Acorna's Rebels Part 21

"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, a.s.sociating 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 a.s.sured him.

What concerned him was that the legs, the oddly undamaged arms, and the back of this corpse had a leatheriness usually a.s.sociated 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 sc.r.a.ped, 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 superst.i.tious 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 f.a.gad 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.