And if she was going to have adventures, she’d picked the right ship to have them in. In addition to being comfortable, the Nakaavrl was equipped with all of the newest devices her technoartisan friends had demonstrated. Maati already knew that because Thariinye had shown off the ship’s features when he returned from his first brief flight, greeting the Condor and the many Linyaari ships when they returned carrying the spacefarers from captivity.
“Does this ship have any weapons?” Maati had wanted to know then.
“What would you know about weapons?” Thariinye had asked in that tone that made her feel like a total child.
“Grandam told Khornya that her father had developed a defense weapon that would destroy our enemies if they attempted to capture one of our ships. Grandam said it was how Khornya’s parents were killed-when their ship self-destructed along with the Khieevi chasing them. She thought Khornya’s folks must have used it on themselves after Khornya’s pod was ejected. The force of the blast was the only way to explain how far away Khornya was when she was found by her the men ^o raised her.” Maati had been wondering at the time if that ^a-s how her parents died, using a similar weapon to destroy themselves and their ship before the Khieevi could capture them.
“Yes, the Nilkaa vri is equipped with the defensive system,” Thariinye said. “But no offensive -weapons. That would be kaLinyaari, against everything we believe in. The ship does have all the very latest innovations, of course. You ask too many questions.”
Why, of all the people she’d ever met, did she have to be on the ship with himi Nobody else among the spaceport personnel, the technoartisans, or the spacefarers treated her like she was inferior just because she was younger and shorter than they were. In contrast to Liriili and her political friends, the spacefarers had, with rare exceptions, treated her with respect.
But she was stuck with Thariinye and supposed she’d have to make the best of it, at least if she wanted to get to Khornya and Aari, and maybe, just maybe, her parents. It -was an unfamiliar feeling in her heart, the thought that there was a possibility they -were still alive.
When Maati wasn’t arguing with Thariinye, she -watched the tutorials that came with every new ship’s complement of programs and she took herself through a simulation of Captain Becker’s course.
The human employed unusual navigation methods, diving into unplotted wormholes and through unexplored folds in space rather than following conventional spaceways. If she and Thariinye were going to manage to rendezvous with the Condor, they -would have to do the same. Thariinye confirmed her hunch, -when she asked him point-blank about their course.
Now Thariinye looked nervous as the entrance to the wormhole loomed before them, but then he grinned and got a strange gleam in his eye. He shifted to manual controls. “Strap down, youngling,” he said.
“I am strapped in,” she said. “Hurry up, will you?”
“Okay. Yeeeeeeeheeee!” he cried, a little anticlimactically. She really didn’t notice much. There was nothing to see. One moment the opening -was ahead of them and the next it was behind them. The stars were in different places. That was all.
And-something else.
“Well, look at you, little girl,” Thariinye said, when he turned to glance at her and the glance became a stare. “You are now a bona fide starclad spacefarer.”
She was! She really was. Her skin had been getting a little lighter since they left, and the pale spots in her mane broadening to overcome the black parts, but now, her hands below the cuff of her shipsuit -were -white! Completely. As white as Thariinye’s, or Khornya’s, or Aari’s. She -wanted to run for the nearest reflective surface but got tangled in her safety restraint straps, her fingers fumbling as she tried to release the catch. At last she got free and was able to examine herself in the grooming device. Her face was as pale as the second moon, her mane pure silver, and her horn golden, though still of a childishly stubby length. She frowned at her reflection.
“Does this color make me look plumper?” she asked Thariinye, and immediately regretted it.