Acorna's Rebels

Fourteen

Acorna wanted to see Kando for a number of reasons, the chief one being that she wished to form her own opinion of him. Though now she wished she had not been so scrupulous with the former Brother Bulaybub. She should have allowed him to tell her more about the plots he felt his erstwhile master had instigated. She would be better prepared for what was to come if she had. As it was, she had no idea how her self-(and RK-) appointed mission to save this planet's ailing creatures would be greeted by the Mulzar, for example, or what Edu's actions toward her might be if she let him know what she planned.

Acorna was further confused by Becker's apparent liking and admiration for Edu. Becker was usually a good judge of character, but although he was very intuitive, Becker was not precisely- or at least not always - telepathic. A charismatic and clever trickster could fool him. Especially if a profitable business deal was involved.

When Acorna entered his office, Kando sat at his massive writing table. Maps and scrolls were spread out on it. On top of the scroll he'd been working on was a large golden stone with a pale fiery stripe down the middle. Kando reached over to stroke it while she sealed herself across from him. The Mulzar's thoughts were guarded carefully as he extended his seeming solicitousness toward her, but she was mildly shocked to sense an unwarranted prurient interest in her person from him. Once she picked up on that, she was aware that the atmosphere surrounding him crawled with duplicity and intrigue. Of course he was the leader of an influential section of the planet, and perhaps, if Becker was correct, would soon rule the entire planet. A certain amount of political intrigue in his mental emanations was natural.

She tried to be fair and attempted to introduce the topic in a casual manner. "I understand you've given Captain MacDonald permission to treat your animals and instruct your people in farming methods that will feed them until the ground is safe again. I wish to go with him."

"Do you? How kind," Edu said with oily smoothness, picking the stone up and cradling it in his fist. "I see no problem with that, although our primitive means of transport may not suit someone of your sophistication."

He could not quite keep enough of his mask in place to conceal his irritation that he found it necessary to go along with MacDonald's program. He apparently was not accustomed to telepaths and had not learned how to shield against them, although his innate deviousness, which she soon discovered, served him well enough. But images flashed across his mind - images he viewed with satisfaction - of laboratory test tubes changing hands between him and Macostut, of the contents being put into vermin traps that never sprang. The vermin partook of the tainted material, the cats caught the vermin, and cats began dying. The infected vermin spread, and their infected scat was scattered throughout the countryside. Soon enough, other creatures, including people, also died.

Until she came, and MacDonald. No, she would not seek his permission now.

"You might be surprised what suits me," she said, and bared her teeth at him in what he would take for a friendly smile, though among the Linyaari it was a hostile challenge.

"I'd like to find out," he said insinuatingly, stroking the stone with the pad of his thumb along the pale slash of fire in its middle.

"Well, yes, I appreciate you giving your permission. Lieutenant Commander Macostut is not so easy to deal with. Always quoting Federation rules and treaties, you know."

"Allow me to handle him and the Federation as well, Ambassador Acorna. That is your given name, is it not? Acorna? It is so - exotic." He rolled the stone down his palm with his fingertips, and when he finished saying "exotic," he closed his hand over it.

She bared her teeth again. "Yes, it is, isn't it? My people even find it so." She did not explain. She didn't want to tell any of her family history to this man.

"Acorna, I was hoping - I am speaking to my subjects tomorrow morning. I wish to recognize the work you did for our guardians. It would please me if you would come. You and Nadhari as well, of course. I know Captain MacDonald will be busy with his wagons, but as soon as I have finished, you may join him. I do hope you'll come." He set the stone down long enough to take her hand in both of his. He stared for a moment at its three single-knuckled fingers, one fewer than he was used to, and appeared slightly nonplussed before he began stroking her palm seductively with his thumb. "I want my people to recognize you as their-our-new friend."

"Your wish is my command in this," she said, because it was, of course, in this instance. She gently but firmly pulled her hand away with a strength that she could tell surprised him. Behind her, she felt him smile and pick up the stone again.

She returned to her quarters, wishing she could lock the door. She was comforted when RK dropped from the ceiling onto her bed to make himself comfortable against her side.

The events of the day revolved inside her head as if they had been poured into a centrifuge and set on Spin. Tagoth and Miw-Sher, RK and the Temple cats, all of them together, Nadhari and Tagoth, Tagoth and Mulzar Kando, Becker and Kando, Mac-Donald and the Wats, Kando and Acorna herself, whirled through her mind in a soup of coppery rainforest, flat red desert, cat's-eye chrysoberyl stones of many colors, and wide open steppes veined with rivers and streams. Just when she stopped recalling and started dreaming, she couldn't have said.

But all at once she realized that the reason everyone was spinning so fast was that she was flying past them, over them, and they weren't spinning at all. She was flying past the city and everything familiar to her on this world. Now there were cat-shaped Temples in the mix, poking their ears out of the trees of the rainforest, squatting beside rivers in the steppes, and reclining Sphinx-like in the desert. In fact, these Sphinx cats even had human faces. In her dream, she heard Aari's voice telling her, "Those are not Temples you see there. They are monuments to Grimalkin. Though they call him the Star Cat, these people know well that he has a human face. He brought me here to save these people, and meanwhile, he decided to increase the population and improve the gene pool in a very personal fashion. That is how they became able to shift from human to feline. I hope you will also notice that there are no people here who resemble the Linyaari. The Companion did not see fit to pass on hi) dominant characteristics to every female in the gene pool."

Acorna sped onward. When she reached the rainforest, she was suddenly looking down on the Temple, where hundreds of cats all lapped at a dish that bore the symbol of a skull and cross-bones on the side. She jumped down and tried to shoo them away before they ate, but Captain MacDonald was there, saying, "But they have to keep their strength up, honey."

Then she was flying far out over the desert again, but all of a sudden the ground split open, deep and wide, the sides of the gash multicolored, and at its end the whole thing was filled with a beautiful deep lake that seemed to come from nowhere. The Temple was different, too, but before she could quite figure out how, she saw Aari down below her waving flags and pointing to a place for her to land.

But when she ran to him, an instant later in the dream, and without all of the bother of landing the craft she was flying, she saw that he was no longer a living Linyaari, but a statue of one, and she couldn't reach him because he was standing in the middle of a stream feeding into the lake.

All around him cats' eyes winked and blinked, some of them without cats behind them. "You really can't tell," someone said, "until one of them decides to move to eat or fight or have sex."

At that point she awakened. She tried to move, but could not. From the sensations in her chest and arms, it seemed as if someone had restrained her during the night, possibly even tied her up. Her arms were pinned to her sides at the elbows, and her ankles wouldn't move when she tried to rise.

She heard footsteps outside her door. A voice called, "Ambassador?" There was a sharp "hsst!" and the weight on her chest released as RK leaped straight up from the crouch he had assumed during the night to watch her face, apparently, for the first sign of wakefulness. He seemed almost to fly instead of jump to the catwalk, and one of the bolt-holes near the ceiling. Then he spoiled the illusion by losing a paw-hold and having to dangle his back end off the catwalk while he dug in with his front claws to force enough of him through the opening of the hole so his feet would have to follow. Pash, Haji, and Sher-Paw ran in different directions, and Acorna found her arms and legs released as well.

She'd been bound up, all right, courtesy of her cat guardians. She felt like laughing, but instead gathered her wits and composure and said, "Yes, what is it?"

"The Mulzar's address is about to begin."

"Thank you," Acorna said. "Then I'll be right along."

"But you must refresh yourself and break your fast before you go. We were not privileged to serve you yesterday morning. We were negligent and did not attend you when you awoke. Please, may we enter now?"

Acorna sighed and reluctantly gave her assent. A string of Temple women-whether priestesses or acolytes or mere servants, Acorna could not tell-entered. One carried a ewer of water, another a basin, a third bore Acorna's clothing, cleaned and pressed and devoid of the evidence of her adventures of yesterday. Yet another woman bore a basket of fruits and vegetables of various sorts.

"Thank you. You're very kind," Acorna told them, nibbling on something with a rubbery green texture. "This is nice. What is it?"

"It is called sand claw, ambassador. I removed the thorns myself."

"A sort of cactus, then? It's very good."

They stood around nodding and watching her chew.

"Have any of you seen Miw-Sher yet this morning?" she asked when she'd finished the cactus.

"She was searching for Grimla the last time I saw her," one of the women said. "The Mulzar is most particular that all of the sacred guardians are in attendance when he speaks."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, Ambassador. He wishes to let the people know what wonders you have performed."

"Does he?" This worried Acorna. If Kando had caused the cats to become ill, which he had if she read him correctly, then his seeming concern for displaying their healthy state was ominous.

After her erstwhile servants were convinced she was presentable, she was taken straight to the cat's mouth, which was open. On the tongue, a balcony looked out on not only the Temple courtyards but also the streets of the city, and beyond. Stale smoke colored by red dust hung over the city and the countryside beyond, intensifying the reddish cast the suns lent to the sky, giving the day an angry, stormy appearance.

People thronged the walls and courtyards of the Temple, but behind them the city streets were deserted and empty, except for whirlwinds of red dust that zipped and rolled drunkenly through the town like alien invaders searching for loot.

Although the wind stirred up these small cyclones, the day was scorchingly hot, and the breeze, when it came, was like the exhaust of some great antique flitter, spewing flames and fumes in its wake.

Throughout the crowd and surrounding it stood priests armed with what appeared to be some sort of circular, discus-like weapons as well as swords, daggers, and spears. Just because Nadhari's cousin was the Federation-acknowledged ruler of this city didn't mean everyone who lived in the city was happy about it. Acorna read the general tone of the crowd and received the impression that people were not here because they particularly wanted to receive Edu's counsel and leadership but because they had been ordered to come. Most of them seemed to dread learning what new proclamations, taxes, laws, or restrictions Kando was about to inflict upon them.

Acorna, Nadhari, and a few other privileged people were allowed to stand on the balcony with Kando while he addressed the throng. Miw-Sher stood beside the right fang of the Temple 's open mouth. When she spotted Nadhari and Acorna, the girl abandoned her toothy post to stand nearer to them.

Grimla was in her arms and the guardian cat's tail tickled the back of Acorna's hand.

Kando held up his hands and the crowd grew quiet. "People of Hissim, I call you together to speak to you concerning the sickness that has plagued our sacred guardians and has claimed the life of many domestic beasts and some of your own kinfolk. This scourge killed, among others, Sacred Phador, Sacred Nadia, the Sacred Kits One through Forty-Two, as yet and now forever unnamed. We have reason to believe that this plague is part of a plot perpetrated on our city, our Temple, and our rule by our enemies, who will stop at nothing to overthrow us. Heretofore, no matter how desperate the battle, Temple guardians have always been exempt from retaliation, but now it has been suggested to me by my wise friends and allies of the Federation that our sacred ones were poisoned! Also spies have been sent among us, and a priest has been murdered in a brutal, ritualistic fashion. Still another priest has been abducted. All evidence points to the involvement of the secretive Aridimi sect from the deep desert, your own relations. We must redress these crimes. We will invade their lands and avenge ourselves, taking into our Temple their own sacred ones to replace those of ours that they have slain." Edu finally stopped to take a deep breath.

"But, Your Reverence!" protested a large prosperous-looking man who wore soft white lightweight clothing and a wealth of red metal and gemstones on any part of his body that could be girded with ornamentation. "We have heard that the sacred ones are sick and dying on all parts of the planet."

"Ahhh," Kando said, "I too have heard the lies. It has even been suggested that this scourge is not a covert form of warfare, but the work of a fanatical cult that seeks to destroy all who follow the path the Star Cat chose for us. If so, they have been foiled, deprived of four of their victims, again through the intercession of my contacts in the Federation.

"However, we believe this cult idea is a fantasy, a fiction concocted by those who fear another war. In truth, it has been my greatest wish to lead you into an era of peace-or so I had hoped to, until this evil befell our Temple. Now I see that the only way to bring peace to this world is for all of it to be under a single rule. Until we find out who visited this blasphemous attack on our guardians, I believe it is for the good of all guardians that we conquer Hissim's enemies and deliver their sacred animals from servitude to people who have loosed a plague upon us. Since we know not which state is guilty, we must assume they all are, and act accordingly."

"But why would they kill their own guardians or their own Food beasts?" the prosperous man asked. "Surely we will be able to tell who poisoned our animals by how many of their own animals survive."

"Ah, but would they tell us? Would they let it be known? When our holy ones first became ill, and I heard that the other states were likewise afflicted, so deep was my grief and so aroused was my compassion that I chose slaves from each area and sent them back to their peoples bearing medicines and food. Perhaps it was my quick action that saved the others, or perhaps it was merely that we were the ones most directly attacked. I have heard that all other states were as badly stricken as we were, but what others have not heard is that of all of the Temples whose guardians fell prey to the disease, ours alone were snatched from the brink of death. This happened, we must believe, because the righteousness of our hegemony over the beings on our planet is manifest. Thus we were granted a miraculous gift and blessed with the alien doctor who healed our guardians as a sign attesting to that righteousness."

"I heard all the guardians had died," someone shouted.

"Three days ago, it seemed that would be true, but now the acolytes and handmaidens will show you that through divine grace, four of our guardians have been restored to health." At his signal Miw-Sher and her fellow cat attendants brought forth Grimla, Pash, Haji, and Sher-Paw, all sleek of fur, bright of eye, and pink of nose and pads. "Of course, this miracle, this blessing of the gods was made manifest when my Federation contacts put me in touch with the Linyaari ambassador, Lady Acorna Harakamian-Li, whose advanced medical knowledge was able to save these last precious four guardians."

Acorna, as she understood what Kando was claiming, grew furious. Her gift of healing to the Temple cats was being perverted into a cause for war, and into something for which Kando could claim credit. She could read him as easily as if he were made of glass. He had downplayed her role in the Temple cats' recovery, being shrewd enough to realize she wanted it that way, but he'd used her actions to justify his own schemes. If he was not very specific about the nature of the help the cats received, he might even get the credit for curing them.

The people listening were pleased about the cats, she could read that, but they remained mistrustful of Kando. They quite rightly feared that they were being manipulated into something.

Acorna was thoroughly disgusted.

It took only a light touch to Nadhari's mind to read that she was no more thrilled with her cousin's speech than Acorna was.

Acorna decided Kando had enjoyed playing both ends against the middle for too long. He cared nothing for the welfare of the cats and the domestic beasts, or of the people, for that matter, or he would never have loosed the plague among them.

Acorna stepped forward, taking advantage of his slight introduction to bow graciously to the crowd, who cheered, and then to Kando, who started to say something, before she beat him to it. "Thank you, Mulzar. I am, as you say, a healer, and in spite of being an ambassador, I am not always as diplomatic as I should be. Please forgive me that I find this talk of war and conquest under the circumstances shocking. As I mentioned to you earlier, my people do not believe in war. However, that is neither here nor there. The real point here is that this disease is spreading, is killing the guardians, creatures that all of the people of this planet hold sacred. Should not the emphasis be placed upon curing as many as possible, rather than going into a war that may-no, will-spread death, injury, and disease to even more two- and four-legged beings? As I look upon you, my physician's heart knows that you are weary and sick of sickness, bereft at the loss of the beloved guardians whose protective presence has always been one of your greatest securities, and impoverished and starving due to the loss of your beasts. And these feelings are shared by all the other peoples of this planet."

"All the more reason for conquest!" one of the priest guards shouted at her.

"But what will you be conquering? Dead and dying people with dead and dying beasts, who have no food you can use and no guardians to bring back with you. What is the point in that? I would like to propose to you, Mulzar…" she said, returning her attention to Kando, whose face probably looked bland from below the balcony but whose eyes showed that he was not at all amused or moved by her speech. She had not expected that he would be. She continued, "…is that I go among those who are normally your, um, co-belligerents and offer them the use of my skill as a physician to cure as many of their Temple cats and other beasts as I can. In this way I might at least ascertain how many of the Temple guardians have survived in various areas. If I come upon a Temple that has many, I shall ask for kittens in payment for my services and shall bring them to the Temples that have lost the most. Certainly this one falls into that-oh dear, this seems to be a pun in your language, too - category."

The Mulzar smiled suddenly. "You would spy for us? Truly, you are a thoughtful guest to offer to inform us who has the most of what we seek."

Acorna felt her face grow so hot she thought her horn must be glowing with her anger, but she kept her words and tone calm and sweet. "Oh, no, Mulzar! You mistake my meaning. If your opponents are honorable people, there will be no need for you to attack them. Some will have so few cats it would not be worth your own losses to attack them. And as for those who have escaped the epidemic with less damage, if I cure those who are ill, the priests should grant me the boon of bringing some of their kittens to the less fortunate Temples. There is no need for me to prevaricate, much less to spy. I seek only to bring aid to your whole planet during this tragic time."

Nadhari sent her an urgent mental warning: (He's seething. Don't turn your back on him, Acorna.)

Kando said smoothly, "It is delightful to see such idealism in someone of your station, Ambassador. But you are young, tenderhearted, and by your own admission, from a people who do not wage war. You cannot possibly understand the complications your proposed actions would cause among our planet's people. I'm quite sure the Federation would never permit you to pursue your proposed course of action."

"I'm sure if you intervened, sir, your contacts there would smooth my path - I imagine that your friend Lieutenant Colonel Macostut would do his best to find a way to accommodate us."

Nadhari's face was twitching as if she had some sort of nervous disorder, as she sternly suppressed laughter at her cousin's discomfiture.

The Mulzar raised his arms again to make it clear that Acorna's interruption was not going to end his speech before he was ready to end it.

"People of Hissim, while I join you in rejoicing at the survival of our guardians, it seems to me we are being tested. The gods have sent us these tribulations and this lady to determine if we have absolute trust, loyally, and obedience to them, even as you must do to me. They have taken from us first that which we value most - our beloved guardians. And then we were given a choice in the form of the Ambassador Acorna's ability to heal our surviving sacred ones. I have had an epiphany, a revelation."

Silence fell over the crowd. Acorna got the collective thought that they hoped the revelation would not be too bad this time.

"Clearly the gods have been merciful to us, but now it is our duty to show ourselves worthy and return to them something of that which they have spared us."

Acorna caught his thought early in the sentence. So this was how he was going to reconcile his real motives with his public sentiments! She sent a mental push to Miw-Sher. "Take Grimla and run! He's going to demand a cat sacrifice!"

However, before the thought was out of her mind, another of the Condor's crew dropped down from the nose of the Temple onto the mouth, uttering a loud yowl that seemed to Acorna to translate as "Scatter, brothers and sisters! Run for your lives! This infidel wants to waste you!"

Although there were only five Makahomian Temple cats present, counting RK, for a split-and-spitting-second the air seemed filled with pinwheeling paws, lashing tails, and slashing claws… particularly claws. Cats flew everywhere, leaping, bouncing, pouncing, and laying down tracks of flayed flesh wherever those lethal claws happened to touch.

Then, just as suddenly, there were no more cats. Anywhere.

However, this observation was made only by those who were still there. Acorna, Nadhari, and Miw-Sher were not.

Kando had been so caught up in the results of his own theatrics that he could do nothing but stand openmouthed for a moment, using a loose fold of his robe to stanch the flow of blood from a wound on his shoulder. The keepers of the cats, with the exception of Miw-Sher, were still present, looking around to see what had hit them. But the only remaining sign of the cats was a few stray hairs floating to the flagstones below on eddies of hot wind.

People were murmuring, exclaiming, even-though it was instantly squelched-laughing.

One of the priests whispered something to Kando and he resumed his speech. "As you can see, People of Hissim, the cats live, but their spirits are in disarray because they were not intended to remain among us. I am sure the ambassador just realized that, which is why she disappeared. And all of you saw for yourselves the foreign cat that attacked me, no doubt a direct challenge from our enemies. The ambassador may do her best among our enemies, but we will prepare for war."

To the priest beside him he said, "In two days' time, when our cats have had the chance to regain their senses and have resumed their feeding stations and nests, at the second setting our precious four will travel to the gods in person to deliver our thanks."

The wagons were loaded and ready outside the Temple. The priest driving the first of the wagons was totally taken by surprise when the rampaging RK led the four Temple cats skittering over the Temple walls and leaping onto the wagon beds. Close behind them were Acorna, Nadhari, and Miw-Sher.

Captain MacDonald was at the reins in the second wagon, Red Wat in the third, Sandy Wat in the fourth. In the first was the priest who was apparently to be their guide. Nadhari shoved him off the wagon and took the reins herself. Acorna and Miw-Sher sat beside her, yelling "Hyah! Hyah!" to the team, which broke into a respectable run. Acorna sent a mental message to Captain MacDonald: (Follow us! Quickly! We will explain later!)

He sent a startled reaction back. He'd been prepared for a peaceful mission to aid civilians, not a fast getaway from government forces. He switched mental gears quickly, nevertheless, clicked his tongue at his team, and fell in behind them. The Wats apparently relished all the excitement. They whipped their poor beasts into a lather and almost wrecked their wagons as they rattled over the rutted streets at high speed.

The city gates were open and their wagons arrived faster than any messengers telling the gatekeepers to close them. Instead of stopping to assist the local farmers engaged in slaughtering their beasts, as MacDonald had intended before this mad flight, they kept driving as far and as fast away from Hissim as they could.

"The Mulzar will send fast riders after us," Miw-Sher said. Acorna felt the girl trembling beside her.

"I don't think so," Acorna said. "I think he will use our departure to his own advantage and tell the people what he wishes. And possibly try to place the blame for everything on RK and me.

"Of course he will," Nadhari said. "And Jonas and Captain MacDonald as well. Since the people of Hissim only know what Edu chooses to tell them about the outside world, they will be persuaded easily enough that we are all evil. He will tell people that we must be guilty of something; otherwise, why would we have run?"

Acorna told her, "Maybe it would have been better timing to wait until he'd tipped his hand about killing the Temple cats. Then people would have understood that we were saving the cats. But if we'd waited for him to announce it, we couldn't have saved them at all. The guards would have had the poor things in hand, and there would have been nothing we could do."

"We did what we had to do," Nadhari said, negotiating a bend in the road that led past a small group of hovels. Ahead was open desert.

But as they passed the last low building a figure flung himself into the road just in front of them. Nadhari pulled back on the reins so hard that the harnessed beasts reared in their traces. Miw-Sher jumped down and ran toward the man. "Uncle! You're safe!"

"For now. Do you suppose I could hitch a ride?"

Scar MacDonald stopped his wagon, tied off his reins, and strode forward, his face full of thunderclouds. "That was a damn fool stunt, Commander Nadhari. You could have made us crash every wagon in this convoy into matchsticks and killed the beasts pulling us, as well as those under our protection, and then where would we be? Our speedy exit, whatever the reason for it, wouldn't have done anybody any good." He peered around the wagon and saw Tagoth hurrying toward him. "And who the devil is this, anyway? And what in tarnation were you doing in the road, sir? Hey-wait a minute."

Tagoth didn't have his hat on now. MacDonald snapped his fingers. "Brother Bulaybub? I never forget a face. But you didn't have one the last time I saw you. What's going on here?"

The first thing the Mulzar did after his speech was have the guardians' handlers taken into custody for questioning. The woman, Nekbet, was the first to break. "Please don't sacrifice our guardians, Mulzar. It was that foreign cat who caused the trouble, the ambassador's cat."

"She has a Temple cat? Why was I not told of this before?"

"She said he was merely their ship's cat, Mulzar, and after what she did for our guardians, we thought…"

"You didn't think! That cat was of our strain, you can tell by looking at it. You can even see from examining the claw marks on my arm. The ambassador is a spy. I knew it! Pretending to heal the guardians, she has subverted them. I must notify Lieutenant Commander Macostut of this at once and have the woman's friends taken into custody. She abducted an acolyte, as well, and the four guardians and my cousin, brought a contraband cat among us, and hijacked the wagons we graciously lent her friend to help our poor people."

The surgeon, who was in charge of the persuasive methods by which the captive handlers were forced to answer the Mulzar's questions asked, "Should we send a party after them now, Mulzar?"

Edu waved a dismissive hand. Actually, Acorna and Nadhari had done him a large favor with their rash actions. He now had a good excuse to wage the ultimate war he wanted, and locate the Aridini Stronghold. And if it was discovered later that he had violated the taboo against Federation technology to do so, he would explain that of course he had to retrieve the Temple cats from the clutches of the foreigners. Bring them back into his own clutches. Yes, indeed. "We have better things to do," he said. "We will launch a holy war on our enemies. No doubt we will sweep up the wagons and their treasonous occupants when we do so. Ready our armies."

"The sacrifice, Mulzar?"

"Since we cannot sacrifice the guardians, we will sacrifice the handlers who were so careless as to let them escape."

"Mulzar!" The surgeon was aghast. Only the day before the Mulzar had implied that a pretense of harming the guardians would flush out a cult. Now it seemed the Mulzar had actually intended to sacrifice the cats.

Hearing the threat of mutiny in the surgeon's voice, Kando realized his mistake. He winked at the doctor conspiratorially and saw the man relax. "Yes, I think they will strengthen the walls of the Temple with their sacrifice. Wall them up with that other old fool. That should draw out the conspirators, eh?"

The pulling beasts were exhausted from their mad dash from the city, and all the living beings in their little convoy were thirsty. No water had been packed in the provisions MacDonald brought with him. He'd planned to load up on water outside the city at the livestock yards.

More important, Acorna thought, as she saw RK and the guardians nosing and pawing among the load, nothing a cat could eat had been packed in the wagon's cargo, either.

While Tagoth and Nadhari were sparring, and Scar MacDonald, whose questions were not being answered, contented himself with checking on and adjusting his Metleiter boxes to ride more securely in the wagon, RK hopped onto the buckboard where Acorna still sat. He walked onto her knees, looked into her face, and opened his mouth in a yowl that was silent to everyone except Acorna and the other cats.

(I want to go home nyowwww,) he said. (I want to go back to the Condor. These silly things we're riding on will never get us anywhere in time to save anybody.)

(RK, you know very well we can't just make Becker take off into space and land where we need him to. There are rules about bringing spacefaring technology out of the Federation port.)

RK yawned. (Rules? You're boring me. There're rules against poisoning cats here, too -yes, I know. I read you very well, at least as well as you read that murdering mule-whatever-he-calls-himself. Besides, you personally won't be breaking the rule. Tell Becker I want to come home. He will come and get me, and he doesn't care about rules any more than I do.)

(Hmmm,) Acorna thought. And as he punctuated his argument with his claws she added: (Ouch! Yes, you have a point. Nevertheless, that is a very obnoxious habit you've developed. That hurts, you know.)

(Tell him and stop whining, Linyaari girl! You are self-sealing.)

Grimla walked out from under Miw-Sher's strokes and nudged RK aside to give Acorna a smile with her delicately curved mouth. She was purring and suddenly she stood on her hind paws, front paws curled daintily close to her own chest, and rubbed her face against Acorna's jaw.

Pash, Haji, and Sher-Paw strolled over to see what was happening and add a few comments of their own.

Acorna laughed, scratched RK's and Grimla's ears in surrender, and transmitted as narrowly as she could, (Captain Becker, your first mate wants to come home and the rest of us could use help.)

(I read you, Princess, loud and clear, and the damned cat, too. On my way.)

(On my way.) Becker transmitted the thought to Acorna, and as he did, saw that he was not the only one heading toward his friends. At the Federation gate, a delegation of the four warrior-priests from the Temple were joined by four Federation troops.

There was a hail on the com unit. "Uh, get that, Mac, would you?" Becker asked. "And stall for all you're worth."

"Stall? But, Captain, we have landed and are docked. Why should I stall, and how can I do so?"

"Keep whoever is calling, and I can practically guarantee that it will be Macostut, from stating his business and demanding to see me. Do not let on that you know where I am."

"And where will that be, Captain?"

"I'm going to help Acorna. She just-uh - hailed me on a private channel."

"So you will be trying out the flitter I readied for such an eventuality? It is an excellent flitter, of Linyaari design. I added to it several modifications usually found only on larger Linyaari crafts, such as the excellent Linyaari shielding device. I would be happy to point them out to you. Wouldn't you like me to accompany you?"

"Nope. You're going to have to hold the fort here. In fact your job's going to be much nastier than mine. Get that? Stall. Keep them off my ship." Becker ducked out of sight.

"Yes, sir. Stalling, sir." Mac answered the com call. "This is Special Technician MacKenZ of the Salvage ship Condor speaking. Please identify yourself."

A stern face appeared on the com screen. "This is Lieutenant Commander Dsu Macostut. I must speak with Captain Jonas Becker immediately."

"I apologize, Lieutenant Commander Dsu Macostut, but Captain Becker is indisposed at the moment."

"Indisposed how?"

"Oh, it is a highly interesting process, sir. You see, when Captain Becker takes on fuel to maintain adequate personal function and energy levels, not all of the fuel is acceptable to his operating system. Therefore, it is necessary that this excess fuel be ejected at some point…"

Becker grinned into his mustache as he heard Mac's explanation of Becker's digestive and excretory processes, while Macostut stuttered and attempted to break in to notify Becker of the arrest that was about to take place, if the look of the men marching on the Condor was any indication. Acorna's message of trouble plus all those marching men meant Becker's butt was going to be in a sling if he didn't get it out of there. But what was Acorna planning? How had she got the high mucky-mucks so riled up in such a short time? The last time Becker had checked in with his friends, everything had been just fine. Peachy keen, even. If they were in hot water now, the Federation had the authority to keep the Condor from leaving this benighted planet if necessary. If Becker brought Acorna and RK and presumably Nadhari back to the ship, they would be in even more trouble than they already were in, wouldn't they?

Then, as he was slipping into the flitter and opening the hull hatch to fly her out, he received another message from Acorna.

"Captain, RK wanted me to remind you to bring lots of cat food."

Edu Kando stood beside Macostut as their combined troops closed on the Condor.

"I'm sorry about this, Edu," Macostut said. "We would never have let them come near Hissim except that your cousin was with them."

"It doesn't matter," Kando replied. "And it is right that Nadhari is here now. She will come around once she sees the breadth of my vision. Our vision. She lives in the modern universe by preference, after all. You have the chemicals?"

"Oh, yes. But you're on your own as far as getting them to this lake you told me about. If I flew you out there, it would blow my cover and I'd be replaced before our operation got off the ground."

They watched their troops approach the strange patchworked ship. Macostut's last sentence trailed away as a flap of the Condor's skin opened and something large and white with curlicues of color and swags of gilt bunting decorating its wings flew away, out over the wall protecting the port, high above the city and out toward the desert.

"What is that?" Kando demanded, pointing.

"It appears to be a flying horse," Macostut said, shaking his head in disbelief. "How did my people miss that during the inspection?" To his ground troops he said, "Lock that ship down, men, along with any remaining personnel."

But moments later they reported back, as they came out of the Condor. "We are sorry, sir. Whatever personnel were aboard seem to have evacuated on the flying horse thing."

The Makahomian troops wore thoughtful and awestruck expressions as they watched the sky.

Aboard the Condor, white hands burst from the soil in the hydroponics garden and Mac sat up, brushed the dirt and plants from his uniform, considerately replanted Acorna's crops, and returned to the bridge to see what he could do about breaking the just-installed locks on the new computer system without alerting any possible Federation monitors. It would be tricky, but so was he.