Becker and MacDonald looked at each other and shrugged. Then MacDonald sat back in his chair and patted his uniform tunic with satisfaction. “So, Jonas,” he said, “that young lady you’re with, the one with the horn. I heard about someone like her back on Rushima, last time I stopped over there to repair some of their tractors and give their people a few lessons. They were telling me about a tall young girl with a horn in the middle of her forehead who brought them a special tool that cleaned up their mucky water in no time flat. I looked that tool over and I couldn’t find anything but a little slice of something that looks a little like this girl’s horn.”
Becker was nodding, grinning, as if he knew all about it, and thinking fast. If he knew Acorna, it was a slice of her horn. Since he and Aari were practically blood brothers, and Acorna sort of a blood sister-in-law, that made him practically Linyaari himself, he figured, and he had to protect their secrets.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, broadening his grin and going into a riff that was very much like his spiel at the nanobug markets where he sold some of his salvage cargo. “Aren’t those slick? Linyaari nano-technology is something else. I can’t believe what those people can fit into one of their little devices. The thing you saw is really just a kind of trigger for the machine. That coating on it is to make it look like the horn is their trademark. They have this whole class of people who take things other people invented and refine them and give them a style that’s all Linyaari.”
“Do tell!” MacDonald said. “Well, those folks are okay with the people on Rushima, I can tell you.”
“Oh, yeah, they’re wonderful people. And Acorna is probably the best of them all. She’ll probably have all those guardian pussycats healed and eating out of her hand by the time we get there.”
Kando suddenly tuned into him and dropped the Makahomian to ask in Standard, “Then she really can do as she claims, the ambassador?”
“Of course she can. Your pussycats got nothing to worry about,” Becker told him.
“Oh, yes,” Nadhari said, also in Standard. “Ambassador Acorna is a wonderful physician.” Now it was her turn to elaborate. “Her healing techniques are being taught to the more gifted children on Maganos Moonbase. You may have heard of it, Lieutenant Commander?” The inference in her tone was that Kando, being in the Makahomian backwater, was unlikely to have heard of it. “My former employer, Mr. Li, helped Acorna rid Kezdet of child slavery.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Kando asked.
Nadhari smiled innocently at her cousin. “I forgot. Do you still practice slavery here, Edu? It’s considered a very primitive practice elsewhere. I’m surprised the Federation allows it. On Kezdet it was only because the leaders of the slave industry had many low friends in high places.”
Macostut sputtered and hurried to defend himself. “We try not to be ethnocentric when dealing with the inhabitants of our member worlds, Lady Nadhari.”
Lady Nadhari? Becker looked from the official to his former girlfriend with surprise. Well, she was from the ruling family, after all. Maybe this gave her a rank she didn’t claim or hadn’t been aware of. From the look on her face it was also one that didn’t impress her much.
The man continued. “We try to respect their customs, religion, and cultural mores.”
“Cultural mores change in a healthy culture,” Nadhari told him.
“Yes,” Kando said, “they do. And should. That has been my position since I became Mulzar. If our ways do not change with the times, the culture becomes stagnant. So does a faith when it is not renewed so that the trappings no longer necessary drop away while the essence remains.”
“I take it when you say ‘trappings’ you’re not referring to the priesthood, Edu?” Nadhari said, pretending to tease. “Or to your own position?”
Becker turned to MacDonald and drew a number 1 in the air with his forefinger. “Chalk one up for Nadhari,” he mouthed. MacDonald nodded sagely.
“You’re joking with me now, aren’t you, cousin? You always did like to keep me off balance,” Kando replied. To Becker he said, “She is such a tease.”
Becker began at that point to wonder if this man had any insight into Nadhari’s psyche after all.
Six
What could that possibly have been?”
RK stopped purring, laid his ears back, and opened his eyes to annoyed slits. His paws kept kneading in time to the low grumbling noise, which was now barely audible to
Acorna.
(Were we going somewhere or did you just want to stand here to find out if cats can really see in the dark?)
RK asked in a quite normal thought pattern.
(Yes,) Acorna said. (Let’s go. You can explain what that was all about when we’re out of here.)
Whoever or whatever was within the wall, it continued its noise on a very low level but no longer sent emotional messages. Acorna felt like rapping on the wall and asking, “Excuse me, is everything all right in there? We couldn’t help noticing you roared.”
However, RK squirmed out of her arms and dropped to the ground, then scratched impatiently at something just ahead of them.
She would question both the cat and Miw-Sher more thoroughly later. She walked two more steps and caught up with RK, touching his flank with her foot.
He did not have to thought-speak to tell her he was at the door she was supposed to open. Standard cat/biped nonverbal communication was eloquent enough. She had to give the door a hard shove that nearly spilled her into a dark space where dust tickled her nose and cobwebs brushed her face, snagged on her horn, and dangled before her eyes to further confuse what little vision she retained in the dark surroundings.
By the time she reached the street, she wouldn’t need the scarf, she thought. She would look like a woman-shaped cocoon, totally wrapped in silken webbing.
“I wish Mac was here with the flashlight attachment in his arm,” she whispered to the cat.
(Why?) RK, apparently feeling sociable again, asked in thought-talk. (I can see perfectly well. My eyes are much better than yours, but there’s not much to see. I’ll bet the mice around here are starving. This place is empty. If I weren’t convalescing from my recent illness I’d jump down and chase some of those sassy spiders.)
(I’d much rather you’d find us another door—preferably one that doesn’t open right onto the street,) she told him.
(On your left. Just reach out with those long arms and clever fingers of yours. Although I am, of course, the perfect life form just as I am, I rather wish I could have come with those as optional attachments. I could open anything!)
(You’d lose out on the fun of getting others to do it for you,) Acorna told the cat, grasping the door latch and pulling. Hot air assailed her nostrils. A lash of a breeze blew fresh oxygen into her face. She closed the door, which led into an alleyway between the building and the one adjacent to it.
Through the crack between the buildings she saw the moons quite distinctly. She drew the scarf over her head. RK climbed up on her shoulders and said, (Now cover the kitty. That’s a good girl.) He purred to give her positive reinforcement for doing as she was told. Not that she hadn’t intended to anyway. His desires were distinct enough without the verbalizations. Being privy to the specific meaning of opinions the cat had formerly expressed by body language would take some getting used to.
Once they were in the street, RK leaped down from her shoulders and streaked ahead of her, sprinting from shadow to shadow.
With her scarf draped low over her forehead to cover her horn, Acorna aroused no interest in the locals. Indeed, there was no one to be interested. The streets were lined with low, flat-roofed dwellings, each with a single small window near the door. Otherwise, they were occupied only by a pungent haze of smoke. She supposed the lack of windows in the thick red-clay walls served to keep the heat as well as the light out. However, this night was cool, and may have even felt chilly to people accustomed to a semidesert climate. She vaguely remembered, on her sprint from spaceport to
Temple, seeing a few people sitting on their rooftops, watching the last of the suns setting in the west while waiting for the first glimmer of the first of the moons to rise in the east. Both moons were up now, crescent shapes floating through the night sky.
She supposed people might sleep up on the roofs sometimes, but no one appeared to be doing so tonight. The rooftops were inhabited only by shadows, or so she thought until suddenly RK halted directly in front of her, growling, tail lashing, staring at something above him on the far side of the street. She followed his gaze and saw it, just briefly.
At first she thought it was a person, for it moved more like a biped running in a stooped position than a true quadruped. But she glimpsed ears rotating back to catch RK’s growl, saw the claws and muzzle silhouetted in the moonlight and what appeared to be a clubbed tail, lashing like RK’s.
It leaped and was gone as if it had been no more than a cat fancy, one of those things that cats alone can see. Acorna had seen it, however. Perhaps because she was linked to RK’s consciousness, but more likely because it had been there.
At any rate, RK’s fur smoothed down, his ears went up, his tail quieted, and he sat for a moment washing his paw.
(What was that?) Acorna asked. (Did it have something to do with whatever was happening inside the wall?)
RK tapped his tail twice on the pavement. (I don’t know, but maybe. I never saw one like it before. Nadhari might know. Maybe it was a ritual dancer imitating one of us god-like Temple guardians. I’d chase it if I didn’t have you to protect.)
(Sorry to be such a burden,) she apologized with some amusement. (I will ask Nadhari when we see her, but are you sure you wouldn’t like to share with me what exactly happened before?)
RK considered. (It’s a cat thing, Acorna. You wouldn’t understand.)
(How so a cat thing? I am sure I heard a human voice.)
(Well, I think it was a cat priest. He lives in the wall now. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe he’s got the sickness and a fever and is out of his head. But before he roared, he was chanting something about the moon’s eyes and the coming of the guardian guide. These people call us guardians, so between that and the roar…)
(It’s a cat thing, I see,) she said. (You could have told me that at the time.)
(It needed sorting out. I was too caught up in the moment to translate. I would like to know what made him roar like that, though—maybe that creature we just saw?)
(Maybe,) she agreed.
She would ask Nadhari about it when they saw her again, and Miw-Sher as well, but for now she wanted badly to reach the Condor and fulfill her promise to create a vaccine for the cats. She and RK hurried onward, finally reaching the intersection of the street running perpendicular to the Federation port gate. She was three blocks farther north than she had been when Miw-Sher raced her to the Temple.
A different guard stood by the gate to the compound. She threw back her scarf, announcing her name and title.
“We were told you’d be spending the night at the Temple, Ambassador,” the soldier said, though her appearance, especially her horn, left no doubt in his mind she was who she claimed to be.
“I forgot something,” she said.
“May I ask what, ma’am?” he inquired stiffly.
“My medication,” she told him. It was perfectly true, after all.
She held his eye, and from the corner of hers, she saw movement low in the shadow of the gate as RK slipped by.
For a moment she wondered how she was going to reboard the Condor without the controls Becker carried with him, but the robolift was already on the ground when they reached the ship. Mac greeted them cheerfully. RK sniffed the ship thoroughly, reading the scents left behind by the Federation inspectors and rubbing his face against the contaminated areas to remark his territory.
(RK, I will be needing your assistance,) Acorna said softly, bending over to stroke him as he rearranged the scent of the captain’s chair to suit himself.
He sat back on his haunches and licked his paw, then blinked at her as if to say, “Oh, you will, will you?” But did not communicate directly.
She sank into a cross-legged position on the deck and regarded him seriously. “Yes, that’s right. You heard me tell Miw-Sher and the others the danger this disease may hold for future Temple cats and kittens who may become infected by the disease after we’re gone. I want to make a vaccine that will allow the people caring for the Temple guardians to protect newcomers. But to make it, I will need to take blood samples from someone who has already been cured of the disease. I can’t take the syringes and needles I need off-post to draw blood from the Temple cats, nor can I bring them here. I’m afraid that leaves you. It’s fortunate you chose to disregard everyone’s advice and left the post and contracted the disease yourself.”
RK gave her an offended glare, his lips curling up over his fangs.
“Surely you won’t mind a little needle prick? It’s no sharper than the claws you have been sticking into me lately.”
The cat’s tail jerked with agitation, but he accompanied her to the laboratory as if the whole thing was his own idea. He growled while she restrained him and drew blood from him.
When she released him, he drew blood from her, then strutted away, sat down at a safe distance, and preened himself as if he were waiting to accept a medal for valor.
Acorna touched her horn lightly to her scratch and said, “Fortunately, I heal quickly.” She set to work.
When a sufficient quantity of the vaccine was ready, she prepared to return to the Temple. Mac said, “Are you forbidden to use the flitter, Acorna? I have prepared quite a nice flitter for our use when planetside.”
“Thank you, but not this time, Mac. You heard what Nadhari said, didn’t you? These people choose not to use technology readily available to the rest of the universe, and the Federation wishes that their choice be respected. Given the warlike nature of the people of Makahomia, I can almost concur that the limitations make sense. By the way, speaking of warlike, how are the Wats doing? You have been keeping them fed, I hope?”
The robot looked concerned. “Yes, Acorna. But they are restless. They had understood they were going to a new home and are…disappointed, I suppose…that this is not it.”
“Hmm,” Acorna said. “Well, the Wats certainly pose no technological threat to the Makahomians and they are warlike people also, not remarkably different from the people here. Perhaps the Federation would give them permission to immigrate here.”
“It is possible,” Mac said. “But I do not think they could fill out the paperwork. Lieutenant Commander Macostut had many forms sent to our computer. I filled them out to the best of my abilities and returned them, but I do not think the Wats will be able to satisfy the local inhabitants with their answers, and I have insufficient data about them to fill out many of the questions on the forms. Whether they stay here or not, I sense trouble.”
“So the Makahomians want to know who we are, including the Wats?” Acorna smiled. “I can see where that might be a problem. Especially when it comes to formal documentation. We might have to be creative. At any rate, I’ll inquire with the local authorities later and see what I can do. I must get this vaccine to the Temple now. Please make sure RK remains aboard ship.”
“Yes, Acorna.”
But as Acorna was being lowered on the robolift, suddenly a furry projectile hurtled from RK’s private exit and the cat rolled onto the floor of the descending lift.
“Shall I raise the lift again, Acorna?” Mac inquired on the intercom he had installed on the robolift. “The first mate escaped my grasp and I could not regain possession of his person without applying undue strength, which might have damaged him.”
“We can try,” Acorna said. But as soon as the lift began to ascend again, RK lightly leaped onto the ground and sat looking up at her, the scallop of his mouth broadening in a cat smile of deep satisfaction. “Never mind, Mac,” Acorna said, laughing in spite of herself at the rebellious cat. “The first m
ate knows the risks quite well and is willing to take them. Who are we to restrain him?”
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, if 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.
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