Acorna's Rebels

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Yeah. Looks like it,” Becker said.

  “Guess that leaves me with the Vikings to hoof it,” MacDonald said.

  But as Acorna climbed into the cockpit of the flitter, the sound of an approaching mounted force thundered from beyond the dunes. A dozen riders galloped up on the ancestor-like beasts and slid to a stop, raising a cloud of dust as they surrounded the wagons.

  “Raiders?” Acorna asked Tagoth and Nadhari.

  “Not necessarily,” Tagoth said. He put himself between the newcomers and the flitter and wagons, and said a few words to the riders in an unfamiliar dialect.

  Then he turned back to MacDonald. “These are the heads of families from the steppes beyond the Mog-Gim Plateau. They have heard from their relatives in the city that you have magic boxes that grow food, and that you can heal sick beasts. They want the boxes and the healing.”

  MacDonald smiled amiably at them and said, “That’s what we’re here for. This wagon right here is all yours, boys. Haul ’er away. As for the healing, I have a few tricks up my sleeve, but I haven’t tried ’em yet, so we’ll just have to see how much good I can do you on that score.”

  Acorna examined the sweating, straining beasts the men were riding. She could see the signs of the plague in them. Some of these animals would not make it back where they came from again if she and her friends did not intercede. She beckoned to MacDonald and picked up Pash, carrying him with her. He purred like a buzz saw in her arms.

  “Tagoth, please tell these gentlemen that Captain MacDonald and I will attempt to treat these sick beasts with the help of this sacred guardian cat,” Acorna said.

  Tagoth declared their intention in priestly intonations worthy of the Mulzar at his most pompous.

  “Okay, Ambassador, honey, what do we do now?” MacDonald whispered. “I can’t cure these critters on the spot, you know.”

  “With the help of the sacred cat, I can.”

  “If the sacred cat is so darned important, how come they needed you to cure them?”

  “Oh, it’s a healer’s thing. Most of the time a healer cannot heal him or herself.”

  “Okay, I guess I’ll buy that.”

  “You take that side of the beast and look clinical and busy. We’ll take this other side, and I’ll help Pash heal.”

  “Gotcha.” And aloud he said, “Lay on them healin’ paws, O holy cat!”

  Pash looked inquiringly at Acorna. She held Pash up to the beast and leaned in with the cat so that her horn touched the beast’s hide as she pretended to listen to Pash meow the results of this examination.

  The three of them repeated this operation with each of the sick beasts until MacDonald declared them cured, dusting his hands to emphasize that the task was done.

  “We have many more beasts that need curing, including our own sacred cats,” the man said. “And we want your food boxes.”

  “Okay,” MacDonald said agreeably, then turned to Acorna, “Whatcha think, Ambassador? How do we work this?”

  “You and the Wats drive a wagon behind the riders. If they will be so kind as to have one of their number lead us to their Temple, I will supervise the curing of their cats there while you demonstrate the use of the food boxes and examine their other beasts out in their fields. Then I will try to visit the rainforest Temple and heal their cats, and come back to see what I can do for the other beasts.”

  “Acorna,” Becker protested, “you’re gonna wear yourself out that way.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, raising and lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “But this is an emergency. We have a planet and a species to save. What else can we do? Lead the way, Captain MacDonald. We’ll be right along.”

  She looked around for Tagoth and Nadhari, but they both had somehow melted into the desert without anyone seeing them leave.

  She silently wished them well on their separate missions.

  As MacDonald jiggled his reins and clicked his tongue at the beasts pulling the first wagon in their little convoy, he was followed by the wagons driven by Sandy Wat and Red Wat. Just as they disappeared off in the distance, another party of people arrived, this time a group of mixed sexes and on foot.

  The stout woman who seemed to be their leader said to Acorna, “I watched you on the balcony with the Mulzar. So, are you going to help us or not?” She gave a nod toward the last wagonload of boxes, the one that Nadhari had driven, which was now driverless, its beast of burden seemingly pleased to be standing still instead of moving.

  “I am afraid we can’t remain here to help you right now,” Acorna said. “As I’m sure you know, the Mulzar wants to imprison us and kill the sacred cats, and we must save ourselves and them. But we can give you all the tools you need to help yourself. They are in that wagon, if you would like to have them.”

  “Well, then, we’ll take them with us. This thing can only slow you down and you cannot take it when you fly through the air, can you? When the Mulzar leaves to fight his battles, you and the spaceman come back and help us to use these. Fighting’s all very well for the warriors who’ll be able to live off our land, but with our beasts all gone and the drought and all, we farmers have no other options. We will starve.”

  “Not if you use those boxes. We will seek other answers for you as well. We are going abroad to other lands to see how they have dealt with the sickness.”

  “You do that. And keep our sacred cats safe, will you? Bring them back with those kittens you promised our people.”

  The woman’s face and voice were determined, but she winked at Acorna—or maybe it was Becker, since she wore a rather saucy expression as she flounced up onto the buckboard and clucked at the beasts, turned them, and waited while the rest of her party climbed aboard with the boxes before driving off again.

  It seemed that the Mulzar’s people had made their minds up after his balcony performance. And Acorna thought again that Edu Kando was in for a surprise when he learned who they believed and which side they were on.

  “Well, I can see you’ve been busy,” Becker said. “We’d better fly before anybody else shows up looking for help or a buddy to help start the revolution.”

  Acorna nodded and they ascended in the flitter, accelerating until they saw the dust from the various riders and the wagons. Flying past the riders close enough above them to be seen and yet not so close as to frighten the beasts, Acorna tipped the wings of the flitter. One rider broke off from the others and rode hard to the south, waving at her to follow. Acorna allowed the man to get ahead of them, then swooped after him.

  Soon they were no longer in the desert, but were sailing over broad foothills and plains, crisscrossed with rivers and streams—the landscape of the steppes she recalled from Nadhari’s mental images. They saw the Temple long before their guide reached it. It sat in the middle of a green river delta. The cat whose shape this temple bore was long and hunkered down to drink—its tongue was a drawbridge, now lowered, and its tail a wall to a moat. Guardian priests stood behind its ears.

  Surrounding it on the green were herds of beasts, and from the air a mile away Acorna could smell their sickness.

  Acorna said, “We should stop and help them.”

  RK replied, (Cats first. Those are just ordinary food animals. What good are they compared with the lives of Grimla’s and the guys’ fellow holy cats?)

  (You have no objection to eating those animals you disdain so much,) Acorna told the cat rather sharply.

  To her surprise, RK actually considered for a moment, then said, (Hmmm, right you are. Still, cats first, then the food beasts.)

  (If there are any cats still living at this Temple,) Acorna said, her voice tight at the grim thought that they might have died while she dallied in Hissim.

  (Oh, most of them are still alive. I can hear that. But they are very sick and already have lost two of their number,) RK told her.

  And suddenly Acorna heard them too. Thin, plaintive yowls, sick strangled coughing, and the kittens—the poor little things were as quiet and limp as damp
rags. Becker said, “You and the kid and the cats go do your thing, Princess. I’ll guard the flitter and lift off in case anyone tries to hijack it.”

  Acorna said, “I don’t suppose anyone here would know how to fly it anyway.”

  “You never know,” Becker replied.

  Sixteen

  Miw-Sher scrambled out of the flitter before Acorna, and spoke to the crowd in her own language. Acorna was too overwhelmed with the mental pleas of the sick cats to pay much attention to her friend’s words. In the courtyard, people began to gather. Most of them carried cats in their arms, all of whom were limp and listless looking. Many, many more cats had survived here than in Hissim. Miw-Sher spoke to the people quickly and urgently while the Hissim Temple cats leaped down after her and prowled among the legs of the gathering crowd.

  When Acorna climbed from the flitter, a hush fell over the assembly. For a moment she stared down at the tops of bald heads, dark heads, red heads, all clothed in robes of rough scarlet cloth. In the evening sky the scarlet suns drooped one after the other, and through the mist rising from the river’s surface, a pair of moons began to rise, each seeming to have a slice cut from its right side.

  Acorna stepped out among them and looked at Miw-Sher. “What did you tell them?”

  “I said that you are the one prophesied to save us, and that you could heal our sacred ones. I told them the healthy Temple cats who came with us were proof of your powers, but they didn’t need proof. Many recognized you.”

  “Recognized me? But I’ve never been here before,” Acorna said. She didn’t wait for them to explain, however, but reached for the first sick cat. She clucked to RK to jump up on her shoulder. (You’re my cover. Look useful. Like some kind of cat miracle worker. I don’t want them to know how I do this.)

  (Happy to oblige, but I don’t think they care.)

  Acorna saw that he was right. The first person she approached knelt and held up the patient, a black-and-white-spotted cat with a black nose and pads. The cat was too limp to raise his head, but RK perched on Acorna’s shoulder and licked the sick cat’s ear. Acorna carefully knelt, so as not to dislodge RK, and laid her face in the stricken cat’s damp fur so that her horn ran along his spine.

  And the cat, still held in the upraised hands of its human friend, bloomed out of his withered state, stretched all four paws out into the air, gave RK a baleful look for taking such liberties, rolled off the hands that had held it, and strolled away, presumably in the direction of a food dish. Which reminded Acorna of how the cat had probably come to be ill. “Miw-Sher, would you catch that last patient, please? Thank you. Captain Becker, if you would be so kind as to bring some of our cat food cargo down here to share among the convalescents, we can tell these folks about the tainted food after we revive their guardians.”

  By that time she had moved along to the next cat. But before she healed it, she called again to Miw-Sher, who was poking the black nose of the black-and-white cat into the food bag Becker lowered to the ground. “Miw-Sher, would you please sort the patients for me? Kittens and mothers should be treated first, in order of the sickest to the least affected, followed by the rest of the adults in the same order. There are so many I’m afraid we may lose some before I finish.”

  Miw-Sher hurried to comply, reorganizing the handlers and cats while Acorna and RK made contact with the next patient.

  This ailing party was an especially large creature with tawny spots on a black coat and tufted ears. Her coat was smooth and she was still strongly muscled beneath it. Acorna thought that this one had not been ill very long. It took only the slightest touch before the big feline raised her head and gave a lick to RK’s nose and Acorna’s hand. Then she adroitly flipped herself out of the grip of her handler and prowled over to investigate the food bag Becker had dragged into the Temple yard.

  Before tending the next patient, Acorna called, “Captain, I don’t think we need to guard the food bag or the flitter here. You might check with one of the priests and see if relief packages containing food have recently arrived from Hissim. If so, reseal the package and keep it safe until Captain MacDonald can arrive to analyze it.”

  Becker gave her a small salute and hurried off.

  A priestess held out a mother cat, nearly dead, and a basket of tiny feeble kittens, blind, all but bald, and smaller than most of the mice Acorna had seen on Kezdet.

  As RK extended his neck to lick, there was a sudden hiss and RK sprang away. Instantly he was replaced by Grimla, now all purrs and maternal concern. Or perhaps, considering her age, grand-maternal concern. After Acorna touched each patient with her horn, Grimla groomed them. First she groomed a kitten, then licked the mother, then groomed another kitten, until all were as normal as a new mother and very small babies could be.

  RK strolled unconcernedly over to the food bag, pausing to lick his fur back into place. (She only had to say she wanted to help. No need to get huffy.)

  Acorna felt his surprise as Miw-Sher knelt down to pet him, scratch his ears and whiskers, and tell him, “Grimla meant you no disrespect, noble ship’s cat. But she feels a strong responsibility for rearing our young and believes that it is too delicate a job to leave to the uncertain affections of a tom.”

  RK looked up at her and gave an aggrieved “meow” and head-butted her leg.

  Three more litters of kittens and mothers, and then a basket of kittens without a mother. “Where is she?” Acorna asked.

  A youth of about fourteen with a shaved head, and bright, watery brown eyes answered in a carefully controlled voice.

  “Died in delivery,” Miw-Sher answered, translating the unfamiliar dialect for Acorna. “Before the others took sick. The mother was his special charge.”

  “But then these little ones cannot have eaten the tainted food,” Acorna said.

  “No, Lady. They are simply too small to do without a mother, and very hungry.”

  Grimla dismounted from Acorna’s shoulder and me-owed from the ground, looking up at Acorna, at the basket, and at the boy holding it, then meowing again.

  “She wants to adopt them,” Miw-Sher interpreted again. And to the boy she said, “Set down the basket. My guardian lady Grimla will feed them.”

  (She’s too old,) RK said. (That old queen hasn’t seen a decent heat in years.)

  (Don’t be such a sore loser,) Acorna told him. And this time she knelt to pet Grimla, touching her horn to the old cat’s underside. The withered teats plumped up almost at once and Grimla, purring, accepted the orphaned kittens as Miw-Sher and the boy tenderly placed them one at a time to feed.

  Many cats later, Acorna felt as though she were swimming through mud. She was so tired and so drained, she felt she could barely move.

  She lowered her head to touch a particularly sick tabby and her knees buckled. Becker was at her side immediately, his arm shoring her up as she fought her way back to wakefulness. When her eyes focused again she was surprised to see that the suns were once more high in the sky, the moons long since set.

  “Hey there, Princess,” Becker said. “You’re getting a little see-throughish in the old horn area. They still had a lot of kitties here, huh? And now they’ll keep them, thanks to you.”

  “Just…a few more,” she said.

  But Miw-Sher was kneeling beside her, saying, “No, Lady. That is all. They are all well. The food bag is empty, however. Pash, Sher-Paw, and Haji are not happy. And Grimla will need to eat soon to replenish her milk.”

  “Then bring me the tainted food,” Acorna whispered hoarsely to Becker. Her neck ached from lowering it to touch the fur of the cats.

  “You can’t detoxify that,” Becker whispered back. “You haven’t got enough left in you. You need to eat something yourself and get some rest before you do anybody else.”

  They had been speaking so urgently, with their heads close together, that when one of the priests tapped Becker on the shoulder he drew back on the man before he saw that the priest was pointing to the flitter. Its com unit was sending a si
gnal for him to receive a transmission.

  Acorna reluctantly accepted his help to half carry her back up to the flitter, and when she was seated, he toggled the unit. “Captain,” Mac said, “how is the flitter working out for you? Isn’t it a fine one? Did you rescue our crew members?”

  “Mac?” Becker said. “Are you nuts? Or did the information escape you that the Federation monitors all transmissions, in case there are any, which there shouldn’t be because they’re all messed up by the dampening field.”

  “Oh, that! By my count we are now in violation of perhaps fifty separate Federation directives. I thought if you had rescued everyone satisfactorily, I would just give you a hail and acquaint you with the many excellent features I installed on your little vessel.”

  “A cat-food replicator would have been nice,” Becker said. “But look, buddy, I appreciate what you’ve done but we can’t talk now. If the Federation is listening, it’s just that my friend knows how to make his voice carry really well and we aren’t actually using any technology at all.”

  Mac remained cheerily sanguine. “Actually, Captain, they seem to have forgotten about us. They do not realize that I am still aboard, or that we retained special Linyaari com technology from our original communications equipment, which I repaired after the helpful technicians installing the new equipment left. You see, the Linyaari utilize technology that the Federation does not. Some of their communication systems are laser-based. Lasers will naturally penetrate the dampening fields, which are set up to prevent radio and electronic transmissions, and so we will be able to converse freely and without interference or even observance from the Makahomian spaceport. I have also installed on the flitter an excellent Linyaari scanner you had stored in the cargo bay. Of course it is not engineered for use on such a ship, and I had to make some adjustments to its function to retrofit that device to the conveyance, as well as all the other devices I mentioned earlier. But it all seems to work well enough for our current purposes.”