"I can't blame her, but tough love works;'
"Love?" Zainal queried.
"Well, discipline meted out fairly for failure to obey." And she pointed to the tableau of Floss. Balancing a big basket on her head with both hands, she was bracketed between two tall Maasai women who moved with a grace Floss had yet to achieve. The younger girl was sobbing softly, her arm in the grasp of the headwoman.
Kris didn't at all like the sexism practiced by the Maasai but, if it taught Floss discipline and respect, she might even become a useful colonist when she returned to Retreat.
THE CIRCUMSTANCES of this medical alert were immediately reported to Ray Scott and the other Catteni were hastily gathered together. When Zainal had explained what he hoped to achieve, Nitin and Kasturi both started shaking their heads.
"Eosi are well aware that even the Emassi who surround them might seize an opportunity to use a poison. Anything they consume is first tested by a Catteni," Nitin said gloomily.
"Perhaps it is effective only on young bodies which have not matured enough to deal with dangerous substances," Kamiton said.
"Care to try it?" Leon said, taking out a vial containing some of the powdered olkiloriti. The Australian had an odd sense of humor.
Zainal held out his hand for it but Kamiton snatched it first. He pulled out the cork top and sniffed deeply.
"See?There is no danger…:' His yellow eyes turned up in his skull and he started to have such severe convulsions that he jerked off the chair he was sitting in.
Leon sprang into action. Fortunately he still had his medical kit handy and, muttering under his breath about what dose would be sufficient to counter the reaction, he filled a syringe. Zainal and Kasturi were trying to keep Kamiton from hurting himself with the severity of the spasms that beset him but, strong as they were, they were having difficulty holding him.
Leon tried twice to pierce the tough Catteni hide with his hypodermic needle, cursing about elephant hides and crocodile scales, but managed to plunge the medication in.
The convulsions did not immediately cease, though Kris, watching anxiously for she had come to like Kamiton, thought they were not as violent.
Leon readied a second syringe from a different bottle with the longest needle Kris had ever seen.
"Let's hope your hearts can take this kind of convulsion;' he said as Kamiton's spine arched grotesquely. "Here, hold this, Kris. Hold it up:' He gave her the hypodermic and got his stethoscope out.
"Keep his arms out of my way, can you Zainal, Kasturi?" he asked in Catteni. Over Kamiton's inarticulate cries, whatever he managed to hear worried him. "I don't like the sounds in his lungs. Inhalation was a damned foolish idea. Cardiac arrest is possible. Kris, call the infirmary and send the team down here fast as possible;'
"I've already called in a medical emergency," Ray said, com unit in his hand as he stared down at the writhing body of the Catteni. "I think that shot is beginning to work:'
"It is?" Leon said, surveying the contortions. "You're right. The spasms are reducing in intensity."
"Eosi must breathe, mustn't they?" Kasturi remarked in Catteni to Nitin, their eyes still on the slowly relaxing body of their colleague.
"Yes, even Eosi breathe," N/tin observed. "But their living quarters are so carefully guarded…"
"Crop dusting might do," Leon observed with the fingers of one hand on Kamitoffs neck. "Pulse still racing. Damned fool thing to do with a drug he knew was dangerous."
"A very Catteni thing to do/' was Kris' rejoinder, her pulse racing as well from fear of the consequences of Kamiton's rash impulse. "Do I need to keep this?" she asked, meaning the syringe she still held.
"We might. I'd rather have conducted a controlled experiment but the empirical test was certainly conclusive," Leon added in an admiring tone.
Kamiton's body twitched only slightly now but his breathing was still labored, and he had not regained consciousness.
"Crop dusting?" Zainal asked, looking up at her, not having understood Leon's remark.
"A term for an aerial application of fertilizer or insecticides over large areas. Airplanes are used," and she made a sweeping gesture with her free hand.
"What has she said?" Nitin asked, his English being almost nonexistent.
When Zainal explained, Nitin once again shook his head. "No aerial traffic is allowed over Eosi compounds."
"There's more than one way to kill a cat without choking him with butter," Kris said.
"Say again?" asked Zainal, blinking with a lack of comprehension.
"'There are nine and sixty ways of singing tribal lays/" Leon chanted, "'and every single one of them is right."
Ray Scott laughed. Kris wouldn't have thought he'd know Kipling that well. But they needed a spot of relief after the anxiety over Kamiton.
"I'm sure we'll think of some way," Scott said.
Just then the cardiac arrest team arrived.
"There has to be some way," Kris said.
"We will find it," Zainal said, stepping away from Kamiton as the emergency team moved in on him.
Leon was explaining what had happened and what precautions he wanted taken when they got Karoiron to the infirmary. Almost as an afterthought, he took the syringe from Kris' hand as he followed the team, with Karoiron carried on a stretcher out the door.
"Are there any dissidents on board an Eosi vessel?"
"If this stuff is spread through the air circulation, it would kill everyone on board," Ray said, putting the stopper back in the vial and placing it well away from the remaining Catteni.
"More will be needed, too," Zainal said, regarding the little container with considerable respect.
"Why?" asked Nitin, returning to his seat. "There is no way it can be spread for Eosi to inhale."
"There must be;' Zainal said, giving the table a pound with his fist that rattied the vial of olkiloriti. Ray immediately steadied it.
"We will somehow contrive," Kasturi said, giving Nitin a dire look for his pessimism.
"Meanwhile, we have other problems," Ray said, "and, while I am relieved that your sons survived their ordeal, Zainal, we've a meeting later today to decide how to cope with the growing destruction of our own planet;'
With a nod of dismissal, he pulled his keyboard to him and began to call up a program to consider.
Zainal, Kris, Kasturi, and Nitin left the hangar office in thoughtful silence.
"WHAT'S THIS] HEAR about a lethal drug for the Eosi?" Raisha asked when Kris came to collect Zane from the cr amp;he.
Kris paused in lifting her jubilant, and heavy, son into her arms. "Boy, the grapevine works faster than light."
Raisha grinned broadly. "Well, we did see the cardiac arrest team speeding down to the hangar and then back… so naturally, we had to find out the details. And thank goodness, Zainal's sons are all right:'
"Yes, that was pretty tricky for a while. So who's spreading the word?
'%u or Sarah?"
"Actually, Mavis rushed down. She was collecting her daughter after her shift." When Kris, busy with her son, was not forthcoming, Raisha added more curtly than her usual manner, "Wellll?" and she raised the elegant curve of her fine brows in query.
"Yes, there is a substance that produces a violent allergic response in Catten/, young and old. But whether it can be got to the target area is the moot point. Don't get your hopes up."
"I will try not to, but it will be hard," the pilot said. "There simply has to be a way…"
"We'll find it. Maybe we'll hear from the Farmers. It's been long enough," Kris said, hoping to distract the woman.
"Huh! I have come to believe more in your Yankee in-gen-oo-ity," and Raisha grinned, parodying Zainal's use of the word.
"See you, later. Say good-bye, Zane and thank you to Raisha."
"Goo-by, t'ank," the obedient child managed.