"About the Pogatha," said Secretary Masterson with a nervous quirk of his fleshy lips. "Be rather careful with them, will you, Sister? They're rather—uh—prejudiced, you see."
"So am I. Against them, that is."
"No, no. I don't mean prejudiced against you or any other human. Naturally we don't expect much genuine warmth between peoples who are fighting. But I'm referring to the strong racial antipathy among themselves."
"Between the Blues, Yellows and the Greens," Secretary Bass put in. "They try to be polite to each other, but there's no socializing. It's a different kind of prejudice entirely, Sister."
"Yes," Masterson said. "Any one of them might be willing to sit down to talk to you, but not while one of another color was around."
"I see," said the sister. ''I'll keep that in mind. Is there anything else I should remember?"
Secretary Masterson smiled understandingly. "It's hard to say. Handling an alien race isn't easy—but remember, they don't expect us to do everything right. They just want us to show that we're not purposely trying to offend them."
"I'll do my best," said Sister Mary Magdalene.
An hour later, Sister Mary Magdalene decided that she, in her capacity as a hostess here at the convent, had best go around to see how her guests were doing. Her robes swished softly as she went down the hallway. Behind her, Felicity padded silently along.
Sister Mary Magdalene paused outside Vor Nollig's door and rapped. After a moment it opened a little. The alien was dimly visible just inside the doorway.
"Yes, Sister?" said Vor Nollig.
Sister Mary Magdalene forced herself to smile ingratiatingly. "I hope everything's satisfactory."
"Oh, yes. Yes indeed." The door opened another few inches, far enough to let the nun see that Vor Betla stood behind Vor Nollig.
"Please you yes come in?" asked Vor Betla diffidently. There was something in the alien's tone that indicated that the invitation had been offered in an attempt at politeness, and that the Pogatha woman was not anxious to have it actually accepted.
Sister Mary Magdalene was still trying to decide what she should say when suddenly Vor Betla looked down and in a startled voice said, "What is?"
The nun's glance went to the floor. Felicity was standing there, her gleaming green eyes observing the Pogath woman intently. Sister Mary Magdalene scooped the cat up affectionately and held it against her. "This is Felicity. My cat."
"Gat?" said Vor Betla, puzzled.
"Cat," Vor Nollig corrected her. A babble of incomprehensible syllables followed. Finally Vor Nollig turned to the nun and said softly, "Pardon my breach of etiquette, but Vor Betla doesn't understand your language too well. She had never heard of a cat, and I was explaining that they are dumb animals kept as pets. We do not keep such animals on Pogathan."
"I see," said Sister Mary Magdalene, trying to keep the chill out of her voice. She was not pleased by the slighting reference to the cat. "If everything is fine, I'll look after my other guests. If you need anything, just ask."
"Of course, Sister," said Vor Nollig, closing the door.
The nun repressed what would have been an irrational and sinful current of anger. She swept on down the hall to the next apartment and knocked. "Poor Felicity," she murmured soothingly to the cat resting on her other arm. "Don't let their insults upset you. After all, they aren't humans, you know."
The door opened.
"I beg pardon?" said the green-skinned Vor Gontakel.
"Oh," Sister Mary Magdalene said, feeling awkward. "Sorry. I was talking to Felicity."
"Ah," said the green Pogatha.
"We came to see if everything was comfortable in your room. Didn't we, Felicity?"
"Meerorow," Felicity said.
"Oh, yes," said Vor Gontakel. "All is quite as should be. Quite."
"Meerowou," Felicity said. "Mrourr."
Vor Gontakel said, "This means what?"
Sister Mary Magdalene smiled. "Felicity says she hopes you'll call us if anything is not to your liking."
Vor Gontakel smiled broadly, showing her golden teeth. "I am quite comfortable, thank you, Sister. And thank you, Felicity."
The door closed. Sister Mary Magdalene felt more cheerful. Vor Gontakel had at least been pleasant.
One more trip to make. The last, thank Heaven. The nun rapped on the final door.
Vor Vun slowly opened her door, peered out, stepped back in alarmed distaste. "A cat!" she exclaimed.
"I'm sorry if I frightened you," Sister Mary Magdalene said quickly.
"Frightened? No. I just do not like cats. When I was a prisoner aboard one of your spaceships, they had a cat." The alien woman held out a saffron-skinned arm. Three furrows of scar tissue stood out darkly. "I was scratched. Infection set in, and none of the Earthmen's medicine could be used. It is a good thing that there was an exchange of prisoners, or I might have died."
The alien paused, as if realizing that her speech was not precisely diplomatic. "I am sorry," she said, forcing a smile. "But—you understand?"
"Certainly," the nun said. For the third time in ten minutes she went through the necessary ritual of asking after her guest's comfort, and for the third time she was assured that all was well.
Sister Mary Magdalene returned to her office. "Come on, Felicity," she whispered soothingly. "Can't have you worrying our star boarders."
Father Destry was waiting for Sister Mary Magdalene when she came back from Mass the following morning. He was looking at her with a puzzled air.
"Where is everyone?"
Ignoring his question for the moment, Sister Mary Magdalene jabbed furiously at the air conditioner button. "Isn't this thing working?" she asked fretfully of no one in particular. "It seems as though I can still smell it." Then she realized that the priest had addressed her, and that he was still waiting with imperious patience for an answer.
"Father Pierce kindly invited us to use the monastery chapel this morning," she said, feeling a twinge of embarrassment at her own unintentional rudeness. "Our own is too close to the kitchen."
Father Destry's face showed his lack of comprehension. "You went over to the monastery? Kitchen?"
Sister Mary Magdalene sighed patiently. "Father Destry, I'm morally certain that it would have been impossible for anyone to have retained a properly reverent attitude at Mass if it was held in a chapel that smelled to high Heaven of long-dead fish!"
Her voice had risen in pitch during the last few words, and she cut off the crescendo with a sudden clamping together of her lips before her indignation distressed the priest. "The Pogatha rose early for breakfast. They wouldn't let Sister Elizabeth cook it. Vor Vun—that's the yellow one—did the honors, and each one ate in his—her—own room. That meant that those meals were carried from the kitchen to the rooms. You should have been here. We just barely made it through Lauds."
Father Destry was obviously trying to control a smile which inwardly pleased Sister Mary Magdalene. It was encouraging to know that even Father Destry could be amused by something.
"I imagine the air conditioners have taken care of it by now," he said carefully. "I didn't notice a thing when I came through the courtyard." He glanced at the big clock on the wall. "The first meeting between the official representatives of Pogathan and Earth begins in an hour. I want—"
There was a rap at the door.
"Yes?"
Sister Martha, one of the younger nuns, entered. There was a vaguely apprehensive look on her young face. "The Pogatha are here to see you, Sister."
She stood aside while the four aliens trooped in, led by the imposing Blue, Vor Nollig. Sister Mary Magdalene greeted them with as much heartiness as she could muster, considering the episode of breakfast.
Vor Nollig said, "If it is at all possible, we would like to stroll around the grounds, look at your buildings. Perhap you could take us on a tour?"
Hostess or not, the last thing Sister Mary Magdalene wanted to do now was shepherd the four aliens around the Cathedral gro
unds. She glanced meaningfully at Father Destry, who scowled faintly, then brightened and nodded.
"It would be a pleasure," the priest said. "I'll be glad to show you the Cathedral grounds."
And bless you for it, the nun thought as the little group left. After they had gone, she rubbed a finger speculatively across the tip of her nose. Was she wrong or did there seem to be something peculiar in the actions of the aliens? They had seemed to be in a tremendous hurry to leave, and the expressions on their faces were strained. Or were they? It was hard to correlate any Pogatha expressions with their human equivalents. And, of course, Sister Mary Magdalene was no expert on extraterrestrial psychology.
Abruptly she ceased worrying about the behavior of the Pogatha. With her finger still on her nose, she caught the aroma of the morning's coffee drifting from the kitchen, where it was being prepared. She smiled. Then she indulged in the first, deep, joyous laugh she had had in two weeks.
That evening, after the Pogatha had returned to their quarters, Sister Mary Magdalene's private meditations were interrupted by a phone call from Secretary Masterson, the heavyset U.N. man. His fleshy face had a tense, worried look on it.
"Sister, I know this might be overstepping my authority, but I have the fate of a war to deal with."
"Just what's the trouble, Mr. Masterson?"
"At the meeting today, the Pogatha seemed—I don't quite know how to put it—offended, I suppose. They were touchy and unreasonable, and they quarrelled among themselves during the conference—all in a strictly diplomatic way, of course. I'm afraid we got rather touchy ourselves."
"How sad," the nun said. "We all have such high hopes for the success of these negotiations."
"Was there some incident that might have irritated them, Sister? I don't mean to imply any carelessness, but was there anything that might have upset them?"
"The only thing I can think of is the smell of the morning coffee," said the nun. "They came to me asking to be taken on a tour of the Cathedral grounds, and they seemed in an awful hurry to get out of the building. When they were gone I smelled the coffee being prepared. It must have nauseated them as much as their foods bother us."
Masterson's face cleared a little. "That might be it. They are touchy people, and maybe they thought the coffee odor that they found so revolting had been generated for their benefit." He paused for a long moment before he said, "Well, that sort of thing is too much for you, and it's obviously too much for them. I'll speak to Bishop Courtland tonight. We'll have to make better arrangements. Meanwhile, do you think you could do something about supper tonight? Get them out of there somehow, and—"
"That might be a little difficult," said Sister Mary Magdalene. "I think it would be better if we ate out."
"Very well. And I'll talk to the bishop."
She waited a moment for the screen to clear after Secretary Masterson broke contact, then dialed the number of the Holy Cross Monastery on the far side of the Cathedral. The face of a monk appeared on the screen, the cowl of his white robe lying in graceful folds around his throat.
Sister Mary Magdalene said, "Father Pierce, you were gracious enough to ask us to your chapel this morning because of the alien aroma here. I wonder if you'd be good enough to ask us to dinner tonight? Our alien friends don't seem to like our odors any more than we like theirs, and so we can't cook here."
Father Pierce laughed cheerfully. "We'll have to use the public dining hall, of course. But I think we can manage it."
"It'll have to be in two shifts," the nun said. "We can't leave this place deserted, much as we'd like to while they're eating."
"Don't worry, Sister. We'll arrange something. But what about tomorrow and the next day?"
Sister Mary Magdalene smiled. "We'll worry about that if we have to, but I think the Pogatha are on their way out of here. Secretary Masterson is going to make different arrangements with the bishop."
"You don't think they'll be transferred to us?"
"Hardly, Father Pierce. They'll have to leave the Cathedral entirely."
It was a pleasant, if ungracious thought. But Sister Mary Magdalene had taken no vows to put herself and her nuns into great inconvenience for the sake of unpleasant alien creatures. She would be glad to see them go.
Morning came. Sister Mary Magdalene sat in Choir, listening to the words of the Divine Office and wondering why the Church had been chosen as a meeting place for the two so alien races. It had not been a successful meeting thus far; but, she pondered, was there some deeper reason for the coming-together than mere political negotiation?
The soft, sweet voices of the women, singing alternately from opposite sides of the chapel in the Domine, Dominus noster, were like the ringing of crystal chimes rather than the deeper, bell-like ringing that resounded from the throats of the monks on the opposite sides of the great cathedral.
And, like crystal, their voices seemed to shatter under the impact of the hoarse, ugly, bellowing scream that suddenly filled the air.
A moment later, the singing resumed, uncertainly but gamely, as monks and nuns compelled themselves to continue the service regardless. Sister Mary Magdalene felt the unaccustomed tingle of fear within her. What had happened? Trouble with the aliens? Or merely an excitable visitor taken aback by a surprise encounter with one of the Pogatha?
It might be almost anything. Tension grew within the nun. She had to know.
She rose from her seat and slipped away down the aisle. Behind her, the singing continued with renewed vigor. But that ungodly scream still echoed in her ears.
God in Heaven, thought Sister Mary Magdalene an hour later. What are You doing to Your servants and hand-maidens now? Whoever heard of a convent full of cops?
She hadn't realized that she had spoken the last sentence half aloud until she saw Father Destry's astonished and reproachful expression. She reddened at once.
"Please, Sister!" the priest murmured. "They're not 'cops'—they're World Bureau of Criminal Investigation officers!"
Sister Mary Magdalene nodded contritely and glanced through the open door of her office at the trio of big, bulky men who were conferring in low tones in the corridor. The label, she thought glumly, made no difference. WBCI or not, they were still cops.
The nun felt dazed. Too much had happened in the past hour. Sister Mary Magdalene felt as though everything were twisted and broken around her, as the body of Vor Nollig had been twisted and broken.
Vor Nollig, the Blue; Vor Nollig, the female Pogath; Vor Nollig, the Chief Diplomat of Pogathan—dead, with a common carving knife plunged into her abdomen and her alien blood all over the floor of the room in which she had slept the night before.
She still slept there. She would sleep eternally. The WBCI men had not yet removed the body.
Vor Betla, the other Blue, had found her, and it had been the outraged scream of Vor Betla that had broken the peace of the convent. Sister Mary Magdalene wondered bleakly if that peace would ever be whole again.
First the scream, then the violence of the raging fight as the other two Pogatha had tried to subdue Vor Betla, who seemed to be intent on destroying the convent with her bare hands. And now, the quiet warmth of Sister Mary Magdalene's inviolate little world had suddenly and jarringly been defiled by the entrance of a dozen men, one right after another. But they had come too late. The blood had already been shed.
"You look ill, Sister," said Father Destry, suddenly solicitous. "Wouldn't you like to lie down for a while!"
Sister Mary Magdalene shook her head violently. "No! No, I'll be all right. It's just the—the shock."
"The bishop gave me strict orders to make sure that none of this disturbs you."
"I know what he said, and I appreciate it. But I'm afraid we have already been disturbed." There was a touch of acid in her voice.
Bishop Courtland, his fine old face looking haggard and unhappy, had come and gone again. Sister Mary Magdalene wished he had not gone, but there was no help for it; the bishop had to deal with the stra
toplane load of high officials who had rocketed in as soon as the news had reached the Capital.
One of the WBCI men removed his hat in a gesture of respect and stepped into the nuns' office. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that the other WBCI men, belatedly remembering where they were, were taking their hats off, too.
"I'm Major Brock, Sister. Captain Lehmann told me that you're the sister-in-charge here."
Sister Mary Magdalene nodded wordlessly. Captain Lehmann had been in charge of the group that had come rushing in at Father Destry's call; they had been hidden outside the cathedral grounds, ostensibly to protect the alien visitors.
"I know this is—unpleasant," Major Brock said. He was a big man who was obviously finding it difficult to keep his voice at the soft level he believed was appropriate in here. "It's more than a matter of one life at stake, Sister. We have to find out who did this."
Sister Mary Magdalene nodded, thinking, The sooner you find out, the sooner all of you will leave here. "I'll do all I can to help," she told him.
"We'd like to question the sisters," he said apologetically. "We'd like to know if any of them saw or heard anything unusual during the night."
The nun frowned. "What time was the alien killed, Major?"
"We don't know. If she were human, we'd be able to pinpoint it within a matter of seconds. But we don't know how fast the blood—" He stopped suddenly on the "d" of "blood," as though he had realized that such gory subjects might not be proper conversation here.
Sister Mary Magdalene was amused at the WBCI man's exaggerated tact. "How fast the blood coagulates," she completed, a bit surprised at her own calmness. "Nor, I suppose, how soon rigor mortis sets in, nor how long it takes the body to cool."
"That's about it. We'll just have to check with everybody to see if anyone saw anything that might help us."
"Would you tell me one thing?" Sister Mary Magdalene said, glancing hesitantly at the silent, glowering figure of Father Destry. "Can you tell me who the suspects are? And please don't say 'everybody'—I mean the immediate suspects."
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