Aari surprised Hafiz by clasping the older man’s round synsatin clad form in his own large embrace. “Farewell, Uncle Hafiz. Look after my sister and Thariinye and our friends and be well. Joh, Khornya, Riid-Kiiyi, and I too will let you know when it is safe to return.”
“Er, farewell, my nephew.”
Karina gave him a somewhat more effusive hug. “Farewell, Aari, and oh, my, is that a horn you’re growing there?” She reached up to touch it and with difficulty he endured what she probably didn’t realize was an inappropriate intimacy. “Oooh, I just had a flash. The plan will succeed but there will be difficulty-and danger! Be careful, dear friend-friends!”
Ready, Captain,” -Mac said. The android was in the cockpit of the Khieevi shuttle. It was still in the hold of the Condor, which was now orbiting the vine world. The holograms moved below in their randomly programmed patterns. Some of them were speaking, some were not. It didn’t matter. The Khieevi wouldn’t understand anyway.
Becker rubbed his hands together as gleefully as a landlord about to foreclose on the heroine’s mortgage in a vid melodrama. “The trap is set, the bait’s in place, now all we need is to wiggle the string a little to make the bait look lively to the rats.”
Acorna looked up from the console, smiled and stroked RK’s head. “Captain, it occurs to me you’ve been hanging out too much with RK lately.”
“Yes,” Aari said. “You are beginning to think like a cat.”