Sometime afterward, Kiva had left Kit in the bathroom, so she could dry herself off from her hour-long shower.
"That sure took a while," Jamie noted, as Kiva joined them in the basement.
"What can I say? Kit had years of filth to scrub off. Plus this was the first time she experienced a showerhead, and she spent a few minutes trying to figure out how it worked. Top that off with the old wounds she must have got as a slave that reopened, and had to be properly treated."
"So where is this Shegrath, anyway?" Coop asked, his mouth full with potato chips. "Once Kit is clean, we can return her to her home."
"There's just one problem- it no longer exists." Kiva spat in disgust.
"Huh?" Coop and Jamie voiced in unison.
"I didn't mention it before, because it might be too painful for Kit. I learned all about Shegrath in the future. Like Kit said, the Glorft did invade her planet, and a handful of Tygrins were taken captive to become the Glorft's slaves. But there's more to the story. After the Glorft had taken everything they wanted from Shegrath, they had it destroyed completely. There is nothing left of Shegrath but rubble floating about in space. The Tygrins who had not been taken by the Glorft were all on Shegrath when it blew up. The point is, Kit is the only Tygrin in existence, the last of her kind."
"She's the last of the Tygrins?" Coop stared in shock. The three friends sat in silence, as the boys tried in vain to imagine how Kit must feel. The silence was broken when Kit came into the room, wearing the pair of overalls Kiva had once got at a yard sale.
"That was quite amazing!" Kit's voice announced as she entered. "Water that can change from warm to cold, and back again, with nothing more then a slight twist of a knob." Jaime looked up at Kit in amazement. There was no way that this was the same wild, mud-covered, escaped slave that they had met this afternoon. Now that she had been cleaned up, she looked completely different. She had soft-looking steel gray hair with streaks of silver throughout. Her skin was not quite fair, or tinted, but somewhere in between. Her cat-like tail was tan, with three dark stripes near the tip. Her crystal yellow eyes were framed perfectly by intricate bone-white tribal markings, and with the overalls, her female features were quite clear.
"You're…a girl!" Jaime blinked.
"I think we established that earlier, James."
"Why do you keep calling me James, anyway?"
"Well, I know I still don't know much about this Earth, but on Shegrath, names ending with an 'ie' were only used with younger children. Once they grew up, the 'ie' ending was dropped. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you did not seem to be a young child. I'd say you were around the third ring, like me."
"Third ring?" Coop asked, opening a bag of cheese doodles.
"That's right," Kiva explained. "I learned a little about Tygrin cultures in the future as well. On Shegrath, the planet rotates at a slower rate then Earth."
"Huh?" Coop gave Kiva a blank stare.
"Seven years on Earth is the same as one year on Shegrath. Strangely though, Tygrins age at an equal rate to us, meaning that, even though only a year passes on Shegrath, the Tygrins age seven years physically and mentally."
"And that means?" Jamie cued.
"A Tygrin that is one year old in Shegrath time looks and acts like a seven year old human from Earth."
"Yeah. That doesn't explain what being 'around the third ring' means." Jamie pointed out
"It means the rings on my tail." Kit replied, pointing to the three stripes on her tail. "Every time Shegrath completed one rotation, another ring appears on a Tygrin's tail. I have three rings on my tail, so Shegrath would have completed three rotations in my lifetime so far."
"Okay. So that would make you three on Shegrath, right?"
"Right." Kit grinned.
"But what does that mean here on Earth?" Coop blinked.
"Just multiply Kit's Shegrath age by seven, and you'll know her Earth age." Kiva offered.
"Uh, multiply three and seven? Um, three and seven, that would be, um… uh…"
"Twenty-one, Coop," Kiva groaned in frustration.
"Yeah. I was gonna say that. So Kit's twenty one, then."
"Yes." As this conversation came to an end, Kit began to examine the television set with clear fascination.
"And what is this for? It looks like one of those screens the Glorft used to contact each other, only this one is attached to some sort of hollow stone."
"Here. Watch this." Coop grinned, turning on the TV, as a wrestling match was beginning. Kit's interest suddenly doubled.
"Are those people inside this hollow rock? How'd they get in there?"
"We'll explain later, Kit," Jamie replied, trying to hold back laughing at Kit's ignorance about television. With that Coop and Jamie began to watch the match. After a moment, Kit turned her attention away from the TV, and began to speak privately to Kiva.
"I didn't ask you earlier, Kiva. It is Kiva, right?"
"That's right. What did you want to ask?"
"Well, it's the fact you three knew about the Glorft. I was wondering how you knew, but didn't think I should ask earlier, seeing how you all seemed interested in my past." Kiva nodded in understanding, and began to tell Kit everything.
"I was born in the future, into a world where the planet Earth fought a long-time war with the Glorft…."
Meanwhile, up in the vast, unexplored regions of space, a Glorft warship sat waiting. In the ship's main hanger, six more Assassin Mechs hovered side-by-side.
"I've never thought I'd see the day when our Mechs failed to complete a mission!" A young Glorft, about the age of six or seven, complained loudly. "They failed miserably!"
"Maybe not, son." A second Glorft, fully grown, with a face covered with old battle scars, commented as he approached the young Glorft. "Have you not noticed? Seven Assassin Mechs were sent out, but only six have returned. One is missing, and, according to our deck officer, who has kept the records of which planet each Mech searched, the one that has not returned was the one that was sent to a planet called Earth. I guarantee that is where she is."
"You better be right," the Glorft boy retorted, looking down at one of his fingers, where a faint scar, resembling fang-marks resided. "Because if I was older, there wouldn't be enough left of her to hand over for the punishment of escaping, once I was through with Slave Number 47418."
