<USS Cervantes> "No Mystery Would Be Complete Without..."

This log takes place simultaneously with "The Party's Over"
 
            Lisith groped along the stone wall, trying to keep his
balance. The shadowed incline was an ideal hiding place. The felines
could not see down, and couldn't imagine that anyone could see up, not
when they with their pitiful heights would fall woefully short of being
able to gaze over the muddy bank. The only problem with this refuge was
the slippery terrain. Every few minutes, Lisith would have to wrench his
claws free from the sucking mud.
            Three months ago, when Rahssh first showed him the leaves
and hatched his plan as they talked excitedly over the statue-corpse
that the idiot Ss'lih insisted on sending back to the Museum, victims
had been plentiful. All you had to do was avoid the aristocracy and the
intellectuals, and Hisaj and Ssarish would be ignorant as newborn
gretha, ripe for biting.
            And where the sstoresh was Rahssh? The slimy lizard had
disappeared. They were supposed to split the profits from the chwesh
Annedooreans, but he never showed up, not even to keep the Ss'thla from
going into the Rites of Sand and Fur.
            On the other hand, it was nice not to have Rahssh around.
His inferiority complexes were a tiring litany, but moreover, it was
disgusting to endure his constantly evacuating Forschh pouch and the way
his claws would grind back and forth in the mud. Countless years of
training, and he still couldn't even control himself around mammals.
Yes, of course it was disgusting to think about the way they. had spit,
and . oh, god, the horrors of blood, without even starting to wonder
about. live births. Lisith vented his horror through the tissues on his
arms. But you had to learn to control it, and sneer through your
revulsion. No manners, that was Rahssh's problem. Maybe it was best he
didn't show up, and didn't show up anymore. He was a terrible
negotiator. They could have gotten more for the last piece.
            Above Lisith's head a branch cracked as a feline scrambled
on precarious claws to swipe at darting fish in the river below the
bank. The child was alone. No violet stones betrayed themselves by
shining on his body; he was out in the cold at night for a reason,
barred from the temple because he couldn't purchase entrance. The
ceremony had begun, and already the courtyard was empty though it had
been teeming mere moments before. Tightening the muscles in his neck,
Lisith carefully extricated himself from the muddy terror of his hiding
place, knowing that he would look like a spectre raised from the earth
with his sodden robe clinging to his calves. 
            He carefully pulled his scaly claws out of the robe. They
conjured the Khefiraan mythology of the encroaching desert compared to
the native's plush pelts. Beckoning with a claw, he gained the child's
attention -
            Before he could register the amber eyes staring upward into
the darkness, pain flared through his body like a cold winter night,
searing the life from his veins when warmth drained away. He rasped and
ululated through cracked vocal chords while the stench of his own
forschh pouch mauled him. 
            The claws on the child's feet scraped Lisith's chest scales
as he bounded down the tree, across the pavement, and out of sight, not
bothering to jump over the dying Ss'thla in his path. The sensation was
a pale counterbalance to the agony already wracking Lisith's body.

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