Acorna's Rebels

by Anne McCaffrey

  “But the lieutenant commander already gave his consent,” Acorna insisted, “and High Priest Kando requested that I help with the illness among the Temple cats. I am on a mission regarding that illness now.”

  “I’m sorry, Ambassador, but I am not authorized to grant you random access to and from the civilian sector. Sets a dangerous precedent. These people are a lot of alien savages, though it’s not diplomatic of me to say so. Why, look down the street, will you? Can you hear the ruckus? See it. They’ve been carrying on like that for quite some time now. And who is that woman on the roof?”

  Acorna peered down the street. Two blocks over, Nadhari was outlined against the first watery rays of the first sunrise. She was looking down. Someone was weeping. “That’s Commander Kando. She came with us on this ship. But she is from here originally,” Acorna told the guard. “It looks like she needs some help. If you don’t mind, I’ll just go see what’s going on,” she continued, skirting around the rubbernecking guard and skipping away from her before the woman looked down again. “I know you cannot desert your post. I’ll just check to see what happened, render any needed assistance, and be back to let you know what it’s about.” When the guard started toward her, clearly intending to detain her, Acorna ran up the street, calling back, “No, no, you should stay at your post. I will be back later with the details.” The guard, torn between duty and curiosity, finally resumed her place by the gate.

  If RK was ahead of her, Acorna saw no sign of him. The cat didn’t respond when she sought his thoughts. Perhaps he was still put out with her over the blood drawing.

  Approaching the knot of people, Acorna looked up and asked Nadhari, “What happened here?”

  The warrior priests turned on her. “Who are you?”

  “Look at it!” one of them said, pointing at her. “It has a horrible horn in the middle of its head. It’s a demon! It must have been what killed Bulaybub.”

  Nadhari leaped to the ground as lightly as RK might, managing to land between Acorna and the armed men. “Steady, Brothers. This lady is not a demon or a killer. She is the ambassador from a world of wonderful peaceful beings called the Linyaari and a guest of my cousin, Edu, your high priest. She is also the doctor who healed your sacred Temple cats.”

  The poor woman whose house they clustered around seemed to Acorna to be in great distress. She smelled of illness, but that didn’t explain the bloody trail leading from her home.

  The woman shrank from Acorna. Before Acorna could try to gain her trust and form a mental bond with her, she heard RK’s thought-speech, (This blood belongs to the one I saw last night. He is not a ritual dancer. He is one of us, and yet not one of us. He is injured, and he has the sickness.)

  “There is a murderer loose, Ambassador,” the head warrior priest told Acorna. “Someone or something murdered Brother Bulaybub. We believe that the same person or thing has left this trail behind.”

  “I see,” Acorna said. “That makes sense, but why do you say thing?”

  “Because what was done to our brother wasn’t done by any human hand. He was clawed to death, gutted—”

  Nadhari interrupted, sparing the woman householder the details. “Were you acquainted with Brother Bulaybub?” she asked the house’s inhabitant.

  The woman shook her head wildly.

  Acorna mentally reached out for RK, but he shrugged off her mental touch. He was moving away rapidly.

  (I am on the case, Acorna. I go now to chase the sick one down. I would bring him back to you, but he is very big.)

  (He is also dangerous. He killed a man.)

  (Oh, yessss,) RK hissed, and she could see his tail lashing. (But I too can be dangerouss.)

  She knew that. She had seen him attack the Wats when they had tried to kill Thariinye and her. But while RK was much larger than a domestic cat, he was much smaller than a tiger or a lion.

  (I must take the vaccine to the Temple. Please, if you find him, hide and tell me. I will get help.)

  (The first pounce is mine,) RK said fiercely.

  (You’ve been aboard ship too long, Roadkill. Just see that you don’t live up to your name. Becker would be heartbroken.)

  But the intrepid animal wasn’t listening. He was on the scent and stalking his prey.

  Nine

  The tasty tang of fresh blood, the deeply torn tracks of claws, the warmth of fresh footprints, these were a few of RK’s favorite things, even if he hadn’t realized it until presented with them.

  He felt that his years of being first mate on the salvage vessel had all been leading up to this, his true calling, stalker in the dark of things even darker. Yes, he was in his element now. He had found his calling. Seeker after hidden truths, defender of that which was good, righteous, his. Destroyer of that which he didn’t like.

  He alone could rise to this occasion. The other felines, the Temple residents whose job this might otherwise have been, were still too weak from their long illness. Frankly, they were a bit over the hill, anyway. Becker had no liking for damaged organic things, which were not useful as salvage. Nadhari had other rats to catch. Acorna was…was…well, she might be useful, once RK was able to lay out the facts for her like a neatly assembled row of cleanly killed rodents, but for this kind of tracking she was not suitable. She was too conspicuous, too alien, too white and silvery and glistening, and she smelled too good. And she was too tall. She might come in handy as an assistant operative later on in the game. But this kind of job called for someone closer to the ground, someone whose heart beat with the planet’s underlying rhythm.

  Someone like him.

  It helped too that he had actually seen what he considered to be the chief murder suspect—that roof-hopping cat impersonator. For all his poetic thoughts about being close to the ground, he soon took to the roofs instead, following the scent of his prey. This was better sport than tracking Khleevi, who were so stinking obvious even Becker could track them.

  As the suns rose, more people came out of their lairs and started walking around in the streets below. RK smelled smoke, though it didn’t issue from any of the roofs. He realized that he had actually been smelling it ever since he arrived on this world, but that the smoke was old and no longer had flame behind it. It hung in the air like the red dust and made his nose itch and sting. It carried an unpleasant odor made more unpleasant by the fact that what could have been the lingering scent of a cook fire was overlain with that of singed hair and the stench of rotting meat. RK wouldn’t have turned his nose up at that sort of thing if he was hungry enough, but never once since Becker rescued him from a derelict ship had he ever been that hungry.

  The trail had started with spurts of blood on the ground, but that smell disappeared and the scent changed, as RK followed it over the rooftops. The traces of the killer’s passing were soon augmented by another type of sign—hairs. The cat impersonator was shedding his fur. That seemed a strange thing for a cat wannabe to do, especially since the killer was shedding it a tuft here, a hair there, instead of ditching an entire hide—and RK did not even want to think how the suspect had come to possess that. The early discarded tufts were black, which jibed with RK’s shadowy memory of the felonious feline or felinious felon—he wasn’t sure which applied.

  The suns rose higher until the roof tiles under RK’s feet were hot enough that, had his particular paw pads not been blessed with extra fur between the toes, they might have been toast. About this time he caught other, fainter scents and found a tuft of golden fur caught between two tiles, and later three striped hairs similar to his own.

  He looked around, sniffing, curling his outer lips to try to pick up a keener scent that way. Other cats had been here within the last day or two. He had received the impression that the only others of his kind in this city were the four remaining Temple cats, but that idea appeared to be wrong.

  He sat and considered the roof-scape around him. Although all of the roof surfaces were flat, they were not all the same height. Second floors, little spare rooms, and
other irregularities threw sharp shadows onto the broader baked-red roofs.

  RK assumed his best thinking position, which was spread out to absorb the maximum warmth through his furry parts. He was now at the city’s outer wall, and beyond it was the countryside, such as it was. He saw huge charred circles in the red dirt where big bonfires had been, and, being driven toward them, herds of various sorts of beasts, some of them familiar, some more distinctly alien.

  Some of the beasts were already being herded into pens, and into long lines of troughs. On both sides of the troughs, men with big knives and bloody clothing stood waiting. RK felt a certain fang-thrilling fascination with all this gory slaughter, but it wasn’t the particular kind of murder he had set out to investigate. He saw a small cloud of black and white hair bounce across a roof just north of the one he occupied, also abutting the city wall.

  To his surprise, he found that the trail now led him in a spiral back inward toward the Temple to a rooftop only two streets away from where he started. The trail had been fresher than he thought. Had the suspect been there when the investigation began, RK knew he would have sniffed him out without the circumnavigation.

  Now, within sight of the bloodied doorway, he smelled something from the deep shadow cast by a rooftop storage room. Approaching, he saw a foot—or was it a paw? No, a foot wearing a strange shoe. Perhaps even a black furry shoe with claws on. No. RK reached out a paw as far as it would stretch and touched the long pad. Paw. With a foot-shaped sole.

  And this close he heard something, too. Very shallow, very fast. The exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide by a pair of good-sized lungs.

  RK jumped to the top of the storage cubicle and looked down. A man who wore his ears on top of his head, with paw-feet and paw-hands, whose belly was bare flesh streaked with blood, lay there. A yard of black tail curled around one thigh. And as RK watched, as the man/cat breathed, his tail appeared and disappeared, and his ears pricked to the top of his head and lowered to the human position. This fellow was extremely undecided about his species, RK realized. He was also badly hurt and depleted.

  RK was disappointed. The guy looked more murdered than murderous. He nosed the suspect a little and almost automatically the paw turned into more of a hand and gave RK’s back a feeble stroke. Okay, maybe not all murderers were bad murderers.

  It was time to get Acorna, he realized. Of course, he could get Becker or Nadhari, but they wouldn’t necessarily understand what he needed, and he’d have to explain it to them in charades, which took time. Thought-talk with Acorna was faster. Also, she could heal this creature if she arrived in time. None of the others could do that.

  The man gave a groan that was half a yowl. RK knew speed was of the essence, but after all, injured parties needed encouragement to maintain their will to live. Besides, nobody was watching. Nobody would see him.

  He hopped down beside the suspect, and rumbling a reassuring purr, thoroughly but quickly washed the man-cat’s pain-sweaty face for him, then bounded away across the rooftops to that ridiculous cat-shaped Temple.

  Acorna stared at the chief warrior priest. She wondered how to change the subject from the murder investigation to the vaccination of future Temple cats, when Miw-Sher came racing out.

  “Mem-Baxi, here you are! And you are well?”

  “Very well. I brought the medicine I spoke of,” she said, handing it to the young acolyte. “Here it is, enough for all your cats, with full instructions for its use. Now I must return to the Temple to seek transportation, or perhaps it would be better if I got maps and directions, if I am to save the cats from all the other Temples all across the planet.”

  “Other Temples?”

  “Why, yes,” Acorna said. “I assume this Temple is not the only one on the planet, and also not the only one guarded by sacred cats. If this is a widespread problem, as seems likely, and if other cats are stricken, I must treat them, too.”

  “His Holiness will never allow that,” the chief warrior priest said sternly.

  “No? I find that surprising. I thought all the cats were sacred to those of your religious persuasion—regardless of affiliation. Nadhari, you never told me some cats were sacred and others should be allowed to die.”

  Nadhari shrugged. “It was not that way when I lived here, Ambassador Acorna. I’m sorry. You know how governments are. Change of policy every time you think you understand what’s going on.”

  “I really must speak to the Mulzar, then. Miw-Sher, perhaps you would escort me back to the Temple?”

  “I’ll go, too, Acorna.” Nadhari dusted her hands off, as if washing the site from them. “The Mulzar has the investigation in hand, I believe. Miw-Sher and I came only to see that your trip last night was safe. With the murderer abroad, we feared you might have come to harm.”

  “I was fine,” Acorna said. “That poor priest must have been killed while Miw-Sher and I were with the cats.”

  “Is it true that you cured our guardians, Lady?” the chief of warrior priests asked her.

  “They are still underfed and weak from their illness, but they were working on remedying that themselves when last I saw them,” Acorna told him.

  “Perhaps one of them will be well enough to help us track our killer,” Nadhari said. “We should return to the Temple and see.”

  When they arrived back at the Temple, they discovered that Becker had waited up for them, though Captain MacDonald had retired some time earlier, pleading that he wasn’t worth much unless he’d had enough sleep.

  “Girls, there you are!” Becker greeted Acorna and Nadhari, with a glance that included Miw-Sher. “Sweet Mother Nature, but I’m glad to see you, Acorna! Where have you been?”

  “I was perfectly safe, Captain, on the Condor. I wanted to develop a vaccine to prevent further outbreaks of the disease afflicting the cats. I had…” She realized that she’d been about to say that she had RK with her, but she thought better of it as Edu Kando strode into the hall. “…assistance.”

  “There’s a nasty people-eating monster out there,” Becker told her. “But one with thumbs—it garrotes its victims first. You shoulda seen the corpse.”

  “I know,” Acorna said. “The priests and Nadhari found a trail they think is the murderer’s. I ran into them as they were investigating it.”

  Edu Kando was scowling as he rounded the corner, but by the time he reached them his expression had turned to benevolent concern. “Cousin and esteemed guests, I owe you all an apology. We have offered you the hospitality of our Temple, and then we keep you up till all hours with our own petty problems. Please, you must rest. It is cool in your rooms, and I will personally guarantee it will remain quiet outside of them until you have slept. Afterward, you will no doubt be hungry again. Perhaps at that time you and I, Ambassador, can discuss your mission?”

  “Yes,” Acorna said, “thank you. I am very tired. A morning consultation is ideal for me. I have a matter of some importance to discuss with you.”

  “Have a nice night, Acorna. I’m going back out to track the murderer,” Nadhari said.

  “My men will deal with that, cousin,” Kando told her. “If you are wakeful, I would love to spend time talking with you. You must learn what has happened here in your absence.”

  Becker said, “Sounds fascinating. I’d like to know all about that, too.”

  Kando said smoothly, “Alas, Captain, there are concepts my cousin and I must speak of that may be expressed only in our own language.”

  “That’s fine,” Becker said stubbornly. “Nadhari can translate for me. I’m feeling really out of my depth here, Mulzar. I want to find out what’s happening.”

  Nadhari gave him a fond smile and a pat on the cheek. “You look tired, Jonas. And it will be family news, very boring—”

  “If you say so,” Becker agreed finally.

  She gave him a light peck on the cheek and whispered, “I’ll be fine. If not, you can rescue me again. You know I love it when you do that. It’s so cute.”

 
“I’ll wait up,” Becker said, brightening. He was a little puzzled. He simply didn’t want to be left out. He hadn’t actually thought Nadhari needed rescuing.

  Acorna watched the byplay between them, amused. Becker was, if anything, a little jealous, Acorna thought. If she was reading him correctly, he rather admired Kando. The name King Arthur kept surfacing in Becker’s mind when he thought of Nadhari’s cousin—that, and El Cid.

  A young Temple girl Acorna hadn’t seen before showed them to their rooms and brought them cool drinks. When the girl had gone, Acorna took her glass to the room across the corridor, where Becker half reclined, lifting his own glass to his lips. It was quite a beautiful vessel, its shape and design suggesting a more decorative aspect of what seemed to be an otherwise rather basic and utilitarian culture.

  “Wait, Captain,” Acorna said. “Please, hand me your glass before you drink.”

  He did and she dipped her head, touching the tip of her horn to the liquid.

  “You don’t think it was poisoned?” Becker asked, chagrined.

  “No, but I believe it may possibly have been drugged with a sleeping potion. Edu was apparently serious about ensuring our good night’s rest. While I intend to sleep, I think it would be best if we both are able to awaken naturally to any stimuli that would normally pull us from sleep. We are on a strange planet. There is a murderer loose. I wish to take no chances.”

  Becker shook his head admiringly. “You’re good at this palace intrigue stuff—’scuse me, Temple intrigue stuff, Princess. Maybe you really are related to old Hafiz.”

  Acorna smiled, dipped her horn in her own drink, and returned to the room assigned to her. She had left the door open and when she re-entered, she saw by the light of the lantern a bouquet of flowers in a wall sconce. She examined them. All of them were edible varieties of a most delicious kind. She was getting rather peckish, in spite of having grazed briefly in the hydroponics garden aboard the Condor. She sipped lightly at her drink, then stuck the flowers in the remainder of it so she could have a little breakfast when she awoke without troubling anyone about her dietary requirements. Putting her hoofed feet under the soft woven quilted coverlet, she felt a soft resistance. Looking down, she saw Grimla, who raised her face at Acorna’s gentle touch and purred loudly.