Acorna's Rebels

by Anne McCaffrey

  “By their tails, no,” Kando agreed, then gave Acorna a charming smile. “However, if we can avail ourselves of a skilled physician, we must certainly do so and try to save our sacred guardians.”

  Acorna stood. “I find I have no appetite when I think of those poor sick cats, Lieutenant Commander Macostut. Please forgive me, but I wonder if perhaps Mulzar Kando might provide an escort to take me to them so I may begin treating them at once.”

  Miw-Sher jumped and scooted her chair back from the table, but Acorna saw Bulaybub tap the air with one finger, cautioning patience.

  “If you are certain you do not wish to eat?” Macostut said in a tone that was both disappointed and surprised.

  Acorna looked at the foods that had been placed on the table—various platters of meats, breads, and sweets, none of them particularly appetizing to her friends either, if she was reading her human companions well. As a vegetarian with a strong preference for uncooked greens, she wasn’t qualified to judge. The aromas were synthetically produced, the food itself clearly reconstituted or heavily processed. Under the circumstances, this was not surprising. If the planet’s animals were suffering from some type of plague, meat from any beast that could possibly be harboring such illnesses could not be served.

  Acorna shook her head apologetically. “While I thank you for offering this bounty, my people are grazers, sir. We eat only grasses, vegetables, and occasionally fruits. The foods here would not agree with my digestion, I fear.”

  “I could provide—” Macostut began, genuinely distressed to have failed to take her diet into account when planning his dinner. She was an alien ambassador, after all.

  Acorna smiled gently and placed her hand on his shoulder when he started to rise. “Please don’t bother. You have been an excellent host, but all of my instincts are telling me I must go now to my patients. Please continue eating in my absence. I have a little hydroponics garden aboard our ship. Perhaps if your local diet does not include food such as I’ve described, Captain Becker and Nadhari would be good enough to harvest a small meal for me from my garden later before coming to the Temple?”

  “Oh, we have grasses and vegetables here,” Nadhari’s cousin assured her. “Of a poor quality this season, to be sure, but we can provide food for you of the best sort at the Temple.” He clapped his hands and Miw-Sher almost knocked her chair over in her haste to escape it, while Bulaybub stood up with a smile, patting his mouth with a napkin he then laid upon his plate.

  Kando said, “You see, Little Sister, you have your wish. The ambassador has graciously offered her help. Now you must escort her to the Temple and the infirmary where our sacred ones are being treated.”

  “Your Holiness, I beg your permission to accompany Miw-Sher and the honored ambassador so that I may oversee preparations for the arrival of our guests this evening,” Bulaybub said. Acorna received the distinct impression that he was as glad as Miw-Sher to leave the table, though not for the same reasons.

  “Very considerate of you to anticipate my wishes as always, Brother Bulaybub. You have my leave.”

  Both acolytes bowed from the waist. When Kando turned away to the table again, the girl shot Acorna a quick, intense glance under heavy lashes. The sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks seemed much too frivolous to match the red-rimmed green eyes above them.

  In those eyes Acorna saw despair turn to a tentative hope. Miw-Sher’s hands were clenched so tightly Acorna thought they might bleed, but her stride was purposeful as she led the way from the hall. The girl was having trouble containing herself enough to keep from running.

  The force of her personality reminded Acorna of Maati. Thoughts of Maati brought thoughts of Maati’s brother and a fresh stab of pain to Acorna’s heart. Almost involuntarily, her fingers flew to the neck of her tunic, beneath which was Aari’s birth disk.

  The guards nodded to Brother Bulaybub and Miw-Sher and allowed them to pass through the gate, but they asked Acorna to show them her authorization to leave the post, which Macostut had provided. They pointedly did not look at her horn, even though she distinctly caught the thought (What kind of an alien is this, anyway?) before the other guard, with a roll of his eyes at his comrade’s lack of worldliness, then directed her to pass slowly through the gate, which as Macostut had promised, contained a scanner for forbidden devices.

  A red-draped box on wheels waited outside the Federation post and spaceport, hitched to two hornless beasts that bore a striking resemblance to Linyaari Ancestors.

  “We should take the carriage,” Miw-Sher urged, heading for it.

  “His Eminence did not grant us permission to do so,” Bulaybub replied, and Acorna again received the impression that he was trying to temper his tone.

  “It would save time,” the girl pointed out. “She might save a sacred one by its use.”

  “Perhaps,” Bulaybub said reasonably, “but the Mulzar is aware of this concern and yet did not suggest that we had his permission to use his conveyance. If he chooses to leave and we have taken the carriage without permission, the ambassador will not be able to save us.”

  Acorna didn’t think he was entirely serious about the consequences of taking the wagon, but he was senior to Miw-Sher in rank and he clearly did not want to take the carriage. He shot a glance into the twilit streets of the city, as if looking for something or sensing something. Acorna reached out to see if she could sense a bit about his thoughts—that would be very rude, and not honorable, without asking his permission. She sensed that he was waiting, expecting something…someone. And it had nothing to do with their mission. Her probe was not mind reading exactly, just ordinary sensitivity to the movements of body and eye and the expressions of other people. She considered asking him about it, but rejected the thought.

  Whatever he was up to could not be nearly as important as the lives of the Temple cats, who needed her so badly that RK had diverted the Condor to get her here. And RK wasn’t the only one worried. Miw-Sher was beside herself with impatience. Acorna said lightly, “I’m quite a swift runner. Lead the way at your fastest pace, please.”

  “If you are indeed swift of foot, there is no need for me to lead you,” Miw-Sher replied eagerly. “You can see the Temple very clearly from here. It is not far.” She pointed. The Temple was three stories high, and above the highest floor of the Temple rose a spire, a dome, and two conical towers. The structure dwarfed the low homes, shacks, and shops of the city. “Let’s go!” Then they were all sprinting toward the Temple.

  The Linyaari ambassador, like other Linyaari, was an extremely fast runner, so she paced herself so she would not outrun her guide. However, Miw-Sher was so swift that Acorna needed to slow only slightly to stay behind her. The run through the city was exhilarating after being cooped up on the Condor for so long. It also kept her from absorbing too quickly the noise of this strange place full of unshielded mouths and minds which otherwise could have overwhelmed her senses. Thousands of conversations, laughing, weeping, screaming, soothing, screaming again—she blocked it all out, focusing on her run and preparing herself for the task ahead.

  The girl’s heels flashed before her. Brother Bulaybub’s trudging footfalls fell behind quickly, fading so completely into the general din that it was as if the priest had taken a different direction.

  Rounding a corner, Acorna found herself facing the Temple’s main gate, where the girl stood beckoning impatiently. Now the building’s uppermost embellishments made sense. The Temple was in the shape of a gigantic cat with one paw raised aloft. The dome was the head of the cat, and the conical towers rising from it the ears. The open mouth of the muzzle formed a covered balcony. The main part of the building was molded to resemble a cat’s haunches; the outer protective wall, the tail. RK would probably want to fight the whole building when he saw it.

  Darkness was closing in now, the third sun setting, but it was still very hot. Once she ran into the open gate, Acorna saw that the courtyard was positioned to catch the most sun possible. The buildi
ng’s outer walls were a good six feet thick. Between the first and second story, they were laced with thin planks leading into holes in the walls.

  Up the cat’s chest a similarly flimsy pair of ladders rose on either side to the balcony in the muzzle. Long galleries of columns supported a shaded cloister inside the tail and along the lower body of the Temple. Though the main structure of the Temple was of a red and brown stone, the columns supporting the cloisters were white and oddly striped down their length.

  “This way,” the girl said, and led Acorna inside the Temple, pausing for a few words with a sentry who allowed them to pass, though with a long wondering glance at the alien stranger.

  “Back here,” the girl called over her shoulder. They came at last to a room lit by a gaseous light. The interior, although it looked clean, stank of illness, of the pungency of male cats, of blood, urine, and dead fish.

  Five people looked up when the girl entered.

  “Miw-Sher, you’ve returned too late,” a woman the right age to be the girl’s mother said. “Grimla has left us. She went into convulsions a few minutes ago. She was so weak her dear body could not sustain them.”

  “No!” the girl cried. “Where are the others? I’ve brought a doctor, someone from off-planet who can help them.”

  “I can cure your cats,” Acorna said, praying it was true. “If I may I examine them now, please?”

  Two feeble squeaks intended to be mews issued from very thin, bony-looking cats no more than half RK’s own splendid size. The one with the jaundiced-looking yellow coat wobbled forward on trembling paws and stared at her. His eyes were half clouded with the third eyelid.

  She walked to him, and his caretaker stepped in front of him. “No alien hands will touch my Pash,” the man declared stoutly. As Acorna started to muster an argument, the man suddenly said, “Aiee!” He jumped wildly, then rubbed his behind.

  Miw-Sher said, “Pash seems to think otherwise. Step aside. Let the doctor work.”

  The man reluctantly stepped aside.

  “First I must reassure the cat and let him get to know me,” Acorna said, to explain why she picked up Pash. The poor animal felt like bones webbed together with silk, and he smelled as if he had turned himself inside out just recently. But he stroked his face against her hands.

  With great care, Acorna stroked and petted him, held him up to her face, rubbing her cheek in his fur and urging him silently to touch her horn. He did, grabbing it with paws still velvet to lever himself upward and rub his jaw against it. The frail shudders running through his skeletal body took a while to be recognizable as purrs, but that’s what they were.

  She continued to stroke him.

  (Don’t take forever.)

  She glanced up. Two coin-bright eyes stared down at her from one of the holes above her head. RK glared down at her. (There are three others that I can see, besides the dead queen. Can’t you revive her? These other toms aren’t going to do me a bit of good.)

  Acorna tried to release Pash, but he clung to her with all his claws. She sent him a message to desist, but he snuggled his great head deeper under her armpit.

  RK made some low sounds that could have come from any of the cats and Pash abruptly disengaged, hopped onto the counter, and with a flip of his tail, went to his personal food dish to see what was in it. Satisfied crunching and slurping sounds came from the direction of the dish as Acorna moved on to the next stricken cat.

  “It’s a miracle!” one of the priests cried.

  “The Star Cat has sent us a miracle!” another agreed.

  The third said, “This stranger is a great doctor indeed, Miw-Sher. Where did you get her?”

  Acorna didn’t listen to the answer. She was busy communing with a lovely golden-and-rust-colored fellow who appeared to be huge and fluffy. When she lifted him, however, he was as light as if he were in zero G. She cooed and crooned the most awful drivel to him, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact he seemed to like it.

  “What is his name?” she asked Miw-Sher, who was bending over another of the cats.

  “Haji,” the girl said in a voice unsteady with weeping.

  Haji was very weak. Like Pash, his eyes were only half open. Drool dribbled from his mouth and raw sores pierced the pink of his gums. The cat did not even have the strength to reach for her. He lay limp as a discarded velvet scarf against her shoulder. She lay her cheek in his fur, bringing the horn into contact with him almost as if by accident. “Poor Haji, where does it hurt, darling boy?”

  (Ugh. I think I’m going to be sick myself now,) RK said. He accompanied his statement with a mental image involving a hairball.

  (Shhh,) Acorna said to him mentally, then turned the thought into a “Shush, shush, poor little kitty, poor dear boy, are you beginning to notice, hmmm? It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”

  She inclined her head to stare into his face and brought her horn in contact with his mouth. The sores disappeared. The nictating membranes of the third eyelid retracted so that his eyes were fully open and bright as the highest caliber peridots.

  With a voice rusty from disuse, Haji suddenly said, “Ryow!” and flew out of Acorna’s arms as if hurricane winds blew in the direction of his food dish.

  Miw-Sher’s tear-ravaged face was both frightened and hopeful as she advanced toward Acorna with a limp and spiky-furred tortoiseshell cat in her arms. “This is our Grimla. She is still warm, doctor ambassador. Not stiff. M-maybe I feel a little breath. M-maybe she is not entirely gone yet. J-just very tired? Could you please just look at her?”

  Acorna stroked the fur and felt a very faint sigh of breath beneath it. Grimla hadn’t used up all of her lives yet, but it was fortunate for her that the Condor had arrived as soon as it had or she would have been lost. The life in the old queen was faint and flickering, but life nevertheless lingered. Acorna could see the essence of it trying to flee, clinging only to the tips of the cat’s whiskers, the very ends of her fur, moving them very slightly.

  “Poor sweet girl,” Acorna said, and bent to stroke the once-beautiful cat while she lay still against Miw-Sher’s chest. The acolyte’s own heart was beating hard, as if trying to encourage the cat’s.

  Again, as if by accident, Acorna touched the Temple cat with her horn while seeming to examine her elsewhere. Grimla gave a deep sigh and a cough, and blinked twice. Then she stretched.

  “You were faking, weren’t you?” Acorna teased. “You scared your friend very badly, you naughty cat!”

  As she said these silly words, she waggled her lowered head, encouraging Grimla to play with her horn. Instead, with another sigh, the old queen stretched up and put the velvets of her paws carefully, one behind the other, on the top of Acorna’s horn, then stretched up and with a dry and raspy tongue, licked the tip once, and started down. Acorna caught her and kissed the top of her head. Then the cat took her leave of both Acorna and Miw-Sher to seek her own food dish. But she paused once and looked back at them with a serene expression. They could hear her purr from three feet away. Turning a contentedly waving tail on them, she stuck her nose in her dish.

  After Acorna had cured Sher-Paw, the last of the remaining Temple cats, she said, “This room should be cleaned. I suggest that you discard everything that can’t be washed in disinfectant and very hot water, then wipe down all of the scrubbable surfaces. Though your sacred cats are cured, the disease could still be spread by vectors from the sick cats.”

  “Vectors? What are these, Doctor?” asked the male priest. “Tell me what this is that has killed so many of our guardian felines and I will slay it with my bare hands. My revered companion, Pedibastet, was the first of the holy creatures to succumb. Are these vector beasts demons, or perhaps some evil magic spell cast by the shaman of an enemy clan?”

  “I was thinking more in terms of mutant nanoviruses.” The people around her looked even more bewildered than before. She tried to explain. “I don’t actually know what causes this illness, but the causes of most sicknesses are organisms rather l
ike animals but very, very small, too small to see. They are so small that they can go right inside a person or beast without anyone noticing, and attack healthy beings and make them sick. If you want to keep from spreading the sickness or getting the cats reinfected, you should do as I suggest. Clean everything thoroughly, including rugs, pillows, countertops, walkways, and the insides of those holes your cats climb through. If they become reinfected or if perhaps new cats are introduced to this group and become infected by organisms still living in the environment, I will not be here to cure them. “

  “Aiee,” Miw-Sher said, “I could not bear this again. Is there no medicine you could leave us, none of your knowledge or spells?”

  Acorna pondered this. Even if she sacrificed a slice of her horn, as she had once done on Rushima, it could not serve all of the stricken for all of their illnesses. For that reason and many others, the Linyaari tried not to allow others to realize that it was their horns that healed and purified water and air. But until she analyzed the causative agent of the disease that had decimated Temple cats all over Makahomia, she couldn’t hope to vanquish the illness merely by curing these few victims of it.

  “I will do what I can before I leave,” she said finally. “Meanwhile, introduce no other cats—”

  At that point, RK half jumped, half fell among them. At first Acorna thought the big fellow was faking it to gain access to Grimla, but he did not spring back up when he landed, even though Pash was growling menacingly at him. He gave the smallest, saddest mew Acorna had ever heard him utter. In case she hadn’t got the point, he sent her a feeble transmission, along with a pitiful vocalized mew.

  (I don’t feel so good,) he said.

  (I did warn you,) she told him silently. By now the other cats hopped up to surround him.

  “What Temple is guarded by this one?” Miw-Sher asked. “Is he from the steppes?”

  “No,” Acorna said, lifting RK’s considerable bulk. Since he had acquired the disease apparently between one breath and the next, he had had no time to lose weight and was his usual hefty self. She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t wish to have anyone seek to execute her or Becker or anyone else for being in RK’s company. “He is my friend and Captain Becker’s, who came with us on our spaceship. Not a very wise cat, but a friend nevertheless.”