Acorna's Rebels

by Anne McCaffrey

  Bulaybub inhaled sharply. “Nadhari,” he said, and his voice was filled with pain, pain that clearly had nothing to do with his recent wounds. “You must listen to me,” he said, “I know the Mulzar is your relative, but all is not as he would have you think.”

  Nadhari looked at the priest more closely, though it was hard to distinguish features in the windowless room with only the light from the roof hole to illuminate it. “Of course it isn’t. Do you think I’m a fool? But I’m a bit surprised to hear you admit Edu might be misleading us, Brother Bulaybub. I thought you were Edu’s righthand man.”

  From the way Nadhari and Bulaybub spoke to each other, Acorna gathered that she was not the only one in the room with secrets to keep. Everyone here, probably including the cats, obviously had agendas heretofore unshared with her.

  The Temple cats lounged around and upon the various bits of furnishings and architectural irregularities in a manner designed to make a decorative display. They groomed themselves while Miw-Sher, with a frightened glance at Nadhari, gave her uncle sips of water. None of the cats, however, seemed to feel that anything that was happening was especially strange or upsetting. Even RK curled up beside Bulaybub and purred.

  “Wait,” Acorna said. “Before we get into politics, Nadhari, may I ask a few basic questions? Brother Bulaybub, last night you changed from a man to a large cat, and back again. You changed up there on the roof, too. I saw it myself, and so did RK. How did that happen?”

  “He did?” Nadhari asked. “I wish I’d come earlier. I’m sorry I missed it. Go ahead, Brother. I want to hear the answer to that one.”

  “I would have told you sooner or later, if only you had stayed, Nadhari,” Bulaybub told her.

  “Why should I have stayed? You wouldn’t see me. Your family wouldn’t allow me to come near you. You weren’t even talking to Edu back then. As I recall, you didn’t like him in those days.”

  “I didn’t, I—”

  “Please,” Acorna said. “Obviously you two have a history and equally obviously it must be part of this, but it can wait. Answer my questions, Brother Bulaybub.”

  “And that name!” Nadhari said, strong emotion causing her for once to override Acorna’s attempts to make sense of the conversation. “How did you come up with that one, Tagoth?”

  (The plot thickens,) RK told Acorna. (I’m loving this!)

  “You two are not helping matters,” Acorna said. “Before the guards come looking for us, Brother Bulaybub, or Tagoth, or whoever you are, I need answers. A lot of them. Please will you tell me why you turned into a cat? Who was the man who died? Did you kill him? If so, why? And what part in all this do Miw-Sher and the Temple cats play?”

  Acorna looked from Nadhari to the priest, and saw their eyes locked in a battle of wills. Acorna sent a little push to each, but neither budged.

  Miw-Sher sighed, set down the water jug, and said, “About the changing. Some of us do it. From a few families—especially those who have intermarried often with certain of the rainforest tribes. It started there. It’s a very rare gift these days. The families keep it a close secret when one of their children begins changing—usually there’s only one in a family at any time and the trait can skip a generation, my mother said. Uncle Tagoth changes, but his brothers did not. I—I change, too. It started with my courses. With boys the changing becomes apparent later, I was told. It was later with Uncle Tagoth, wasn’t it, Uncle?”

  “Hmm—yes,” he said, with a meaningful deepening of his glare at Nadhari. “Later.”

  “Sometimes the gift even vanishes,” Miw-Sher said. “If the choosing is right and just, and not tampered with by conquerors or war, the high priest is a holy person chosen by his or her blood for the position. When such a one dies in this life, in the next life, that one returns as one of the Temple guardians. All of the Temple cats here were once holy high priests and priestesses, lady,” the acolyte told Nadhari.

  “And when a guardian dies, if he or she wishes, the next lifetime may be a human one—but if so, it is to the tribes of the forest they are born, and when they are no longer children, they can resume their true form. Therefore, by our beliefs, my uncle and I have ourselves been high priests and guardians in our past lives.”

  “I was not fully informed about this aspect of your religion. Is there something in your teachings to explain how some of you came to possess this power?” Acorna asked, trying to sound as if she was merely confirming the information and not as if she was incredulous. In fact, she wasn’t—she had seen shape shifters before, on the Linyaari homeworld.

  “It is a gift left to us by the Star Cat. His own legacy of strength and agility and the ability to bond with the Temple guardians, who were also his gifts to us, as were many of the other great beasts which once roamed our world. Before the coming, we were poor and miserable, weak, barely able to survive. With his gifts, a few among us learned to live on this world, to breathe with its wind and to move like its waters. These few strong ones taught the others and saved them.”

  “I was never taught that,” Nadhari said. “My mother was a high priestess. She didn’t change into a cat, and the people around me saved only themselves. If they saved others, it was to make slaves of them.”

  “A woman does not change until her courses begin. And she no longer does so once life quickens inside her,” Tagoth who had been Bulaybub said almost accusingly. “This is why a rainforest tribeswoman, among her own people, is often kept untouched and unwed as long as possible. But it is not possible to keep her that way forever. Her own divinely altered self wishes to mate, and of course those men among her own people who know her secret wish her for a mate, that their children might have the power. And there is the tradition, even among the people of the steppe and those of the desert, that a rainforest woman must be bedded and bred as soon as possible. Which among our warring peoples can mean that getting the woman’s consent to the bedding and breeding isn’t part of the process. I have kept Miw-Sher close to me, Nadhari, and her secret I keep as if it were mine. Edu does not know, or he would use her as he has many others.”

  Now, there was a yawning door to a whole other nest of vipers, Acorna realized. She felt that while it was very important for Nadhari and Tagoth to air their past difficulties, it was not as germane to everyone’s current survival as her other question.

  “Were you protecting Miw-Sher when you murdered that man?” Acorna asked. “You did murder him, didn’t you?”

  “I prefer the term ‘terminated in self-defense,’” Tagoth said with a pained expression. “Ambassador, your kind may be a peaceful people, but we are not. Death and the killing of enemies is a matter of routine here. Such killings are often necessary if one is to survive. Yes, I killed the man the sentries found and believed to be me. But you saw the wound he dealt me first. I had not changed then. And it was not my feline form that did the killing. Not precisely, anyway. I’ll admit that had the moons not been on the rise, my strength and agility would have been less, and I would have been unable, wounded as I was, to slip behind him and use the badge of the very faith he was about to betray to destroy him.”

  He touched the leather thong still around his own neck, and turned it in his hands until the cat’s-eye jewel strung on it was in his hand. “I strangled him. The thong and the jewel cut off his breath so that he ended quickly, which was fortunate, for my wound was sapping my strength, and I still had great need of what little endurance I had.”

  RK made motions with his front paws as if he was digging in the cat sand and looked up inquiringly.

  Tagoth laughed and placed his hand on the cat’s head to stroke it. That gentle hand hardly looked capable of murder.

  “Yes, sacred one. That was next. The man bore other marks of office—the special office he had trained to fill so that he might later betray all that he learned to Edu Kando.”

  “What sort of marks?” Acorna asked. Tagoth and Nadhari were back in an eyelock, too busy watching each other to continue speaking unless prompt
ed.

  Miw-Sher said, pointing to her own forehead, “A sacred stone embedded in the forehead, here,” she said, indicating a spot above the bridge of her nose.

  Tagoth continued, finally looking away from Nadhari. “And on his chest and abdomen a ritual tattoo, a symbol that if read correctly is a map to the holiest of holy valleys, the lake of the stones. That was the knowledge he was bringing to Edu. I had to stop him. I did try to reason with him first, Ambassador. We were once boys together, once comrades. He attacked me rather than listen to my pleadings to keep the sacred knowledge secret, as he had vowed to the Temple. I do not kill often, and never without sufficient reason. For one in the service of Mulzar Kando I am considered mild-mannered, meek even. I told him you had come, as the prophecy foretold, and that soon we would be saved and set upon the right path, but he would not listen. He was not truly religious, and I suspect he was weary of pretending to be so. He did not believe me and I don’t think he would have cared if he had. He accused me of betraying Edu, and stabbed me, as you saw. And so I did—what I did.”

  “Perhaps you could explain why you think telling him of my arrival would have changed his course of action,” Acorna said. “Our landing here was an accident. Wasn’t it, Nadhari?”

  Nadhari looked at RK. Acorna, remembering the cat’s claim that he had brought them there, also looked at RK. RK suddenly found a dirty spot on his belly that needed washing. For his own unfathomable feline reasons, he was letting the humans sort this one out.

  Tagoth glanced down at the grooming guardian of Becker’s ship and nodded. “You came when you were supposed to, whether by accident or design. As it was destined, and as it was prophesied, you are here. If the blasphemer really cared about the good of our world and its peoples, he would have realized that your arrival canceled out any previous allegiance to secular powers. You will show us the way.”

  “I’m not at all sure what the way is,” Acorna said. “Possibly I should call the guard and have them collect you. You are a murderer, after all.”

  “Read him, Acorna,” Nadhari suggested. “Tagoth, if you let her, she can tell if you are speaking the truth or not.”

  Acorna considered that, then looked from RK, who flowed to his feet and began walking loudly back and forth across the room, to Nadhari and back to Tagoth. The Temple cats, who had been very quiet while their caretakers chattered, grew restive. Pash joined RK in patrolling the room, Sher-Paw took some experimental swipes at the door to try to open it, and Haji sat up stiffly and glared at all of the two-legged occupants of the room. Finally Grimla left the sanctuary of Miw-Sher’s skirts, leaped back up to the roof, and stood staring down at them.

  Their mental message was quite clear to Acorna. “Perhaps your faith says something about someone like me coming right now and that gives me some authority in your mind. I don’t know. I’m just visiting. Among my people, one of us killing another is unthinkable. Among humans, whole committees decide about such matters. If I have work to do on this world, it isn’t anything to do with your politics. Nadhari, you are a security officer. You know law enforcement, and you know this man and this planet. You are much better qualified than I am to judge how to help him or how to thwart him, whichever is called for.”

  Nadhari wore an expression quite foreign to her face, she looked genuinely abashed. “You’re right, of course, Acorna. You healed him and that’s all we should have asked. But you can’t heal everyone. You know you can’t. You will be too weak to stand if you attempt to halt this plague all by yourself.”

  “I know,” she said. “That’s why I need to speak to Captain Becker and Captain MacDonald.”

  “Jonas was working on the ship’s computers,” Nadhari said.

  “Yes, well, I’ll find him then.”

  “Go with her, Miw-Sher,” Tagoth said. “I can manage.”

  “You have to hide,” the girl said. “They’ll find you here.”

  “He could cover himself in blood and hide among the slaughterers,” RK suggested to Acorna, painting her a mind picture of what he had seen beyond the village.

  Acorna shook her head, horrified at the image the cat sent her. (I must get to them and help them. I can’t let all of this prevent me from doing what I can. Soon, RK. Soon.)

  To the others she said, “RK has sent me images of hundreds of domestic animals being slaughtered on the outskirts of the city for fear they have a disease. I must reach them if I am to heal them. And I certainly can’t if I sit around here all day. So what are we going to do about this man?”

  Nadhari had been searching the room and stood up, holding a pair of rough trousers and a long-sleeved, hooded tunic that reached her own knees when she held it up. “Tagoth, much as I like that scarf you’re wearing, you’re pretty obvious right now. If you want to blend in, you should put these on.”

  “I will. Nadhari, I know Miw-Sher will be safe with you. I must leave and warn the priests of the Aridimi Stronghold before Edu and his men find me here. They need to know the danger they’re in, and what Edu intends.” The priest pulled on the pants and slipped the robe over his head quickly, handing the scarf back to Miw-Sher when he’d finished.

  “Yes, do what you must, but be on the lookout for us,” Nadhari said. “Acorna can’t accomplish what she needs to here in the city. We’ll be leaving soon, too, and we could give you cover.”

  Nadhari didn’t sound like a police officer. Her voice was breathless and urgent, and she stood very close to the man for the first time, her eyes locking onto his.

  He smiled at her, turned, and skittered up the ladder. His body must have caught on to the fact that it was healed now, and he showed no trace of clumsiness or illness as he walked up onto the roof as if he were the house’s owner.

  “You there, girl, you and the healer should bring the mattress up here to air it,” he said, the image of a householder ordering around his children and slaves. Acorna and Miw-Sher each took an end of the filthy sack of straw—and fleas, who were quite healthy without Acorna’s help—and hauled it to the roof. Acorna was careful to keep the mattress between her and the street. Tagoth pulled the ladder up behind them and put it down again behind the house, in the narrow alley where the backs of the houses faced each other. At a nod from him, they climbed down and the cats swarmed around them.

  “What about Nadhari?” Acorna asked him.

  “She went out the front. Go! I’ll find cover. And I thank you for the healing.”

  Acorna nodded. She and Miw-Sher walked the length of the street in the garbage and filth that was stored behind the houses until they came to the end of the row. There Miw-Sher led them all to a well, drawing drinking water for the cats and wash water for her and Acorna to clean themselves with so as not to draw comment. Otherwise, anyone who saw them would wonder how they had managed to get so disheveled. Acorna was still in her dress uniform.

  They walked out into the main street. It was scorching hot in the bright light of midday.

  “There don’t seem to be many people about,” Acorna said to Miw-Sher.

  “They stay in and rest if possible while the suns are high,” Miw-Sher told her. “We should be free to move about the city. I don’t think anyone was paying attention to us. Grimla would have warned us.”

  RK stood on his hind paws and sank his claws into Acorna’s thigh. (Come on,) he thought.

  “I must leave you here. I’m being summoned,” Acorna told Miw-Sher just as Nadhari rounded a corner.

  “I’ll be fine,” Miw-Sher said. “Grimla and I look after each other.”

  Acorna nodded but lingered until Nadhari was within a few feet of them. Then she followed RK’s tail, which waved like a pennant ahead of her, leading her straight to the Federation post.

  Twelve

  Upon reaching the Condor, Acorna was disappointed to see Federation vehicles parked alongside and Federation technicians riding up and down the robolift with tools in hand.

  She sent a thought to the bridge. (Captain Becker, what are these people d
oing aboard the vessel?) She thought something might be wrong with the captain, that he might be injured or ill. He never allowed outside interference with his ship otherwise. But Becker’s thoughts were positively cheerful when he answered her.

  (They had a few odd scraps of this and that, even some new equipment they were never able to integrate into the old system. They’re letting me have it to replace the Khleevi stuff and repair the computers. It’s great, but they’re everywhere! I sent Mac with the Wats over to help our friend MacDonald so they wouldn’t get in the way. Mac was asking so many questions he made the federales nervous. We’ll be shipshape and ready to head out again in no time, at the rate these guys are going!)

  (Oh,) Acorna replied. (Good.)

  Even as she sent the thought to Becker, she was following RK’s tail once more, this time to the bay where the Arkansas Traveler was docked.

  She looked for a robolift until she noticed that this ship had a conventional entrance that could be accessed by a conventional gantry. As she registered that fact, a loading platform parked beside the scaffolding of the gantry began rising toward the hatch. Mac and Red Wat were riding the platform. Several oblong brownish objects sat at its base.

  RK waited at the foot of the gantry, his tail waving patiently, for her to catch up, then hopped on her shoulders as she climbed the more conventional ladder to the hatch.

  “Permission to come aboard, Captain?” she called. Mac and Red Wat had already disappeared inside the hatch by the time she and RK reached it.

  “Ambassador, honey, sure, you come right on in and make yourself at home. Can I fix you something? Cuppa caf maybe or some tea?”

  “No, I—may I ask what your project is?”

  “Feeding the masses, honey, feeding the masses. I’m taking the Makahomian farmers some of the Metleiter boxes I prepared.”

  “What are they?” Acorna asked.

  “Chemical beds that grow food without the need for much water. They’re not dependent on the ground soil. You left before we had the conversation, I think, but it sounded to me like this epidemic they have here might be caused by a contaminated food supply, which could be caused by contaminated soil. I can fix that—or at least show them how to fix it. If that’s the problem, those boxes and others like them will keep the people in food while we figure out what to do next.”