I jumped off Minna's shoulder and flew in a wide circle around the guards. I hated the thought of it but took in a deep breath, then spent the next few seconds trying not to cough or sneeze. My nose felt like it was burning.
Nothing stood out to me, though. No crawlers or sicora were nearby. Not even a ktari. Other than the strangling scent hanging in the air and the smell of Ilrivians, there wasn't anything of note. It smelled about the same as what I had come to expect of a passenger ship, if a little heavier on the 'recycled' quality I noticed with the air.
I dropped to the ground and made sure to sniff at the doorways, but I still didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I spent a few more minutes wandering around just in case - that acrid scent made it hard to be certain I wasn't missing anything - but when I was sure it was clear I flew back up to Minna's shoulder and gave her a bored chirp.
Minna led us through the doors at the end of the hallway and had me check the new area. I circled through it and came up just as empty.
During the fourth passage our escorts became impatient. "Is he actually doing anything? We were told they would find sicora; he looks like he's just flying in circles."
Minna nodded slowly. "He is flying in circles. That way he can smell every part of the hallway and get a clear idea of if any sicora have been through here. They are all quite capable of finding any sicora that may be hidden away on your ship."
There was something accusatory in Minna's reply, as if she was suggesting any sicora we found weren't necessarily accidental stowaways.
The alien made a sound somewhere between a snort and a growl, but dropped the subject.
We made it through two more passages before one of the side doors swung open. I banked away from it and flew back to Minna. Four other Ilrivians came through the doorway - behind it was something that looked like a small cafeteria, or a break room - and started down the hallway. They immediately stopped when they saw us and instead began peppering our guide with questions.
I kept from hissing in frustration and settled back down on Minna's shoulder. This was something I had learned in the process of searching passenger ships. Whenever a group of strangers showed up and started making noise, it was better to just go back to Minna and wait. She got nervous otherwise, and it was hard to focus on whatever I was smelling if I was too worried about what a group of large strangers near me were getting up to.
Our guards moved in between Minna and the other Ilrivians while they talked. I noticed that Minna's father managed to end up directly between them and her, while the other guards helped him form a half-circle around us.
The strangers didn't seem to care about the heavily armed Kymari glaring at them and continued questioning our escort about us. I sighed and began rubbing uselessly at my nose again in a vain attempt to try and clear the heavy scent from my nostrils.
It worked just as badly as all the other times I had tried.
Eventually the strangers seemed to be satisfied - or at least had run out of questions they could think of to ask - and they wandered off down the hallway. I waited for Minna to give the go ahead just to be sure, then launched back into the air at her gentle, "Go seek."
We continued on through more passages without finding anything else. I checked in with the other dragonets a few times, but they hadn't found anything either. I soon lost count of how many passages we checked and fell into the boring rhythm of flying around, returning to Minna's shoulder, riding along until we got to a new hallway, and then flying around again.
My head was starting to hurt when I finally noticed something. I backwinged into a hover and sniffed the air again, concentrating to try and pick it out from behind the oppressive chemical smell over everything. It was hard to make out, but... yes, it was there.
I dropped down to the floor and tried to pin down where it was coming from. I noticed Minna move to stand between me and the Ilrivians while I sniffed around. I sat up and perked my ear tufts, focusing on the hallway ahead and sniffing again. It was definitely coming from somewhere up ahead of us.
I perked my ear tufts in excitement and shot into the air. I called out a half-chirp, half-cough to Minna and the guards and flew down the hallway. "Ktari!"
The Kymari followed after me like they usually did when I found something. The Ilrivians took a few seconds to realize something had changed, then they ran after us.
The ktari scent grew stronger, and I dropped to the floor to sniff at the doors again. By the third door I had found it - the ktari was definitely in that room. I sat up by the door and scratched at it, then turned to look back at Minna.
"Nate, come back." Minna held out her hand and I flew up to perch on it. She turned back to the Ilrivians and pointed to the door. "We need to get inside this room."
The two aliens exchanged a glance, then shook their heads. "These are private quarters. We'll need to get approval."
Minna just stared at them. "I thought part of the reason you were escorting us was to be that approval. You don't have the authority to open a door?"
The Ilrivian stood up a little taller. "For public areas, yes, but not when it comes to someone's personal room. We're allowing you to search our ship. That doesn't mean you can just barge into someone's room and interrupt whatever they might be doing inside, or search it while they're gone."
Minna watched them for another second or two... then shrugged slightly. "Very well. Call and get approval. We'll wait." She paused, then added with a slightly smug tone. "We aren't the ones in a hurry."
I tried not to suppress a chitter of laughter. I almost managed, but the chemical odor was still strong in the air, and I ended up coughing instead.
The Ilrivian stared back at Minna for a few more seconds before turning away. He tapped on the device at his wrist in the same way I had seen the Kymari do and turned away to have a conversation.
I settled in to wait. The ktari wasn't going to go anywhere. And even if it did, I had its scent now. I could follow it wherever it went.
Now if only my head would stop pounding...
"I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I'm sure I would know if a sicora was hiding in my room." After what had to have been well over an hour, the resident had arrived to open his door.
In theory.
In reality, the gray furred Ilrivian had arrived just so he could argue with us.
"I was in the middle of eating, too. I have to go back on duty soon; I am not looking forward to going through the rest of my work shift hungry." The gray-furred alien seemed to be ignoring Minna completely, instead talking to the brown-furred one that was escorting us.
"I'm very sorry about that. I'll reach out to your supervisor and see if he can get you a longer lunch to make up for it." Our escort reached for the device on his wrist again. "What's your supervisor's name?"
The gray furred alien started to answer, but Minna interrupted him. "Could you maybe work this out after you've opened the door for us?"
The gray-furred alien looked at Minna and frowned. "This is important. You might think it's okay to upend our lives with your little paranoid fantasies that our ship is infested, but the rest of us have lives we want to get back to. It won't take long."
"You could get back to your life a lot faster if you would just open the door. You wouldn't even have needed a longer lunch if you had opened it when you first got here, instead of arg-"
Kilpin spoke up in the middle of Minna's reply. "Excuse me, but what kind of fire protection systems do you have on this part of the ship?
All three aliens looked at Kilpin in mild alarm. "I'm sorry?"
"Your fire protection systems. I know fire is a serious concern on a spaceship; I was wondering what kind you had on yours." Kilpin spoke calmly, but I caught grins breaking out on the faces of Morton and Minna's father. The other Kymari all seemed to be just as confused as the aliens.
"Um... standard oxygen displacement. Any air is removed so that the fire is extinguished."
"I see. And this is automatic, whenever a fire is detected? You don't have to trigger something manually first; your system is sophisticated enough to do it all for you?"
"Of course." The escort seemed to puff a little with pride.
Kilpin frowned a little. "And you claim this system is working? You're sure it's not broken or anything, and you've just told your crew that it works?"
A look of indignation flickered over the Ilrivian's expression. "We would never do something like that."
"Interesting." Kilpin made a thoughtful sound. "That's very strange, then. Don't you think that's strange, Morton?"
"Incredibly strange. That doesn't make any sense at all." Morton nodded solemnly and scratched at the hilt of his spear.
The aliens looked between the two guards. "Why not? What are you talking about?"
Kilpin shrugged. "Well. It seems to me that you have a fire system, which you claim will automatically and instantly remove all the oxygen from a part of your ship if a fire is detected. Yet..." The guard lifted his hand to motion towards the three of them. "You seem remarkably unconcerned with the fact that you are standing here, in close proximity to a creature known for its ability to breathe fire. It almost seems like you're trying to prolong the amount of time you spend around it, if you ask me."
Everybody suddenly looked straight at me.
I blinked and moved along Minna's shoulder to get closer to the protection her head offered. It took everything I had to not grin as I realized what Kilpin was doing, but I couldn't resist adding to it. I took in a deeper breath as if I was frightened by all the attention... and then began coughing as the strong chemical scent filled my lungs.
The gray-furred Ilrivian turned back to his door and began tapping at the console beside it. A second later the door slid open.
The scent of ktari grew slightly stronger. I also thought I could smell the faint scent of a crawler, but it was hard to make out under the other scents and seemed like it was an older smell. I fanned out my wings and stepped towards the edge of Minna's shoulder, preparing to take flight and hunt down the creatures as soon as Minna gave me the go ahead.
She didn't.
Instead she just stared into the room. "What... what is this?"
The gray-furred Ilrivian stepped into the room and approached the simple table Minna was watching. I looked at the room to see what Minna was talking about, and hissed as soon as I did.
A ktari was huddling on the far edge of the table. The reptilian creature was obviously scared out of its mind and had retreated as far as it could from the doorway, but a leash attached to a hook on the table kept it from moving any further away from us. It hissed at the Ilrivian as he stepped closer to the table and edged towards another corner of the table. It huddled down again and growled a warning, then swiveled its head back towards me. It stared at me and hissed.
I fanned out my wings and hissed back at it.
"This is my pet ktari. And I will ask you to keep your beast under control, so as to stop scaring him."