It we just deviate two degrees from Captain Becker’s course for a few hours, we’ll be at the point where the Niriians 8aw the planet with my parents’ escape pod on it.” “Hmm? Oh. Good.”
I think we should alter our planned route and find my parents before we go see Captain Becker and the others. Shall we change course?”
“Oh, yeah, okay. Fine, kid. Don’t bother me,” he said and then before she could draw another breath said, “What? No no, Maati, wait. Don’t you <)are touch anything! I -was asleep. I’ll be right there!”She shook her head when she saw him, rubbing his eyes his mane all flattened on the left side. He stumbled a little when he walked.“You-didn’t touch anything, did you?” he asked.“No. That’s technically your job. That’s why I called. But I do think we should try to get my folks since they’re sorta on the way.” She tugged at his sleeve, and pointed to the screen where the course she had been plotting intersected with the familiar coordinates.“Absolutely not.” He looked again, tapped a button, compared her course -with the original tracing of the Condor’s. “What’s this all about?”“I was trying to make our trip shorter and faster. The Condor is just looking for junk. They are not in any hurry, and they are rambling all over the place while they are looking. They are not trying to take the most direct route through space. But we do not have to follow their path. We could reach them faster by plotting a more direct course.”“Oh, -we could, could we? I suppose now that you’re starclad, you think you know as much about navigation as seasoned spacefarers, do you?”“It’s not that. It’s just that if those horrible things that hurt my brother are out here too, I don’t want them to find my parents all stranded on some deserted planet. I wanted to come with you so that I could help you save them. And if we keep on our present course, it will take forever to reach where the ConSor was. Then we’d have to try to find it from there and, meanwhile, my parents could die.”“Ummm,” Thariinye said again, tracing each route simultaneously with both hands. “If we take this shorter route, we could rescue your parents on our way and still rendezvous with the ConDor in half the time I figured.” Maati looked up at him with wide, approving eyes but inwardly she was laughing about how he was making this whole thing sound like his own idea. “Very well then. I’ll change course now.”He did, putting on quite a show for her benefit-embellishing his movements with graceful little flourishes, humming to himself the “Hero’s Gallop” song. He evidently thought that, instead of being grounded for life when he returned to narhiiVhiliinyar, he would receive a hero’s “welcome for the rescue of her parents, his account of which would no doubt be as embroidered as his current implementation of the course change, or maybe even more so. Let him be the biggest fraaki in the pond if he wanted to. Maati didn’t care. She would finally get to see her parents again.Maati was at the helm once more when the ship prepared to enter the orbit of the planet whose coordinates matched those described by the Niriians. The planet was a pretty one from this distance. Overall it was the color of the small lavender flowers that grew in the best grazing grounds. Large pools of deep indigo appeared through the powdery blue clouds that swathed the world. It even had several blue moons. She wondered what they would look like from the surface. She’d find out soon enough… .Maati was about to summon Thariinye when the corn unit Game alive. She heard, not words, but sounds like rocks being ^nged together, “Hick Klack, klick-klick-klickety-klack-klackklack.”Thariinye must have been on his way to the bridge already ecause suddenly he was beside Maati. The color completely famed from his horn and he looked like he was watching something terrible. “What’s the matter, Thariinye? We’re here!” she said.“Yes,” he whispered, nodding at the corn unit. “And so are the Khieevi.”