"I don't think she ever slept on Earth;' Sarah told Kris. "At this rate, you won't have to have a second child," and she cocked her head at Kris.
"Especially now Zainal's got his two sons here."
"Kasturi hid his family away before he defected, and he wants to bring them in. He has daughters. I just hope he doesn't do a Maasai on them;' Kris said in a jaundiced tone of voice.
"If you ask me, it wouldn't hurt some of our latest drop-ins to be sent down to Chief Caleb Materu;' Sarah said.
"I believe that's also occurred to our noble leaders. Dorothy's against it," and Kris paused.
"So are you," and Sarah snorted. "But I catch any of them bullying some of the littler boys again, I'm going to thump 'em."
There was a hard-core group of eighteen who had banded together: six black, eight white, two Japanese, one Chinese girl, and one French lad: ranging from seven to the eighteen-year-old black lad, Clune, who was their acknowledged leader. They had actually been rounded up by the Catteni, as they were old enough to survive the drugged journey. Laughrey freed them from the DC-area holding pens where they awaited transportation.
They had become a unit, fourteen males and four females, calling the Diplomatic Corp. They were still a unit, despite being as-to foster parents. They refused to work but managed to acquire food whenever they wanted it. Several sessions in the stocks for Clune, and his two "consuls," Ferris and Ditsy, failed to correct their attitude. Twice their unit disappeared from Retreat and had to be tracked down by Ru-garians and Deski, with Chuck Mitford in command. The second time, he marched them back without a single rest break.
Not even demonstrations of what night crawlers could do seemed to deter them from defecting from Retreat. The supplies they had acquired on both occasions showed that they could access anything they chose to have: including com units. And they were clever enough to have opened secure premises to get the weapons they wanted. Oddly enough, among the goods they took from infirmary supplies were condoms. One of the group, the seventeen-year-old who called herself Floss, had insisted that none of the girls should get pregnant: an unexpected display of common sense.
It became clear within the first two weeks that they had no intention of integrating. They were not, in Leons medical opinion, physically well enough--after four or five years of eating whatever they could scrounge for the unit-to look after themselves in one of the closed valleys. Which had been suggested as one remedy to their recalcitrant behavior. Floss had been acting as their medic, since she had taken a first-aid course before the invasion, but she would not be capable of dealing with the serious wounds nor the various infections, external and internal, which plagued the young folk.
"We can't let them go half-healed, and that Floss needs a D and C," Leon reported. "Mary said it's not urgent… yet. But fibroid growths have a tendency to keep growing unless there's a curettage."
"Why don't we see if Chief Materu would take them in for a spell," was Laughrey's suggestion. "Let's make it really basic for them:'
"Haven't they endured enough 'basic'?" Dorothy asked, though she could come up with no other suggestions. Almost all the other children that had been rescued were settling in or responding to trauma therapy.
"Not a structured basic," Ray Scott said. "I'd rather they had enough training to survive on their own, if that's the course we have to take with such a hard-nosed bunch. I'll give Chief Materu a call;'
Chief Materu accepted the challenge. It didn't surprise Kris, though that Zainal decided to go along with those marching the Diplomatic Corp down to the southern settlement of the Maasai. She chuckled, thinking of the pace that Zainal would set. Chuck, the two Doyle brothers, Joe Latore, Coo, and Slav came along "for the exercise."
When Chuck met Kris on his return, he said that the trip had been instructive for all concerned. "Chief Caleb's segregating the girls who certainly don't like that part of it. Nor working with only women. But work they will. Good thing those Maasai are so tall." He grinned with satisfaction of an assignment suitably fulfilled.
"Ah… how are Zainal's two fitting in?"
Chuck eyed her. "They are. Even manage to chatter some in Maasai.
Zainal allowed a smile for each of them, and you'd've thought they'd been turned loose in a candy store. They've picked up some sort of skin problem but the Maasai now have the medical plants they need to cope with almost every ailment."
That reassurance gave Kris enormous relief.
"Were our renegades similarly impressed by seven-foot chiefs?" she asked.
Chuck laughed. "What's that word that Ninety uses? Oh, yes, gob-smacked.
They were that in spades. Turns out that two of the black kids were Africans from their countries' respective embassies. They knew the Maasai, certainly by reputation, and enough Swahili to understand basic orders."
Chuck took a long pull on his beer and then folded his hands across his stomach. "Yup, that was a good idea Laughrey had."
THREE DAYS LATER there was an urgent com call for Zainal and Leon from Chief Materu. The skin problem for the two Catteni boys had not responded to Maasai cures and the boys had developed fevers that could not be reduced. Kris offered to come, too, and Zainal was worried enough to want her company. Leon brought what he felt would be the appropriate equipment, carefully strapping the microscope box into a travel net on Baby, as well as a variety of medications.
"It's unusual for Catteni to have skin infections," he murmured to Kris as Zainal drove Baby at its best speed. "Or fevers. Zainal's never shown any toxic reaction to anything here on Botany. That I heard of?" the Australian looked inquiringly at Kris. She shook her head. "Well, we'll just have to wait and see. Not that, with this speed, we'll be long waiting."
ZAINAL LANDED BABY as near to the chief's high-set platform as he could. Materu had heard the noise of the approaching ship and beckoned them to follow him to where the boys were being cared for.
The fevers were high, even when Leon adjusted the thermometer reading to CatteN levels. The sores exuded yellow pus that had a nose-shriveling odor to it. Leon quickly made slides and, taking his microscope out in the light did a quick investigation. He was shaking his head when he returned.
"I've never seen anything like it. It's some sort of… allergic reaction that's causing the skin to erupt like this:'
"Will antihistamines work on Catteni systems?" Kris asked, hands denched into fists with anxiety. Zainal wore his worst Catteni face, and she was sure he thought the boys were dying. So did Chief Materu and his medicine man, or whatever they were called in Swabill.
"It's the one thing I can try. The only Human equivalent to those sores is pyoderma gangrenosum," Leon said. "And that may be the result of a col-iris.
Neither lad had any sign of that sort of problem when I checked them over." Then he asked what the boys had been eating, but he shook his head when the listing was complete. "Nothing they didn't have on board the KDL except for fresh rocksquats and fish, and they haven't bothered Zainal.
Nothing else, Chief Caleb?"
It was the medicine man, introduced as Parmitoro Kassiora, who said something in Maasai to the chief.
"He says he gave them a very, very small dose of olkiloriti because they ate too much and had bellyaches. Much less than he would use with our boys because they are different;'
"Isn't that from the acacia plants that were just brought back?" Leon asked.
Parmitoro added something else.
"He says that some of the Catteni who rounded them up took ill like this, with sores, and died;' the chief translated, looking exceedingly pleased.