muk oblii!” Aari responded. “Hit, Biickir.” The filth on his face ran with wet streaks, glistening in the firelight. “Hit, Riid. Kiiyi.” The cat climbed onto Aari’s folded legs and began to purr.
Over time, Becker wasn’t sure how much time exactly, Aari’s grasp of Standard improved. Aari encouraged Becker to talk and used different words as Becker brought them up. The little translator didn’t give Becker much of a grasp of Linyaari, which was clearly the language and race that Aari belonged to, and the race that had once occupied this planet.
The coin dropped after Becker had more sleep under his belt. This planet was the one with the horns. The horns that had been mistaken for a very personal horn belonging to the Lady Acorna, the unicorn girl. That must be her race. Linyaari. The same as this guy.
Except this guy didn’t have a unicorn horn. Maybe only the girls did? Nah-quite unwillingly, Becker looked more closely at the injury to Aari’s forehead. Then he threw up what was left of the last handful of cat food. Oh, great, pretty soon he’d be hacking up hairballs, too.
But what he had seen, when he looked, was that there was a place where Aari probably had had a horn. Now it was a deep, partially scarred-over crater that gave the guy the appearance of having a crushed forehead.
Aari saw him looking and pulled the matted hair down over the wound as far as he could, shaking his head and weeping again.