Khiindi jumped off the top of a vent and landed on Khorii's shoulder.
"Except Khiindi," Captain Bates continued. .
"Yes, he will help me search for Hap. They're friends," Khorii said. Khiindi purred and for a moment she thought she picked up on his thoughts. "I am not a dumb beast, but I am a beast, with nothing interesting at all for you to read. Concentrate on the people. I have no thumbs. I cannot fly a ship. And by the way, feed me." But of course he wasn't really thought-talking to her. Was he?
From Jaya's cabin came the sound of weeping. Khorii had learned that it was best not to bother her while she was grieving, at least not until she gave some indication she wanted to talk. Jaya's thoughts were broadcast through the door and unsurprisingly were of times she spent with her parents, cooking, eating, learning, fighting over whether or not she could go with them, go to a school, a dance, a friend's house. And there were also blurred thought-forms of a very tiny Jaya hunkered down and looking up with enormous eyes at huge feet and legs of other people, happy, powerful people, going about their business all around her. They could step on her at any moment, and there was no one there to protect her.
Khorii raised her hand to knock on the door, then sensed another feeling beneath those Jaya was projecting. Some part of the other girl was enjoying scaring herself in this way, feeling helpless and alone. That was the part that did not want to and was not ready to start living on her own again. Khorii lowered her hand and continued down the corridor.
The door to the cabin where the bodies had been stowed was open, and the room was empty. Khorii closed it quickly, hoping Jaya wouldn't notice.
Was this some macabre prank of Marl's? Didn't that boy have any feelings for anyone but himself? Khorii strode angrily down the corridor. Hearing a lot of thumping and bumping coming from one of the cargo holds, she shoved open the door.
Marl was lying flat on his back with a box labeled SCRUBBERS on his chest. "Oh, Khorii," he said, in an uncharacteristically friendly voice. "The very person I wanted to help me. I just spotted some peanut butter on that shelf up there, but I can't reach it. Give me a boost up so I can stand on your shoulders and grab it and pass it down to you, okay?"
"Wouldn't it be easier to use the loader?" she asked.
"I don't see it, do you?" he said. "That Hellstrom geek's probably taken it apart to see how it runs. And I'm really hungry." He tried to look pathetic, but in the days they'd been en route he looked as if he had put on at least ten pounds. "Please?" he asked. She had never realized he knew the word.
However, his thoughts were anything but polite. In his mind he was huge, especially his male part, and she was comparatively small, and could be broken in half. After he did that mentally, he put her back together again. She also walked very strangely, slinking around as if she were a cat in heat. He had more violent images about what he wanted to do concerning her, before his lust for peanut butter overcame them. Khiindi, he thought, might taste good roasted and covered with peanut butter. This was followed by other disturbing images of himself with every other female on the ship. I have to warn Captain Bates about Marl, she thought.
Khiindi dug his claws into her shoulder and tried to hide in her mane as Khorii began backing away. "I have to do something right now," she said.
"I said 'please,' "he said, scowling."What do you want anyway?"
"Just a little time," she said sweetly, but definitely not seductively. "I'll come back and help you in a little while, honestly. I just have-" She decided not to tell him that she was looking for Hap. That wouldn't go over very well. "I have something I really need to do first." That wasn't a lie exactly, but there was no way she was corning back alone. She'd bring Elviiz with her maybe, or just send him, but she was not going to be alone with Marl again. Not with what she saw in his mind. She would also have to make sure that the rest of the girls were never alone with him, either.
"Your loss." He shrugged and turned his back on her, looking for footholds among the shelves towering overhead. "I'm willing to share."
Khorii left in a hurry. If he fell again, she did not want to be there to feel compelled to help.
Thumping and swishing sounds came from the next cargo bay, and she could see dim light through the open door. When she stepped inside, she saw that all of the light was concentrated in one corner. Both loaders were parked between her and that area, and cargo had been rearranged in new stacks that formed another wall in back of the loaders. The thumping and swishing sounds came from behind the new wall, accompanied by conversation.
"You realize that this will not impede the decomposition of the bodies?" Elviiz was saying.
"It's not. Supposed.To." Haps voice replied, grunting after every other word or so.
Khorii could not see them and walked over to the cargo wall. But it was more complicated than that. The stacked containers did not just form a wall, they enclosed a newly created raised courtyard, a man-made hillock composed of special soils and manures intended for farming colonies that filled the enclosure to a height of about ten feet. The neatly stacked empty bags and boxes that had contained the soils and fertilizers now formed part of the retaining wall. The smell in the bay reminded Khorii of home: rich, loamy earth, and occasional whiffs of other, not so pleasant smells as well. Atop the mound sat five long wooden boxes. Behind them, Hap labored, digging with a shovel, while Elviiz dug with his entrenching attachment, flipping dirt out of his growing hole twice as fast as his human counterpart. She wrinkled her nose as she watched the two boys work.
"What are you doing?" Khorii asked.
"Oh, Khorii, hi," Hap called. "There's a ramp over on this side we used to bring the loaders down. Come on around and take a look."
"We are creating a burial ground, Khorii," Elviiz answered her question. He always answered her questions, that was the thing about Elviiz. Even ones she asked someone else. Sometimes even if she never actually asked a question at all. That was one of the most infuriating things about him, his almost Linyaari-like ability to know at times what she was wondering, even if she didn't say it. Now, however, his predilection to answer her was coming in handy.
"Why?" she asked.
"In order to bury Jaya's parents and the crew of the Mana," Elviiz replied. "Hap feels it would be beneficial for Jaya's grieving process to observe certain ceremonial folk customs humans use to dispose of the discarded bodies of their fellows."
Hap planted his shovel in the dirt and mopped his face with his hand, spreading dirt in a comical mask around his eyes. "I don't think it's good for her to keep looking at the bodies," he said. "Her people aren't there anymore, and the longer she looks, the harder it will be for her to remember them how they were when they were alive. I've been building coffins and hauling dirt all week and today, with Elviiz's help, digging the graves. I made some nice markers, too. We can plant fast-growing flowers and shrubs and stuff and make a nice little memorial garden for her to visit."
Khiindi hopped down onto the mound and began digging enthusiastically in the loose dirt, then squatting over his hole with a look of feline bliss curving his crescent moon cat lips up into his whiskers.
"Eeewww!" Hap said, shaking his head. "I was going to start on that area next! Elviiz, you've just landed pooper-scooper duty. Funny, I've never seen a cat actually smile before."
"Khiindi is not like any cat you have ever known," Elviiz said, before returning to work on his hole. Khiindi strolled off, his tail held high, the look on his face seeming to indicate that he had just blessed the entire area with his offering.