Acorna's Rebels

Seven

At Kando's invitation, Becker and MacDonald followed the Mulzar out the gate of the Federation post. A sort of old-time carriage waited for them.

There was a low haze over the flat roofs of the city, and the red air smelled like smoke. When Kando knocked on the side of the vehicle's cab, a sleepy-looking monk poked his head out and scrambled up to the driver's seat.

MacDonald stroked the vaguely equine oversized goats that were hitched to the front, looked into their eyes, checked their teeth, and joined Kando, Nadhari and Becker inside. "Looks like those critters escaped whatever it is that's been troubling you anyway, Preacher," he said.

"In the midst of our curse, we are blessed," Kando said piously.

Nadhari s silence hung so heavily over the carriage that nobody, not even the effusive MacDonald, said anything until they arrived at the Temple, which was shaped like a cat.

Becker was feeling a little dizzy from the wine, to which he was no longer accustomed, and the bumpy ride in the cart, not to mention trying to figure out what was really passing between Nadhari and her cousin, and the cousin and Macostut. Acorna would know that kind of thing. Personally, ii it wasn't for wanting to consult with her and see how she was doing with the pussycats, Becker would have made his excuses and returned to the Condor for the night. He had to get to work on his ship's computers pretty soon. Even though Mac knew a lot, the guy's programming was hardly competent to deal with all of the ins and outs of the delicate patchwork Becker had constructed to provide the Condor's control and information instrumentation. Becker wasn't sure there was a man in the galaxy capable of it… except him, of course.

So he was understandably peeved when they arrived at the Temple and were told Acorna had left to return to the ship on an errand.

"What errand?" Kando sternly asked the little girl-was her name Shari something? Nah, but that was close. The kid was flushed and harried-looking, hugging a tortoiseshell cat that would have been as big as RK if it wasn't so skinny.

She answered her boss in Makahomian, and Nadhari quietly translated for Becker and MacDonald.

"She said Acorna had to go to the ship so she could make a magic potion to prevent future guardians from acquiring the disease that has afflicted ours, even long after she has departed."

"You should have detained her, Miw-Sher," Kando said severely. The girl cringed as if she expected to be hit. Becker thought Kando was being too harsh. Becker knew it would take more than some adolescent cat priestess to keep his friend the unicorn girl from going wherever she wanted, whenever she felt like it. Of course Kando didn't know Acorna.

"I'm sorry, Your Holiness, but she said she needed to do it at once, for the future good of the guardians."

This time, Nadhari translated both sides of the conversation tonelessly and deliberately. Was she making some kind of point?

"But she might have been set upon," Kando told the girl. "You should have gone with her, at the very least."

"Oh, hut she was safe. She had a…" The girl stopped, looking trapped.

"A what?"

"A way about her that none would dare trespass," the girl finished lamely. Becker had the funniest idea she had been going to say "guardian" or "cat" or something that amounted to the same thing as RK, his stalwart furry first mate, who should definitely not have been seen here. But the temptations of shore leave may have overridden RK's good sense. How else was his friend going to make Makahomian Temple kittens if he didn't get out and mingle? For a supposedly unsophisticated people, the Makahomians sure had a lot of rules. They should know better than to make rules about cats. He had only one cat, and he knew better than that.

The girl stroked the cat in her arms.

Nadhari scratched the top of the cat's head and said to her cousin, "I see our Acorna has worked her usual healing miracle. This sacred guardian should be ready to take on an army after a day or two of rest. Are you sure there's not something you'd like to trade for Becker's cat food, cousin?"

Kando's mouth spasmed, as if he was trying to smile. He probably didn't appreciate Nadhari interfering while he was dressing down the troops. But Becker was kind of surprised to see that Kando looked less than thrilled by the recovery of the Temple cats.

Miw-Sher, that was the girl's name, not Shari. Nadhari told Becker Miw-Sher meant kitten and was likely a nickname. Anyway, Miw-Sher eagerly led them back to the Temple Guardians ' quarters. She was partly showing off for the newcomers and partly trying to jolly her boss back into a good mood by proving to him how well everything had turned out.

The three toms were-variously-eating, drinking, and sleeping, while the female, perfectly content in the girl's arms, fell into a bonelessly limp sleep. All the cats looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to Becker, though they needed to put on a few pounds to get back up to fighting weight.

"Where is Bulaybub?" Kando asked the girl.

"I-I don't know, Your Holiness. He was right behind us when the ambassador and I started for the Temple."

At that moment the slap of sandals on stone heralded the arrival of three more priests, who burst into the cats' quarters. One, breathless, said, "Your Holiness, a city sentry came across the remains of a priest. We believe it is Brother Bulaybub."

Nadhari translated this, her mouth moving only now and then while her eyes watched for more developments.

"Commander," MacDonald said to her, "what did that fella mean exactly by remains? You sure you got that word right?"

Nadhari listened for a moment, then nodded, "Yes, remains," she said firmly and catalogued, as if reciting a grocery list. "A head, missing the face, a disemboweled trunk, and the arm bearing the tattoo of the man's order."

"What kind of critters do you have here that did that to him?" MacDonald asked.

Kando's face was no longer warm and charming as he spoke to the child. "You see what your negligence has caused, Miw-Sher? Our enemies have heard of the disease that weakens us and stalk the streets. Brother Bulaybub, who saved you from enslavement and brought you here, although many deemed you unworthy, may be dead because you lacked the wit to remain with him. The ambassador may have come to similar harm, for all we know. You will retrace the way you came, and if you do not find her, you will stand at the gate of the Federation compound until she is ready to return to us. All night if necessary. And the next as well. Put Grimla down. She is too weak to protect anyone. And you do not deserve protection. Go!"

"Wait," Nadhari ordered the girl in a tone even less to be argued with than her cousin's. To Becker she said softly, "I'm going with her."

Becker nodded, understanding. This was what Nadhari did and she was good at it.

Kando tried to stop her and said in Standard, presumably to keep the girl from understanding the conversation, "Cousin, please. You are my guest. You are tired from your journey. I know your kind heart urges you to keep the girl from harm, but I am exaggerating the danger to alarm her into obedience. My men will be thick on the streets now. Truly, she and the ambassador will both be safe, but the girl should learn her lesson."

Nadhari squared her shoulders and spoke in a dialect Becker had not heard before. Amid the spate of law she laid down to the Mulzar, Becker heard her say Acorna's name and that of her former boss, the late Delszaki Li. He grinned. He knew just what she'd said. Nadhari had told Kando that he might be boss here, but she owed it to her late boss Mr. Li to look after his adopted daughter, as she had promised, and she intended to honor that promise.

To his credit, Kando seemed to realize when he was outclassed and outgunned. With a few more sharp words to Miw-Sher, he gestured that she and the three priests who had reported the death to him should follow Nadhari.

The convalescing cats had been listening to the whole exchange with their ears cocked and their tails lashing, but when Becker looked around for them, they were gone.

Kando noticed it, too, and roared at the other priests who had been playing cat-nurse along with the girl. He pointed up to some cat-sized holes attached to rafters in the ceiling. The last puff of a tail was disappearing through one now.

MacDonald watched and shook his head, "Somebody ought to tell him it's no good closing the barn door after all the horses - or I guess you'd have to say cats right now-have got out."

Becker approached Kando. "I'd like to go back to the ship myself and make sure Acorna got there safely."

"I cannot permit any more people on the streets," Kando said.

"Nadhari's fighting skills are a matter of record, but yours are not, Captain, and I cannot risk an incident with the Federation. Please humor me in this and remain indoors while those trained to do so handle this matter." He gave a sudden rueful smile. "My authority has been undermined enough for one night."

Becker sympathized to some extent, but didn't like to hit his bunk with Acorna still missing and one of his dinner partners freshly murdered.

Kando saw the conflict in his face and said diplomatically, "Your pardon, Captain. You are a man of action, of course, and it would not be your way to be idle while others deal with this crisis. Perhaps you and Captain MacDonald would care to assist me as I examine the late Bulaybub's mortal remains?"

Becker nodded sharply and motioned to MacDonald. The other captain wasn't saying much, for a change, but his acute green eyes missed nothing and he seemed to be weighing everything he heard and saw. The two of them followed Kando and some flunkies to a room filled with candles and torches and a group of three human-sized stone altars. One now functioned as a morgue slab and held the bloody mess that remained of the late Bulaybub.

Two priestesses arrived bearing pottery bowls full of what looked like soap and water, but Kando held up his hand and beckoned the two offworld captains forward.

As they approached, Kando picked up what remained of the head, and held it up to them. It was barely recognizable as human, so Becker didn't react to it much himself. But MacDonald drew in his breath sharply.

"Well, Preacher," he said, "you got yourself a real problem with this one."

Becker, looking at the gutted torso, thought that might possibly take the cake for the understatement of the week.

MacDonald's large finger traced the long marks against the frontal portion of the skull. "See these claw marks? Your critters are going to have worse than a disease to contend with. And you'd better keep your little pussycats in the Temple, too. These here were made by some kind of a painter."

"Painter?" Kando asked, confused. "I see no paint."

"That's what we call the big cats where I come from," MacDonald said. "Painters, pumas, cougars, mountain lions. Maybe even a jungle lion for all I know. But you got you a really big wildcat running around loose somewhere. And judging from what it did to this fella, I'd say it was right pissed."

As he finished speaking, Kando nodded at his people. The women began washing what was left of the body. That was when MacDonald leaned in and pointed at something caught in the neck cavity. "What's that?" he asked. The thing was thin and long. "I've butchered more livestock than I care to think about, and that doesn't look like anything I've ever seen in a corpse. At least not there."

He had Kando's attention. The senior priest gestured for the women to wash the area where MacDonald was pointing. When a great deal of soapy water had turned pink, a long, stained string came away. It looked a bit like some of the things in the corpse, but Becker guessed whatever it came from had been dead a lot longer than the poor dismembered priest.

"Okay, Captain, I'll bite," Becker said. "What's the guy's shoelace doing up around where his ears should have been? Or is this an extreme fashion statement having to do with string ties?"

Of course nobody really had to tell him what the thing was. Whatever its original purpose had been, most lately it had been used as a garrote to strangle the guy. He supposed that was in case tearing out the victim's guts and face didn't kill him dead enough.

MacDonald was clearly thinking the same thing, eyeballing the neck and silently pointing to the ligature marks above the place where the head had been severed from the trunk.

"What kind of animal do you have here that strangles people before they disembowel and eat 'em, Preacher?" MacDonald asked. "I don't believe I ever saw anybody killed quite this thoroughly before."

Kando sighed. "Our enemies have grown clever. Now they attack us in the guise of our myths. But the killer was a man when he used this." He nodded toward the string as if it was the ickiest thing in the room, which it definitely wasn't, in Becker's opinion. The victim was much harder to look at than the string that had killed him.

"You'd think beheading and eviscerating the fellow would be enough to do the job without strangling him, too," Becker said.

"My guess is he was strangled quick to keep him from yelling for help before the gory stuff started," MacDonald said. "It was undoubtedly a mercy."

He didn't need to elaborate.

Becker stepped behind one of the stone altars and lost his dinner, which helped a little. One of the women gratefully abandoned the corpse to clean up the mess. Becker excused himself and went out to a fountain to wash his mouth out.

The only good thing about the whole incident, as far as Becker could see, was that Nadhari hadn't been there to watch him puke.

Nadhari followed Miw-Sher as the girl retraced the route she had taken to bring Acorna to the Temple.

Halfway there, one of the priests Edu had dispatched with them to investigate the murder said, "You're going the wrong direction. Bulaybub's body was two streets south of here."

"I can't help that," Miw-Sher told him. "The ambassador and I were hastening and he did not keep up with us. I thought he would join us at the Temple and was not concerned. We were in a great hurry to reach the guardians and save them. Perhaps Bulaybub remembered an errand elsewhere, something that took him to the place where you found him."

"You have that story all nicely worked out, don't you?" the first priest said.

"It is no story, but the truth," Miw-Sher said.

Nadhari said nothing-yet. The priest was being unnecessarily harsh with the girl. After all, she had been with Acorna the entire time. That was as good an alibi as anyone needed, in Nadhari's book. She distracted the girl's tormentor with a suggestion. "If I were you, I'd post a few men on the rooftops. The attacker may have come from above."

"From above?" the warrior priests scoffed. "You didn't see the body, did you, lady? It was clearly a frontal attack - gutted and the face ripped off. And it had to be a wild animal that did it. Only where would you find an animal like that around here?"

Nadhari said nothing. This was not her team, she was not in charge, and she did not want to say too much in front of these men. They were potential enemies and Edu's spies. But privately she thought of the fearsome creatures that once roamed the rainforests, steppes, and deserts of the planet. There had once been plenty of likely predators out in the wild places.

The murshim, a bear-like creature that was taller than a man when standing on its back paws and had two rows of razor-like teeth on each jaw. But the murshim had been extinct since the Battle of Binda destroyed the section of forest that was their last known dwelling place. Nobody had won that fight. The Bindalari were slain by the Durg, one of the fiercest of the militant steppe-tribes. The Durg were mostly killed by the fleeing murshim, who were in turn killed by the tardy reinforcements for the slain Bindalari. No glory was had by any living thing that day.

Also there had been the rock wolves, or yowim, who prowled the remotest moorlands of the steppes, but they were already quite rare during Nadhari's post-Felihari childhood among the Div. By the time she had seen forty seasons-was ten years old by Standard reckoning - the head of the last yow was said to hang over the entrance to Binda Temple. Its body had been devoured by the Temple guardians.

Once there had been wild felines as well, but these had gradually been assimilated into the Guardian line and were now protectors of the people, not attackers.

Unless… could the priest have been attacked by the guardian of an enemy Temple?

The warrior priests had deserted the two women to awaken dwellers in houses between this place and the one where the priest was slain. The quiet of the night was broken for a time by their door poundings and demands, and the sleepy, frightened, or indignant responses of those so rudely awakened. Probably most of them had just returned to sleep - or tried to, after the outcry when Bulaybub's mangled body was found.

Nadhari wished she had gathered more information at the Temple before she came out here. She looked up thoughtfully, jumped, caught the edge of the roof, and hoisted herself onto it. A ladder to the roof would stand inside the room beneath her boots, where the people of the house could use it but an outsider could not.

The girl Miw-Sher whirled, alarmed, and with a sharp lift of her head, saw Nadhari's red uniform pale against the deep maroon sky. She met Nadhari's eye and saw the finger the older woman had placed over her lips.

Nadhari gestured that Miw-Sher should continue on, and followed her, leaping from one flat roof to the next, her boots making no more sound than the furred feet of a Temple guardian.

Much of the night had been spent dining with Macostut, and now the edge of Singha, the forerunner sun, gilded the horizon. If Edu wished this girl to pay for Bulaybub's life by dying a similar death, Nadhari thought, he should have waited to send her out until the attacker had rested and grown hungry again.

Suddenly the scarlet night was split open with a scream.

Miw-Sher, with the gate in sight, froze in her tracks, but Nadhari turned and raced back across the rooftops until she was looking down upon the warrior priests and a woman who stood sobbing, pointing at the trail of blood leading from her hearth to the door and down the street.

"Something has been in my house!" she cried.

"Where were you when this happened?" the leader asked suspiciously.

"Tending my sister and her children. They've come down with the sickness. I've been gone for two days. When I got here, the door was half open. Soon as I got the lamp lit, I found all this!"

"Lucky for you that you didn't come home sooner," the guard told her. "Murder's been done. Bloody awful mess. The murderer must have come in here to clean himself up, but by the look of it he was interrupted, probably by the hue and cry when Bulaybub's body was found. It gives us a trail to follow, anyway."

The woman gave a little whimper.

"Fan out, men!" the leader commanded.

"Oh, excellent planning," Nadhari said. The frightened woman yelped again when she looked up and saw a tall stranger standing on her roof and peering down at her through the darkness. Nadhari made a gesture of quiet reassurance to the woman. "I'm here to help hunt the thing that disturbed you," she said. She continued speaking very quietly, to the priests rather than to the woman. "Whatever killed the priest and left this convenient trail will appreciate your thoughtfulness, Brother. It will no doubt much prefer to kill your men singly rather than as a group."