Acorna's Rebels

by Anne McCaffrey

  “And yet, Dinan,” Edu said, “we who walk upright on two legs are the only known predators of our kind who still live in the inhabited portion of our planet.”

  “There are our Temple guardians, Lord. Though they are far too small for their claws to inflict these wounds.”

  “True. When the guardians kill our kind, it is by breaking their necks or severing crucial arteries. Still, it seems to me that this killing was done in imitation of our guardian cats, as were those others of which you speak. I, too, have seen such wounds. It has long been my belief that there is a secret cult—particularly among those born of the rainforest tribes, as I was—that worships felines with such fanatical fervor that they commit these atrocities. If one such cult is loose in our city, we must seek out these madmen and put them to death. I will have no clandestine heretical sects undermining my rule.”

  “Yes, Mulzar, a very good idea. Perhaps you may still save Brother Bulaybub if you send your soldiers from house to house.”

  “I think I have a better way of flushing these people out, Dinan.” He had never before favored the physician with so many confidences, but the man was known to gossip, which Kando thought would be useful to his further plans. “If they thought I presented a danger to the remaining Temple guardians, do you think such madmen would stop at attacking me in this, the very citadel of my power and the emblem of my rule?”

  “But you don’t present such a danger, Lord! How could they think so?”

  “I shall have to give them cause, my good Dinan. They could well be enemy agents. In murdering my brother they have dealt a blow to my own network of agents.” All factions had spies and agents, so this was not a secret. The secret was the identity of the agents.

  “Ahh, I understand, my lord. A good plan. Of course you would not harm the guardians, but the cult members do not know that?”

  “Exactly. But don’t breathe a word of it.”

  “You can count on me, my lord.”

  Kando clasped the fellow’s shoulder in one hand. “I was sure I could.”

  He strode away, feeling oddly incomplete without Bulaybub beside him. Bulaybub, in his own way, had been as important to Kando as Fagad, although it was possible the monk’s use was of less value now than it once had been. Kando prided himself on seeing the talent, the special purpose, for which each of his underlings was created, and in using those talents in a way that would further his goals. Actually, it was Bulaybub himself who had suggested this as a leadership skill.

  Bulaybub was not precisely Kando’s second in command, nor the power behind the throne. He was something quite different, and only Kando seemed to realize it. Kando needed him to rule effectively. Bulaybub knew and understood the planet’s history—how its peoples related to each other and why they responded as they did to certain triggers. He was deeply trained in the mysteries of the cat-ridden religion and knew how to use it to manipulate the masses if necessary. Or rather, he would advise Kando on how to do so. The monk had served as priest, master, and slave in all of the regions on the planet, had learned many occupations, and most important, had made many influential friends, who simply liked him and listened to what he had to say because there was usually substance in it.

  Kando’s gifts were different. Because of his Federation training and an inborn inclination for power, he was sophisticated beyond most of his people. While off-planet he soaked up sights and sounds and experiences, realizing how narrow his world had been before, but in the end he felt unappreciated out in the galaxy. His superior officers did not seem to understand that he needed their training less than he needed to fully absorb the fascinating universe around him—learn what treasures and pleasures were available out there that were not at home. He was reprimanded by old officers who had forgotten what it was to be young and who had never had his capacity for adventure. Kept down by jealous old men who probably secretly lusted after his youth and beauty, he’d failed to make rank quickly enough to suit himself and was destined for some outpost not unlike the one from which he’d come.

  That being the case, he pleaded homesickness. He wished to return to Makahomia, where he’d come from, where people responded to him, where his talents, so unappreciated and lost in the vastness of the Federation’s jurisdiction, could be put to use to serve his people. This service to them, he realized, he could best render as their ruler.

  When he first returned as a young officer of twenty-one years, by Standard counting, his people rejected him and all he had to offer them. He thought he was better than they. He had learned alien ways and was more like a Federation overlord than one of them now. His family was dead or scattered. Those who had been his masters tried to reclaim him and might have succeeded except for the skills and contacts he had gathered off-planet.

  Bulaybub, a somewhat older man originally of the Moginari tribe from the same rainforest where Kando was born, changed that attitude simply by first befriending and then following Kando. The priest sought him out, consulted him, listened to his stories, admired his style. Because Bulaybub was respected and liked, a certain…acceptance was transferred to Kando. He gained influence by association.

  Once he was given a chance to shine, his innate kingly charisma dazzled people and led them to obey him, even when he had not conquered them. Men admired him as a brilliant and successful officer, the kind who, if they followed him into battle, was likely to lead them back out again, alive and victorious. Women were attracted to his virility and power, as if they sensed his voracious sexual appetites. Rather, most women were attracted to that.

  But not Nadhari, with her supple, graceful body and those tilted wary eyes, that hint of mystery he found so tantalizing. Never her, though it was he who had first schooled her in the arts of battle and later had attempted to teach her some of the, if not gentler, at least more sensually pleasurable arts. But he was disappointed, on his return from space, that after the first few encounters with her, he had no further chance to lay eyes, hands, or anything else on her again before she disappeared into the Federation ship. How ironic. What was the Terran saying about ships that pass in the night? He thought he had lost her forever, his best opponent in battle and the one who had most motivated him to win and enjoy a victor’s rewards.

  He smiled to himself. She might pretend nothing more than a kinswoman’s interest in him now, with her friends around her, but he had marked her, he could tell. There was something a bit twisted about her that he recognized as his contribution to who she was. He had taken her and taught her too young for her to have escaped being—at least in part—his creature.

  He sat at the writing table in his office, which had for a window one of the eyes of the cat-Temple. He studied once more the figures Dsu Macostut had shown him, the profits to be made on a single sacred stone. Of all of his people, he was the best educated, thanks to the Federation, and he spent much of his time here, plotting his changes for his planet. Whom he could pit against whom, whom he could subvert or buy. He needed the consent—whether forced or voluntary was of no concern to the Federation, who would believe what he and Macostut told them—of the leaders of each of the tribal nations of the planet to ratify the changes in the original agreement. Half of them were accounted for with his own consent, as he controlled the Mog-Gim plateau but had gained that control as the leader of the tribes of the Furrim Steppes. He still needed to win over the Aridimis and the Makaviti. Bulaybub was supposed to be assisting with that, too, waxing eloquent on how wars had decimated the land and resources.

  The truth was, peace was threatening to break out whether or not he wanted it. People had become, over these long years, rather homogenized, what with all of the enslavement and mercenary service back and forth among the tribes. This suited him very well, and he fostered it.

  From the eye of the cat, Kando saw Nadhari striding through the gate, accompanied by Bulaybub’s cat-loving little niece, clasping the tortoiseshell female guardian in her arms while the other three Temple cats trailed at her heels. Miw-Sher. Now ther
e was a tender little morsel. What was to become of her with her uncle and protector, so far as anyone knew, dead? Nadhari seemed to have taken her under her wing for now. That might be convenient.

  The truth was, much as it pained him to notice it, Nadhari was by now a bit long in the tooth. But if she was of less interest for one function, he could make use of her another way, providing he could prevent her from leaving on the salvage vessel. It would soon go back to where it came from, thanks to Macostut’s intervention. Without Bulaybub to persuade the unaffiliated tribes to accept him as supreme leader, he would need a general, a war chief, an enforcer at the least. And Nadhari, from all he had learned of her extra-Makahomian career, was the best. Perhaps the vessel would not leave.

  After all, it and some of her friends could be made useful, even if their timing was exceptionally inconvenient, coming along to undo some of the impact of his little biological bomb so soon after he had planted it. However, with a carefully self-serving interpretation of the ministrations of these alien altruists—the horned ambassador’s healing gifts, the farmer captain’s attempt to feed the plague-ridden people—they could be turned to his advantage.

  He would not ask Nadhari now.

  He called Akid, the captain of his priestly guards, to him. “Assemble the people of the city tomorrow morning. I have announcements of great magnitude to impart to them.”

  “Yes, Mulzar,” Akid replied, and obeyed.

  Kando turned his attention to his upcoming presentation. He glanced up once, at second setting, to see the ambassador’s tall, horned, white figure walking through the gate. He blinked. Some fragment of her shadow had preceded her and flitted into the shadowed cloisters. No matter. She was an alien. He had never in fact seen one quite like her, with that intriguing horn spiraling from her head, just where an Aridimi priest’s eyestone would be. There was something almost priestly about her—something as pure as her color suggested. She seemed chaste, sad, preoccupied.

  He was thinking, if the opportunity presented itself, he would know how to get her undivided attention, when she walked into his office. Almost as if she had read his mind.

  “Ambassador, what a pleasure.”

  “I beg your pardon for my rudeness, Mulzar, but I was told you would be here and I have an urgent matter I wish to discuss with you.”

  “I can see that you are troubled, my child. Please, let me help you.”

  Edu smiled.

  Fourteen

  Acorna wanted to see Kando for a number of reasons, the chief one being that she wished to form her own opinion of him. Though now she wished she had not been so scrupulous with the former Brother Bulaybub. She should have allowed him to tell her more about the plots he felt his erstwhile master had instigated. She would be better prepared for what was to come if she had. As it was, she had no idea how her self-(and RK-) appointed mission to save this planet’s ailing creatures would be greeted by the Mulzar, for example, or what Edu’s actions toward her might be if she let him know what she planned.

  Acorna was further confused by Becker’s apparent liking and admiration for Edu. Becker was usually a good judge of character, but although he was very intuitive, Becker was not precisely—or at least not always—telepathic. A charismatic and clever trickster could fool him. Especially if a profitable business deal was involved.

  When Acorna entered his office, Kando sat at his massive writing table. Maps and scrolls were spread out on it. On top of the scroll he’d been working on was a large golden stone with a pale fiery stripe down the middle. Kando reached over to stroke it while she seated herself across from him. The Mulzar’s thoughts were guarded carefully as he extended his seeming solicitousness toward her, but she was mildly shocked to sense an unwarranted prurient interest in her person from him. Once she picked up on that, she was aware that the atmosphere surrounding him crawled with duplicity and intrigue. Of course he was the leader of an influential section of the planet, and perhaps, if Becker was correct, would soon rule the entire planet. A certain amount of political intrigue in his mental emanations was natural.

  She tried to be fair and attempted to introduce the topic in a casual manner. “I understand you’ve given Captain MacDonald permission to treat your animals and instruct your people in farming methods that will feed them until the ground is safe again. I wish to go with him.”

  “Do you? How kind,” Edu said with oily smoothness, picking the stone up and cradling it in his fist. “I see no problem with that, although our primitive means of transport may not suit someone of your sophistication.”

  He could not quite keep enough of his mask in place to conceal his irritation that he found it necessary to go along with MacDonald’s program. He apparently was not accustomed to telepaths and had not learned how to shield against them, although his innate deviousness, which she soon discovered, served him well enough. But images flashed across his mind—images he viewed with satisfaction—of laboratory test tubes changing hands between him and Macostut, of the contents being put into vermin traps that never sprang. The vermin partook of the tainted material, the cats caught the vermin, and cats began dying. The infected vermin spread, and their infected scat was scattered throughout the countryside. Soon enough, other creatures, including people, also died.

  Until she came, and MacDonald. No, she would not seek his permission now.

  “You might be surprised what suits me,” she said, and bared her teeth at him in what he would take for a friendly smile, though among the Linyaari it was a hostile challenge.

  “I’d like to find out,” he said insinuatingly, stroking the stone with the pad of his thumb along the pale slash of fire in its middle.

  “Well, yes, I appreciate you giving your permission. Lieutenant Commander Macostut is not so easy to deal with. Always quoting Federation rules and treaties, you know.”

  “Allow me to handle him and the Federation as well, Ambassador Acorna. That is your given name, is it not? Acorna? It is so—exotic.” He rolled the stone down his palm with his fingertips, and when he finished saying “exotic,” he closed his hand over it.

  She bared her teeth again. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? My people even find it so.” She did not explain. She didn’t want to tell any of her family history to this man.

  “Acorna, I was hoping—I am speaking to my subjects tomorrow morning. I wish to recognize the work you did for our guardians. It would please me if you would come. You and Nadhari as well, of course. I know Captain MacDonald will be busy with his wagons, but as soon as I have finished, you may join him. I do hope you’ll come.” He set the stone down long enough to take her hand in both of his. He stared for a moment at its three single-knuckled fingers, one fewer than he was used to, and appeared slightly nonplussed before he began stroking her palm seductively with his thumb. “I want my people to recognize you as their—our—new friend.”

  “Your wish is my command in this,” she said, because it was, of course, in this instance. She gently but firmly pulled her hand away with a strength that she could tell surprised him. Behind her, she felt him smile and pick up the stone again.

  She returned to her quarters, wishing she could lock the door. She was comforted when RK dropped from the ceiling onto her bed to make himself comfortable against her side.

  The events of the day revolved inside her head as if they had been poured into a centrifuge and set on Spin. Tagoth and Miw-Sher, RK and the Temple cats, all of them together, Nadhari and Tagoth, Tagoth and Mulzar Kando, Becker and Kando, MacDonald and the Wats, Kando and Acorna herself, whirled through her mind in a soup of coppery rainforest, flat red desert, cat’seye chrysoberyl stones of many colors, and wide open steppes veined with rivers and streams. Just when she stopped recalling and started dreaming, she couldn’t have said.

  But all at once she realized that the reason everyone was spinning so fast was that she was flying past them, over them, and they weren’t spinning at all. She was flying past the city and everything familiar to her on this world. Now there
were cat-shaped Temples in the mix, poking their ears out of the trees of the rainforest, squatting beside rivers in the steppes, and reclining Sphinx-like in the desert. In fact, these Sphinx cats even had human faces. In her dream, she heard Aari’s voice telling her, “Those are not Temples you see there. They are monuments to Grimalkin. Though they call him the Star Cat, these people know well that he has a human face. He brought me here to save these people, and meanwhile, he decided to increase the population and improve the gene pool in a very personal fashion. That is how they became able to shift from human to feline. I hope you will also notice that there are no people here who resemble the Linyaari. The Companion did not see fit to pass on his dominant characteristics to every female in the gene pool.”

  Acorna sped onward. When she reached the rainforest, she was suddenly looking down on the Temple, where hundreds of cats all lapped at a dish that bore the symbol of a skull and crossbones on the side. She jumped down and tried to shoo them away before they ate, but Captain MacDonald was there, saying, “But they have to keep their strength up, honey.”

  Then she was flying far out over the desert again, but all of a sudden the ground split open, deep and wide, the sides of the gash multicolored, and at its end the whole thing was filled with a beautiful deep lake that seemed to come from nowhere. The Temple was different, too, but before she could quite figure out how, she saw Aari down below her waving flags and pointing to a place for her to land.

  But when she ran to him, an instant later in the dream, and without all of the bother of landing the craft she was flying, she saw that he was no longer a living Linyaari, but a statue of one, and she couldn’t reach him because he was standing in the middle of a stream feeding into the lake.