Acorna's Rebels

Twenty-Two

Acorna and her fellow Linyaari worked all day long treating the wounded. Had the carnage been more carefully aimed or gone untreated much longer, there would have been fatalities, too. Time was playing tricks on her. It seemed to Acorna that the carnage had gone on forever, and that after she was hit, she had laid on the beach gasping for breath for an eternity before she passed out.

In reality, once she was able to compute the time elapsed, she found to her surprise that Becker, with Nadhari and her people, had returned just after she fell and Tagoth downed the Mulzar and blew the Federation flitter into the lake.

Once people and cats were restored to health by the unconcealed application of Linyaari horns, the only human casualty untreated was Macostut, still floating in the flitter on the lake's bubbling, stinking surface. But his injuries, if he had any, were of less concern to them than the damage to the lake.

"How will we ever fix that? It's so large. All of us are depleted from healing the casualties," Maati sighed, tired and uncharacteristically discouraged.

The Mulzar, bound and under guard but still among the others, laughed. "It is permanently changed. Everything is permanently changed. I have a market for those stones. The smart thing to do would be release me, fish out the Federation flitter, heal my own and Dsu's wounds as you've done those of these worthless cats and priests, and let me explain my plan for Makahomia's future to all of you."

"You explained it to me already, Edu," Nadhari said. "I can't say that I cared for it. I don't think anyone else will either."

The stronghold's high priest shook his head. "With the lake thus defiled, Makahomia has no future. The sacred lake feeds into all rivers, all streams, all water on our world. The poison will infect everything. No one can drink the holy stones, fool and blasphemer."

"Though I think it would be fitting punishment if we allowed Edu to try," Tagoth said. "Or if not the stones, perhaps a refreshing drink of lake water?"

Neeva said, "Don't despair, everyone. We can fix it. We're simply going to need reinforcements. I know this place is sacred and secret, but I hope I may have permission to have the Balakiire land here as well as Captain MacDonald's flitter. Maak used Captain MacDonald's flitter to collect him and the barbarians."

"I bet the Federation folks aren't going to like that," Becker said.

"On the contrary, the outpost is nearly deserted since the commander ordered his troops into the city to monitor and assist with the war effort. Maak tells me the remaining person in charge, a noncommissioned officer, has been most helpful. I have contacted her myself. She told me that so many eggs have now been broken that we may as well make a souffle.

"I've explained to her telepathically that we will need the additional transport to deal with the emergency here at the lake. What I did not say is that once we've dealt with the lake, we will also need to disperse our people quickly to other areas to purify the other water sources."

Acorna translated and the old priest's eyes widened and he looked as if he were about to faint from ecstasy. "Yet more of the Star Cat's own sacred Companions? How have we come to be so blessed that we deserve so much pain and joy in the space of the same risings and settings?"

"That would be a yes," Acorna said to Neeva, translating.

In less than an hour, the flitter arrived with Mac, better known as Maak to the Linyaari, Captain Mac Donald, the Wats, and six more people from the Balakiire: Thariinye, Kaarlye, Miiri, aagroni Iirtye, Yaniriin, and - rather to Acorna's surprise - Liriili.

Kaarlye analyzed the waters. After testing it, he declared that they would not harm Linyaari horns. The Linyaari then all knelt, joined hands, took deep breaths, and ducked their horns into the filthy, bilious foam of the lake.

From the corner of her eye, Acorna saw Becker and Tagoth manhandle the Mulzar to the shore and shove his face as near to the lake waters as theirs were. She found it a little hard to chuckle and purify at the same time, but after what truly seemed a miraculously short interval, the sacred lake's waters were once more clear and smooth, though they seemed to be more filled than ever with the sacred stones.

Captain MacDonald, the aagroni, and Kaarlye and Miiri each took command of a shuttle, with one of the high priests on each vessel. Maati joined her parents in their vessel, along with Liriili and Thariinye, while Maarni and Yiitir-the Linyaari folklorist and historian husband-and-wife team-joined the aagroni's vessel. Yaniriin, Neeva, Melireenya, and Khaari rode with Captain MacDonald.

Of all the Linyaari, only Acorna remained at the sacred lake. She stayed there at the insistence of the high priest.

After the last phase of the decontamination process, Aridimi priests hauled the flitter from the lake. The flitter was opened, and Macostut was pulled out. He was not actually wounded, simply shaken by the crash. The priests seemed to regret this, but did not make up for it by administering new wounds themselves.

Macostut was bound and placed next to Kando. Their priestly guards were augmented by the presence of the Wats, who thoroughly enjoyed being on the other side of the bonds for a change. They frequently gave their prisoners little blows, kicks, and intense frowns.

"You won't get away with this, you know," Macostut said. "The Federation will not allow you to interfere with the authority of one of its officers, to wreck a craft, to contradict the orders of the native ruler, and to interfere with standing treaties."

Mac surprised all of them by responding. "I believe you will find you are incorrect on all points, sir," the android said. "The Federation has an investigative team on the way to interview the parties you and your conspiracy with Edu Kando, the former Mulzar, injured by your actions, and particularly by misuse of Federation technology and research. Your plot to sell and personally profit from the sale of the cat's-eye chrysoberyls held sacred by the local populace is known to them."

Kando and the Mulzar regarded each other with suspicious slit-eyed speculation. "How can that be?" Kando asked.

"Because the party you tried to sell them to was a subsidiary of House Harakamian enterprises, which as you may not know is run by Ambassador Acorna's foster father, Rafik Nadezda, under the occasional advisement of his uncle, Hafiz Harakamian. When the chrysoberyls, with their unique properties that would make micro-terraformation technology possible on a large scale, came to Hafiz Harakamian's attention, he recalled conversations with the ambassador and made inquiries among his - er - employees, among the Federation. It took very little research to realize that while such stones are indeed indigenous to this planet and possess the desired properties, they are not for sale and have immense religious significance to the local populace. They were very fair to you, sir, and searched the records for some evidence of a revision of treaties or rules or possibly some special permission that would allow you to collect the stones, but as you know, no such revisions or permissions exist."

"I am ruler of half the people of this world," the Mulzar said. "I am making the revisions and certainly gave the permission."

"Not anymore," the high priest told him. "The guardians have conferred. They know what you have tried to do to them and to the lake. Had you sought to loot us without also seeking to destroy the guardians, you might have been allowed to retain your rule. Cats, on the whole, prefer to stay out of the affairs of humans unless such affairs interfere with their comfort. But your own guardians have testified to the others on this planet. Even as a ruler by conquest, you are unfit to rule."

"And who is fit to rule, old man? You? You are so isolated here with your sacred lake you won't drink from that you have no idea what the people need."

"I am kept better informed than you were by the late Brother Fagad," the priest told him.

Kando knew that yet another of his schemes had been discovered, but he couldn't seem to help himself and tried one more time, staring angrily at Tagoth. "Fagad is late because this mutant murdered him while he was performing his sacred duty and reporting to me that which it was my right, as Mulzar, to know." He spat at Tagoth. "Traitor."

Tagoth nodded. "I deserve that. I am a traitor indeed for ever supporting you, Kando. I liked your ideas - I still like some of them. I have discussed with the priesthood ways in which the best of them might be implemented-with the consent of both our religious community and the people. If you had sincerely wished to use those ideas for the good of our planet, as you said, you would have been a great leader."

"I did want to do it for the good of the planet," Kando said with a ferocious passion that made Acorna feel that he was, or at least had at one time been, sincere. "But you'll quickly learn that doing such things takes money."

"Perhaps," Tagoth said.

"But that doesn't mean you can just kill the guardians and all the other animals on this planet!" Miw-Sher blurted out suddenly. "You murdered our own guardians with your germs. How could you? How could you? They kept us safe for years, all of our loyal friends and those poor little kittens. Some of them n-n-never even got to op-p-pen their eyes!" She was crying now. Tagoth had a hand on her shoulder, but quickly she was surrounded by the Hissimi Temple cats and many of their larger brethren from the stronghold.

"My followers will overthrow any who try to take my place," he said. "Under current rules, until I am bested in battle publicly, I or my descendants rule."

The high priest regarded him ironically. "This is not a law a progressive man such as you claim to be should invoke. However, it is the way things have always been and shall continue to be. Your descendant shall rule, but not with you to guide her. Her mother and the man who has been a guardian to her, protecting her from your incestuous lechery, will rule. She is, as you see, well loved by the guardians and has the proper love for them and concern for their welfare. Besides which, she is one of the blessed who can change in this life, as is her guardian."

"You mean little sister Miw-Sher? But she's not my-"

He met Nadhari's cold, hard stare and his voice died away. "I didn't know. You didn't tell me."

"I wouldn't give you the satisfaction," Nadhari said, spitting at him. "And I couldn't stay. I was a child myself. Tagoth, whom I loved, knew about her, though not that she was yours. He followed you for my sake, never knowing how I hated you."

"H-hated me?" Kando looked genuinely distressed. "But you liked our little games, our secrets."

"Hated, still hate," she repeated. "I will give you credit for one thing only. I learned to fight as well as I do only so that I might avoid your touch ever again. That has been what's driven me, more than life and death, to be a warrior."

"And now she will protect those who followed you in your stead," the priest said brightly, "which seems entirely appropriate to me. You, of course, as an avowed religious are subject to religious law. As such, you will be walled up, to live out your life in contemplation and prayer as an anchorite. The brothers have prepared a place in our walls now. Never fear, you will not be lonely. The guardians will come to visit you at the ventilation holes in your wall."

"Are you going to wall me up, too?" Macostut asked.

"You are not a priest or of our world. I have no authority over you," the high priest said. "Your own people will deal with you. I am assured by Kadi Nadhari, which is her new title as the female co-regent for Mulzarah Miw-Sher, that the star people can make the rest of your life conducive to contemplation of the error of your ways as well."

Nadhari gave Macostut and Edu an evil grin, the toothy sort that Linyaari found especially frightening.

"Cheer up, Edu," Tagoth told him. "The changes you want are coming about because of you, after all."

The prisoners were taken away - Macostut to a cell, Kando to his new home inside a wall.

The old high priest entertained his guests on the balcony where Miw-Sher had slept with the kittens. The kittens and their elders provided a floor show while Acorna and her friends ate. The high priest had ordered some bread, cheese, and fruit be brought onto the balcony for a picnic on the lake. Thanks to the Linyaari horns, even the air smelled better than it had a few hours before.

The priest told them that he was puzzled about many things contained in Mac's explanation to Macostut and Kando about how they had been found out. He wanted to know more about Acorna and her non-Makahomian friends, and particularly more about RK, who was making a determined effort to rebuild the feline population of Makahomia with any lady cat guardian he could find.

They told him much of their recent adventures, of the desolation of both planets where the Linyaari lived, of the help the isolated people had received from Acorna's friends and adopted relatives. Then of course she had to tell him about how she was found drifting in a pod in space by her three human asteroid miner fathers, and other entertaining parts of her personal history.

Becker told how he had found Aari, and how his shipmate and Acorna had become sweethearts, and how they all had fought together to finally vanquish the Khleevi.

Finally Acorna told him of the strange time aberrations they'd encountered, not sure the old man would understand such things, but knowing that mystics sometimes understood anomalies of physics long before scientists had figured them out. She told him quietly of losing Aari in time and space.

The priest nodded and rocked on his haunches, clearly thinking.

Finally he said to Acorna, "I must share with you another thing. Please excuse us, friends. This thing is for Khornya only."

This time their walk through the bowels of the Temple was friendlier, and where it was possible they walked side by side. As in the other Temples, there were holes high in the walls that let in light and allowed the guardians to jump in and out. At one bend in the path, RK poked his head through a hole and his body followed with a soft plop onto the path. He took a quick hop up to Acorna's shoulders. She idly tickled his tail and he flipped it under her nose.

"He is devoted to you, your guardian. I have never seen one like him."

"Haven't you?" Acorna asked. Her heart was beating very rapidly in anticipation of what the old priest had to show her, and yet she feared to be disappointed again, to come upon another dead end and find a trace of Aari, but no way to reach him. It seemed safer to talk about cats. They enjoyed being talked about, and people who liked them always had things to say about them. "But Captain Becker told me he found RK on a ship from your planet."

"How can that be? We have had no space vessels since many years before the Space Cat came to us."

"Time warp?" Acorna asked, looking thoughtfully up at RK.

He licked his paw. (Don't ask me. I don't remember anything about another ship before the Condor.)

They had once again reached the statue of Aari, now bathed in the reddish suns-shine pouring through the holes in the walls and ceiling.

It looks so like him. Shrugging RK off her shoulders, Acorna stepped across the water and onto the pedestal of the statue. She put her arms around the cold stone, feeling a tear that ran down her cheek cooling as it touched the statue. Then, realizing the priest was waiting for her, she stepped back across the water again. "Sorry," she said. "I had to do that. I miss him so much."

The old priest said, "Your coming raises many questions, but it has also brought many answers. You have saved us, as was foretold."

"Not really," she said. "Mostly that was my friends. And the person who was foretold in your stories could have been any of us Linyaari, as you surely see now."

"You are modest. You are the one foretold, the beloved companion of the Companion. He knew you would come and that you would come when you were desperately needed, just as he was when he came to us. And so you have. Perhaps it is true that you could not have saved us alone, but you were not alone, for your friends and kinsmen came to help us for love of you."

She wanted to tell him it was an accident, but she knew he wouldn't believe her. After all that had happened, she didn't really believe it herself.

"First I would show you the gift left for us by your Aari, for that was the name of the Companion in the scriptures, though it is too holy to speak of in the normal course of events."

She giggled. "I'm sorry. I think he would find it funny that his name is too holy to speak. Even after the Khleevi hurt him so badly, once he recovered a little he had a sense of humor-he was always dressing up in these weird outfits that concealed that he didn't have a horn. They-the Khleevi-took it from him and… and…"

Her hand closed around the little disk at her throat and she found she couldn't go on. The priest patted her shoulder and then walked behind the statue and knelt to show her something just below water level.

She in turn knelt and peered at it.

"Even when the evil men poisoned our lake, this water stayed pure because of this. If your friends had not been here to purify it, eventually the lake would have become pure again because of this. The Companion gave us this of himself so that we would never again face dying of thirst because all of our water was tainted."

He was indicating a small piece of what could only be horn, just a sliver. For Aari to do that to himself when the Khleevi had used it as a way to torture him-his horn only recently grown… Acorna shuddered. Although she herself had done something similar on Rushima, her own horn had never been threatened as Aari's had. She reached out but it was too far. So she lay on her stomach and stretched out over the water to touch it. Instantly she felt not just the horn, but his arms warm and strong around her, his lips on her face, his horn against her own. She saw him in all of his favorite postures, doing all of the things she remembered so well, his face set in those beloved, wry expressions as if he were standing before her.

She didn't want to move, ever again. She just wanted to stay there where she could feel him and touch him. To stand up would not be to rejoin the universe, but to lose contact again with the most precious person in it.

The old priest's finger tapping her shoulder caused her to stare stubbornly at the horn, trying to hang on to the images of Aari the horn invoked.

But the old man was used to disturbing visionaries. His efforts were aided by RK, who yowled at Acorna and sank his claws into her hip.

Tears rolled down her face to join the artesian waters the horn purified in perpetuity. She turned back to them, pulling herself back across the watery chasm, breaking contact, losing Aari all over again.

The priest indicated something in the wall behind them, behind the statue, beyond the water. It was a huge chrysoberyl. But the priest spun it on its base and she saw that the back of it had been hollowed out. Within it lay a black box, the sort that recorded the last moments of crashed ships, the computer archives that left a record for those finding the wreckage. "He meant this for you," the old priest was saying, oblivious to her rebellious and angry mood. "It isn't very pretty, but I thought it might be one of those gadgets you off-worlders like. Something that has a message?"

She clasped it to her. "Yes, a message. Yes, oh, yes."

Now she couldn't wait to leave this place, to return to the Condor or the Balakiire, wherever she could decode the message he'd left for her.

Fortunately, this time when she emerged from the depths of the Temple with the priest and RK, she saw a stream of people, mostly Linyaari, coming from the foliage where flitters could be docked.

" Mission accomplished, padre," Captain MacDonald told the priest. "We got every lake, river, stream, well, and mud puddle in the known world."

Neeva said, "The people who saw what we were doing asked that we thank you for thinking of their welfare. They seemed surprised that someone should do so."

Becker said, "I guess this kinda blows the Linyaari cover about the horns not doing the healing and unpolluting."

"No harm done," Nadhari told him. "My people are not a space-traveling nation who can tell others what has occurred here."

"You say 'we.' I guess that means you're staying to be the queen mother, like the high priest said, doesn't it? Hafiz is going to be really pissed."

"I know that, but I have to, Jonas. Comfort Hafiz by telling him that we will be happy to keep the Wats with us. We can always use good guards."

"That ought to make the old man almost happy enough to make up for losing you," Becker said, giving her a hug.

When good-byes had been said all around, the high priest made a gesture and a procession of priests bearing the largest and finest of the cat's-eye chrysoberyls began handing them to the guests and conveying them to the flitters.

"But these are your sacred stones!" Acorna said.

"They are our gifts to you," the priest said.

"They're worth a fortune. Hafiz would buy these from you for enough funds to do anything for the planet you wanted done."

The old priest smiled. "You and your friends have already done what I wanted for the planet. There is not enough money in existence to repay you, but if these may be used to help rebuild the homes of your people, then take them with our blessing. The Mulzarah is in agreement, as are her regents."

"Miw-Sher?" Acorna asked, and the girl nodded so gravely that Acorna set down the precious black box and the chrysoberyls and knelt to give her one last hug. Then Grimla needed a pat, and then the kittens had to be produced one at a time for cuddles.

By the time Acorna, the Mack box, all the chrysoberyls any of them could carry, Becker, Mac, and RK were back aboard the Condor, she was as happy to leave Makahomia as she was sorry to leave Nadhari and her new friends.

They promised that when the cat guardian population had been replenished, the Linyaari might come to them once more to claim kittens. In case the source of the elusive pahaantiyirs, which the aagroni averred were not precisely the same species as the Temple guardians, was never located, the Temple cats would be good substitutes.

Finally the Condor was heading back for MOO in a comfortable convoy with the Balakiire and the Arkansas Traveler. Captain MacDonald said he thought it likely Hafiz might be able to use a tractor or two, and joined them.

The bridge was quiet. RK was grooming Becker's hand with his tongue while Becker groomed the cat's coat with a brush. Mac was beating himself at five-dimensional computer chess.

Acorna showed Mac and Becker the box and said, "I wish to play the message."

Becker said, "No can do. Not on this ship. That's rigged for some sort of antique pre-Linyaari jobbie and I've got all Federation stuff on board now."

This had not occurred to Acorna. She tried to keep the bitter disappointment from her voice as she said, "Oh."

Mac spoke up. "I can play it, however. I have modifications that allow me to interpret the messages from such boxes."

Acorna handed it to him.

Becker said, "This is what the priest gave you from Aari, right?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Come on, cat. Let's leave the young folks alone. If there's anything in it you want to share, Acorna, let me know. But I think you should be private with it."

"Thank you, Captain."

Mac already had the box open and inserted the modifications he had made to his right hand into the box. To Acorna's amazement, when Mac spoke again, it was in Aari's voice.

"Khornya," he said, "if you can hear this, then you have already come to Makahomia and fulfilled the mission you were destined for there. I know about this because I have been doing much time sliding with Grimalkin, who is one of the Friends. Unlike the others, Grimalkin is good, extremely empathetic, and uses his knowledge to help others. He began the cat race on Makahomia, and we go now to where the planet will need pahaantiyirs.

"I am sorry I cannot be with you right now. But in the course of all of this time sliding and traveling, Grimalkin says there will be a moment when I will be able to save Laarye from starving to death during the Khleevi invasion without damaging other lives or changing events that must occur. I have to do this if I can. I hope you understand that, and that I will return to you as soon as I can.

"I miss you very, very much, Khornya. I leave you this message so you will know that, and know that I love you and feel pain worse than the Khleevi gave me to be so far from you, to know you must be trying to find me. When I have saved Laarye, he and I will be coming home to your time and you and I can begin our life together again. Until then, my Khornya, my spirit lives with you and I will not be whole again until we are together once more."

That was the end of the message. Mac shut off and rewound it, then asked, "Do you want me to play it again?" in his own voice.

"Yes," she said, still hearing Aari's voice and mulling over his words as she looked out the viewport into the vastness of space and wondered where exactly pahaantiyirs came from, and how long it would take to get there in the Condor.