Nadhari scratched the top of the cat"s head and said to her cousin, "I see our Acorna has worked her usual healing miracle. This sacred guardian should be ready to take on an army after a day or two of rest. Are you sure there"s not something you"d like to trade for Becker"s cat food, cousin?"
Kando"s mouth spasmed, as if he was trying to smile. He probably didn"t appreciate Nadhari interfering while he was dressing down the troops. But Becker was kind of surprised to see that Kando looked less than thrilled by the recovery of the Temple cats.
Miw-Sher, that was the girl"s name, not Shari. Nadhari told Becker Miw-Sher meant kitten and was likely a nickname. Anyway, Miw-Sher eagerly led them back to the Temple Guardians" quarters. She was partly showing off for the newcomers and partly trying to jolly her boss back into a good mood by proving to him how well everything had turned out.
The three toms were - variously - eating, drinking, and sleeping, while the female, perfectly content in the girl"s arms, fell into a bonelessly limp sleep. All the cats looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to Becker, though they needed to put on a few pounds to get back up to fighting weight.
"Where is Bulaybub?" Kando asked the girl.
"I - I don"t know, Your Holiness. He was right behind us when the amba.s.sador and I started for the Temple."
At that moment the slap of sandals on stone heralded the arrival of three more priests, who burst into the cats" quarters. One, breathless, said, "Your Holiness, a city sentry came across the remains of a priest. We believe it is Brother Bulaybub."
Nadhari translated this, her mouth moving only now and then while her eyes watched for more developments.
"Commander," MacDonald said to her, "what did that fella mean exactly by remains? You sure you got that word right?"
Nadhari listened for a moment, then nodded, "Yes, remains," she said firmly and catalogued, as if reciting a grocery list. "A head, missing the face, a disemboweled trunk, and the arm bearing the tattoo of the man"s order."
"What kind of critters do you have here that did that to him?" MacDonald asked.
Kando"s face was no longer warm and charming as he spoke to the child. "You see what your negligence has caused, Miw-Sher? Our enemies have heard of the disease that weakens us and stalk the streets. Brother Bulaybub, who saved you from enslavement and brought you here, although many deemed you unworthy, may be dead because you lacked the wit to remain with him. The amba.s.sador may have come to similar harm, for all we know. You will retrace the way you came, and if you do not find her, you will stand at the gate of the Federation compound until she is ready to return to us. All night if necessary. And the next as well. Put Grimla down. She is too weak to protect anyone. And you do not deserve protection. Go!"
"Wait," Nadhari ordered the girl in a tone even less to be argued with than her cousin"s. To Becker she said softly, "I"m going with her."
Becker nodded, understanding. This was what Nadhari did and she was good at it.
Kando tried to stop her and said in Standard, presumably to keep the girl from understanding the conversation, "Cousin, please. You are my guest. You are tired from your journey. I know your kind heart urges you to keep the girl from harm, but I am exaggerating the danger to alarm her into obedience. My men will be thick on the streets now. Truly, she and the amba.s.sador will both be safe, but the girl should learn her lesson."
Nadhari squared her shoulders and spoke in a dialect Becker had not heard before. Amid the spate of law she laid down to the Mulzar, Becker heard her say Acorna"s name and that of her former boss, the late Delszaki Li. He grinned. He knew just what she"d said. Nadhari had told Kando that he might be boss here, but she owed it to her late boss Mr. Li to look after his adopted daughter, as she had promised, and she intended to honor that promise.
To his credit, Kando seemed to realize when he was outcla.s.sed and outgunned. With a few more sharp words to Miw-Sher, he gestured that she and the three priests who had reported the death to him should follow Nadhari.
The convalescing cats had been listening to the whole exchange with their ears c.o.c.ked and their tails lashing, but when Becker looked around for them, they were gone.
Kando noticed it, too, and roared at the other priests who had been playing cat-nurse along with the girl. He pointed up to some cat-sized holes attached to rafters in the ceiling. The last puff of a tail was disappearing through one now.
MacDonald watched and shook his head, "Somebody ought to tell him it"s no good closing the barn door after all the horses - or I guess you"d have to say cats right now-have got out."
Becker approached Kando. "I"d like to go back to the ship myself and make sure Acorna got there safely."
"I cannot permit any more people on the streets," Kando said.
"Nadhari"s fighting skills are a matter of record, but yours are not, Captain, and I cannot risk an incident with the Federation. Please humor me in this and remain indoors while those trained to do so handle this matter." He gave a sudden rueful smile. "My authority has been undermined enough for one night."
Becker sympathized to some extent, but didn"t like to hit his bunk with Acorna still missing and one of his dinner partners freshly murdered.
Kando saw the conflict in his face and said diplomatically, "Your pardon, Captain. You are a man of action, of course, and it would not be your way to be idle while others deal with this crisis. Perhaps you and Captain MacDonald would care to a.s.sist me as I examine the late Bulaybub"s mortal remains?"
Becker nodded sharply and motioned to MacDonald. The other captain wasn"t saying much, for a change, but his acute green eyes missed nothing and he seemed to be weighing everything he heard and saw. The two of them followed Kando and some flunkies to a room filled with candles and torches and a group of three human-sized stone altars. One now functioned as a morgue slab and held the b.l.o.o.d.y mess that remained of the late Bulaybub.
Two priestesses arrived bearing pottery bowls full of what looked like soap and water, but Kando held up his hand and beckoned the two off-world captains forward.
As they approached, Kando picked up what remained of the head, and held it up to them. It was barely recognizable as human, so Becker didn"t react to it much himself. But MacDonald drew in his breath sharply.
"Well, Preacher," he said, "you got yourself a real problem with this one."
Becker, looking at the gutted torso, thought that might possibly take the cake for the understatement of the week.
MacDonald"s large finger traced the long marks against the frontal portion of the skull. "See these claw marks? Your critters are going to have worse than a disease to contend with. And you"d better keep your little p.u.s.s.ycats in the Temple, too. These here were made by some kind of a painter."
"Painter?" Kando asked, confused. "I see no paint."
"That"s what we call the big cats where I come from," Mac-Donald said. "Painters, pumas, cougars, mountain lions. Maybe even a jungle lion for all I know. But you got you a really big wildcat running around loose somewhere. And judging from what it did to this fella, I"d say it was right p.i.s.sed."
As he finished speaking, Kando nodded at his people. The women began washing what was left of the body. That was when MacDonald leaned in and pointed at something caught in the neck cavity. "What"s that?" he asked. The thing was thin and long. "I"ve butchered more livestock than I care to think about, and that doesn"t look like anything I"ve ever seen in a corpse. At least not there."
He had Kando"s attention. The senior priest gestured for the women to wash the area where MacDonald was pointing. When a great deal of soapy water had turned pink, a long, stained string came away. It looked a bit like some of the things in the corpse, but Becker guessed whatever it came from had been dead a lot longer than the poor dismembered priest.
"Okay, Captain, I"ll bite," Becker said. "What"s the guy"s shoelace doing up around where his ears should have been? Or is this an extreme fashion statement having to do with string ties?"
Of course n.o.body really had to tell him "what the thing was. Whatever its original purpose had been, most lately it had been used as a garrote to strangle the guy. He supposed that was in case tearing out the victim"s guts and face didn"t kill him dead enough.
MacDonald was clearly thinking the same thing, eyeballing the neck and silently pointing to the ligature marks above the place where the head had been severed from the trunk.
"What kind of animal do you have here that strangles people before they disembowel and eat "em, Preacher?" MacDonald asked. "I don"t believe I ever saw anybody killed quite this thoroughly before."
Kando sighed. "Our enemies have grown clever. Now they attack us in the guise of our myths. But the killer was a man when he used this." He nodded toward the string as if it was the ickiest thing in the room, which it definitely wasn"t, in Becker"s opinion. The victim was much harder to look at than the string that had killed him.
"You"d think beheading and eviscerating the fellow would be enough to do the job without strangling him, too," Becker said.
"My guess is he was strangled quick to keep him from yelling for help before the gory stuff started," MacDonald said. "It was undoubtedly a mercy."
He didn"t need to elaborate.
Becker stepped behind one of the stone altars and lost his dinner, which helped a little. One of the women gratefully abandoned the corpse to clean up the mess. Becker excused himself and went out to a fountain to wash his mouth out.
The only good thing about the whole incident, as far as Becker could see, was that Nadhari hadn"t been there to watch him puke.
Nadhari followed Miw-Sher as the girl retraced the route she had taken to bring Acorna to the Temple.
Halfway there, one of the priests Edu had dispatched with them to investigate the murder said, "You"re going the wrong direction. Bulaybub"s body was two streets south of here."
"I can"t help that," Miw-Sher told him. "The amba.s.sador and I were hastening and he did not keep up with us. I thought he would join us at the Temple and was not concerned. We were in a great hurry to reach the guardians and save them. Perhaps Bulaybub remembered an errand elsewhere, something that took him to the place where you found him."
"You have that story all nicely worked out, don"t you?" the first priest said.
"It is no story, but the truth," Miw-Sher said.