“I see. RK—that is, I was looking over the city wall earlier, and they are slaughtering hundreds and hundreds of animals. Have you any veterinary medicines aboard which might combat the disease? I can heal some of the creatures, of course, but I’m afraid my—uh—supplies will not hold out for so many.”
“I have a couple of things that might work. I got some wagons with those tall goat-type critters to pull them coming to pick up these supplies first thing in the morning. I asked Becker if I could take the Viking guys with me for muscle. We get along pretty well using sign language, and their Standard isn’t as bad as Becker said.”
“Mac and I have been working on their language skills,” Acorna told him.
“Yeah, Mac is really okay with me. I never liked androids before, but he doesn’t seem much like one—more like just a really smart, strong guy. A little quirky, of course, but that’s part of his charm. Anyway, I’d love to have him along. He’s been a big help and he’s stronger than all of us put together, but Becker says he qualifies as technological taint, and if we can’t even smuggle a little radio out past the gate, we sure as hell can’t take Mac.”
“Yes, I can see where that might be a problem. It is probably for the best for Mac to remain, anyway. I think Becker may need him on the Condor. Mac will need to familiarize himself with all the new modifications Becker is putting in.”
“Was there something special you wanted, hon? Other than meds for the animals? Somehow, I think that was just a little bitty excuse to get you up my ladder.”
“You are correct, Captain MacDonald. Becker has the ship all torn up, installing new equipment. I wish to contact our home base and my own people again, if it isn’t too much trouble. We never intended to be away for so long, and I…am hoping for some news.”
“Thought so. Be my guest,” he said, leaving her to it.
To Acorna’s relief, she was able to communicate with MOO without problems. She was so glad to hear Melireenya’s voice and see her face on the com screen she almost wept.
Melireenya was effusive. “Khornya! Oh, it is good to hear from you again. Maati has come up to the moon, and Neeva is here as well. And Hafiz will want to speak to you, and Miiri and Kaarlye and the aagroni. Oh, and—what is it, Thariinye? Yes, I’ll tell her. Thariinye says to say hello.”
Acorna had to laugh, since she was not, after all, going to let herself weep, which would have been highly inappropriate under the circumstances. How like Thariinye to have to be in the middle of things! “Hello to Thariinye, too, then. And to everyone. Is there any word from Aari?”
“I truly can’t say. I haven’t heard anything myself. Wait! Maati is here. She would know.”
Maati’s face appeared on the com screen. How grown-up she looked! “Khornya! How are you? We miss you! When will you be back?”
“Captain Becker has received assistance in repairing the Condor from the Federation troops stationed on this planet, and he thinks it will not be much longer before the ship is operational. But there are some problems here that may need our attention before we can return. Have you heard…anything?”
“Well, a few anomalies have been showing up, but they don’t have anything to do with Aari exactly, but maybe he’s closer than he was, hmmm? It’s nothing much, really, but we’ve been wondering—oh, here’s the aagroni.”
“Khornya, have you interviewed any Makahomian subjects about the relationship between Riidkiiyi and our pahaantiyirs?”
“Aagroni, they are having something of a crisis here. Many of the Temple cats died before we arrived. We were able to save four, and I am told others still survive, but for how long, I don’t know. I—I really can say no more on this channel. I will of course learn what I can.”
“I thought the cats were held sacred by those people?” Karina Harakamian broke in.
“Yes, they are. But being held sacred is not necessarily protection against an epidemic. Other animals are dying, too. You can see that I must help.”
“Of course you must, Khornya,” said Miiri, joining the others. Each of their faces was now visible in a separate window on the com screen.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can. It probably won’t be too long,” Acorna said, but she felt desolate. If they were free to go soon, it would only be because they had failed in their mission to save the cats of other Temples and all the other animals in trouble. And yet she felt, seeing the faces and hearing the voices of her friends, as if she couldn’t bear to wait until she could embrace each of them again. Their farewells sounded sad and concerned as she ended her transmission. Now she had worried them about her, too, and not just Aari.
And what was it Maati meant about “little anomalies” that might indicate evidence concerning Aari?
Before returning to the Temple, Acorna asked Captain MacDonald when he would be leaving. “Kando is sending some men and wagons over to help us load up first thing in the morning,” he replied.
That information could prove useful, she thought. While she remained determined that the former Brother Bulaybub’s fate was not in her hands, it wouldn’t hurt to mention to Nadhari and Miw-Sher about the wagons.
She returned to the Condor. The Federation technicians and their vehicles were gone. Becker apparently saw her, for the robolift descended to meet her.
“Hiya, Princess,” Becker said, meeting her at the robolift deck and slipping his arm through hers chummily. “We are once more fully operational, you’ll be glad to hear, and can leave whenever we’re ready.”
“That is very good news, Captain,” Acorna said. They ascended to the bridge and folded themselves into the command chairs, turning the chairs to face each other. “You certainly got those repairs done in record time.”
“Yeah,” Becker said, pleased. “Apparently the Mulzar put in a word for us and Dsu Macostut couldn’t send me help fast enough. These guys know what they’re doing when they’re using their own stuff. They—uh—had a few problems with my adaptations, but mostly they thought they were really—what was the word?—oh, yeah, inventive.”
“You are that. I wonder why the Mulzar decided to be so helpful.”
“Nadhari, maybe?” Becker frowned. “But then, he is kinda wanting to be a kissin’ cousin with her, from what I can tell, so I don’t think he’d be in any hurry for us to leave and take her with us.”
“Unless her going with us isn’t a part of his plan,” Acorna suggested.
“Oh, I don’t think he could keep her…she, uh, hasn’t said anything about wanting to stay, has she?”
“Not to me. Not so far,” Acorna said. “But the Mulzar is used to ruling. Perhaps he isn’t used to considering the wishes of his women.”
“Do ya think? Naaah. He’s okay. In fact, I’ve enjoyed getting to know him a little. He’s a little high-handed sometimes, but you know, he’s trying to do just what the old-time high kings did—unify his world and rule it so they can get on with progress instead of everybody fighting everybody else all the time. Like King Arthur and Camelot, except Camelot wasn’t cat-shaped.”
“No, I suppose not. But I wonder how united the world will stay and at what cost its unity will come. I wonder how often he will use violence and war to subdue the other peoples.”
“You gotta break some eggs when you make—uh—scrambled eggs, Acorna,” Becker told her. He sounded a little irritated with her. Acorna guessed that was because she was questioning a concept integral to the belief system of most humans—that some things had to be fought for. Perhaps because she had been raised among humans, she actually shared that belief to some degree. The Khleevi had needed fighting. They’d needed killing, in fact, and Acorna had arranged to kill them all. She’d done it gladly and would do it again in the same situation. Other humans—bad ones, like Edacki Ganoosh, were also no great loss, in her opinion. But she didn’t think Edu Kando would bother sorting out the good from the bad—or that his criteria for sorting them if he did would necessarily be based on their worth as individuals or their moral value.
“You’ve got him wrong,” Becker said. “He doesn’t want to make war on everybody. He’s sent food and supplies to the other parts of Makahomia to try to help people.”
That surprised Acorna, who had heard nothing of it.
“I’m very relieved. I was afraid he might mind when I leave the city tomorrow to try to heal some of the other animals who have been stricken by plague. RK has particular concerns about the Temple cats elsewhere on the planet.”
“He does? He told you that, did he?” Becker asked, twisting to glower up from under his eyebrows at his first mate, who was curled on the high back of his command chair.
“Yes, he did. RK is fully telepathic when he feels like it, though he appears unable or unwilling to use more than his standard forms of communication unless he’s decided it’s an emergency.”
“The old rascal,” Becker said, scratching the first mate’s head. “I always knew he was smarter’n most people.”
“So, from what you say, the Mulzar should be happy that I am going to help with the epidemic, even though the illness is in other lands. That is very good news indeed. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to discuss it with him this evening. If so, I’d better hurry. Are you coming?”
“Not tonight. I need to wait here till Mac and the Wats return from the Traveler, and go over the new equipment with Mac. Besides, it’s hot down there and we have central air again!”
Acorna smiled. “So we do.”
Becker said, “But holler at me before you go tomorrow. I don’t want you going off alone.”
“Oh, I won’t. I will probably start out with Captain MacDonald and the Wats. And perhaps Miw-Sher will be with me, and probably Nadhari as well. It will be slow traveling with those wagons, though. I may have to strike out alone, perhaps even with your help, if I am to be of any use to the other cats before they die.”
“Well, Kando said the cats in their Temple were the first ones to get sick. News of the others has been coming in slowly. Don’t worry, Princess, you will be in time. I’m betting on it.”
Thirteen
When Edu Kando decided to examine the body of the murder victim a second time, and much more closely, he realized his investigators had misidentified the corpse. The dead man was not Bulaybub.
His suspicions were triggered when the surgeon asked Kando to return to the infirmary, because he had found something he didn’t believe belonged to the missing priest.
But what Kando noticed immediately was the state of the corpse’s skin. What there was left of it was not decomposing normally. The stench of decomposition filled the room. Kando didn’t mind the stench, associating it as he did with victor’s spoils, which were most often enjoyed while the former defenders of a place rotted within sight of their newly enslaved families. It was a familiar and comforting odor for him. His enemies were dead and he was not, the stench always assured him.
What concerned him was that the legs, the oddly undamaged arms, and the back of this corpse had a leatheriness usually associated with the secretive members of the Aridimi priesthood, who all but mummified themselves while they still lived.
While Kando was pointing this out to the surgeon, the man brought forth a stone.
“I found it when I examined the neck wounds, Mulzar. Its size alone told me that this was not Bulaybub’s amulet stone. And when I had washed the blood from it, I was shocked. See its fine golden color and the pale yellow pupil that shines in its midsection?”
Kando held up the stone and admired it. It was finer even than his own.
“You are indeed an observant man, Dinan. Bulaybub did not possess such a treasure as this.”
What he did not say to the doctor was that he could guess who did.
Edu glanced down at the corpse, staring into the hole where the face had been, and tried to reconstruct from his memory the man who would have worn that stone. He’d have been little more than a boy when Kando had last seen him.
The top of the skull was intact. Most of the damage had been done to the soft tissue of the face. “Wash the blood from the skull where the midsection of the forehead might have been.”
“The bone is splintered and cracked, Mulzar, and many pieces are missing.”
“Still, there may be enough left for my purposes,” Kando said.
When the woman with the washbasin had come and cleaned the bone until it shone, Kando said, “Aha!” and pointed to the indentation in a piece that had cracked off and embedded itself deeply in the tissue. “You see that little dent there? Who do you think would bear such a thing?”
“I—I don’t know, Mulzar. Was the fracture not inflicted with the other wounds?”
“No, no. Can you not see? There is nothing fresh about this wound. I will tell you who might have such a mark, Dinan. One who has undergone initiation into the highest orders of the Aridimi priesthood.”
“Ahh,” the man said, staring from the wound to Kando and back again, still clearly puzzled.
“As part of their initiation, the skin of an Aridimi priest’s forehead is opened, the bone scraped, and a holy stone is embedded there, for the skin to heal around, so that the priest’s inner eye is always open thereafter.”
“Hm,” Dinan said.
“Barbaric, isn’t it? Yes, I can see that you think so. The skin you see here on the body’s extremities, as yet untouched by decay, is also a mark of that breed. Instead of keeping their bodily fluids flowing, these Aridimi holies purposely do without water almost up to the point of death, until they require less and less. Their skins are dried out almost as if they were salted. You see the result here.”
“I do not think I would care to be quite that pious, Mulzar, if you will forgive my heresy.”
Kando flashed one of his roguish grins. “Although I am the high priest, I find many of these old superstitious customs extreme and unnecessary. This poor fellow may have met death happily, since he went to such painful extremes in what he called a life. Let us turn him over and see if there is anything else that might help us identify him to his fellows, since we do not now know who he is, only that he is an Aridimi priest and not our good Brother Bulaybub.”
As if they were equals, Kando helped Dinan turn the corpse to its side. There he saw the last of the proof he needed, the puckered scar from a spear wound on the man’s right flank. There was no longer any doubt in Kando’s mind. The corpse was all that remained of Fagad Haral sach Pilau, his steppe-brother, born among the Aridimis but captured by the nomadic warriors on the same campaign that netted Kando himself.
“Oh,” the Mulzar said as if shocked.
“What is it, Mulzar?” Dinan asked.
“This man is well known to me—from my youth. He was close to me and was no doubt murdered on his way to see how he might be of service to me now that I am Mulzar. Poor Fagad!”
“Perhaps the Mulzar should allow me to finish the examination of his friend and prepare the body for its final journey to the stars. The Mulzar does not look well.”
The Mulzar did not feel well. He felt angry and thwarted. When he first returned from his Federation training, Fagad was one of the few people besides Bulaybub who did not turn away from him. When he began winning battles and accumulating power, Kando recognized the strategic advantage of his brother’s rare Aridimi heritage and sent him back to his native territory to insinuate himself into the priesthood and to learn the sect’s most closely guarded secret, the knowledge of the sacred stones—how to use them best, where they came from, and how to acquire them.
Over the years, Fagad had sent infrequent messages of his progress, but Kando had counted on him as a secret resource, his most promising hope for a relatively easy conquest of the Aridimi stronghold.
And now here he lay upon this slab. Kando was sure Fagad must have been bringing him the intelligence he most desired; indeed, this was why he was killed. Fagad had no other reason to come to this city, except to seek him out once all the Aridimi secrets had been revealed to him. Had Bulaybub seen what attacked Fagad? The missi
ng priest must have tried to protect him. But if so, where was Bulaybub, the second most valuable resource at Kando’s command, and why was he missing?
Possibly the slayer of Fagad had also killed Bulaybub in the attack—but if so, again, where was Bulaybub’s body? Where indeed?
Were the death of one of Edu’s greatest resources and the disappearance of the other related? They had to be.
Kando turned to the physician and said, “What can we glean from all of this evidence, my learned Dinan?”
Dinan shrugged and looked at Kando’s face for clues. It would not do for his version to be very different from the Mulzar’s. “Why, that the beast—or the man with the help of a beast—who murdered your Aridimi friend made sure its ferocious attack destroyed all signs of the victim’s station in life, Mulzar. Possibly the beast ate the evidence. After the attack, perhaps the beast carried off Brother Bulaybub for later consumption.”
Kando nodded. “Even so, Dinan. Even so. Tell me, have you often in your long career encountered wounds such as these?”
Dinan considered. “As severe as these? Never. Nor any made with such apparent deliberation. But similar, yes. As you know, Lord, I am a Purin tribesman by birth, a man of the steppes. When my kin raided the Makavitians, as you also know, we often used stealth and traps. Solitary heroes among our people volunteered to pick off the leaders one at a time, or carry off the most desirable slaves in lieu of or preceding a direct frontal attack on a village. From time to time, one of these solitary fighters would be found in such a condition—that is, if he screamed where he could before he died. If he did not, and this was most often the case, his body was never found at all. But those few who screamed—they were less than a handful—have I laid out with these sorts of wounds, that seemed to be made by an impossibly large cat.”
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