"Your Holiness, I beg your permission to accompany Miw-Sher and the honored ambassador so that I may oversee preparations for the arrival of our guests this evening," Bulaybub said.
Acorna received the distinct impression that he was as glad as Miw-Sher to leave the table, though not for the same reasons.
"Very considerate of you to anticipate my wishes as always, Brother Bulaybub. You have my leave."
Both acolytes bowed from the waist. When Kando turned away to the table again, the girl shot Acorna a quick, intense glance under heavy lashes. The sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks seemed much too frivolous to match the red-rimmed green eyes above them.
In those eyes Acorna saw despair turn to a tentative hope. Miw-Sher's hands were clenched so tightly Acorna thought they might bleed, but her stride was purposeful as she led the way from the hall. The girl was having trouble containing herself enough to keep from running.
The force of her personality reminded Acorna of Maati. Thoughts of Maati brought thoughts of Maati's brother and a fresh stab of pain to Acorna's heart. Almost involuntarily, her fingers flew to the neck of her tunic, beneath which was Aari's birth disk.
The guards nodded to Brother Bulaybub and Miw-Sher and allowed them to pass through the gate, but they asked Acorna to show them her authorization to leave the post, which Macostut had provided. They pointedly did not look at her horn, even though she distinctly caught the thought (What kind of an alien is this, anyway?) before the other guard, with a roll of his eyes at his comrade's lack of worldliness, then directed her to pass slowly through the gate, which as Macostut had promised, contained a scanner for forbidden devices.
A red-draped box on wheels waited outside the Federation post and spaceport, hitched to two hornless beasts that bore a striking resemblance to Linyaari Ancestors.
"We should take the carriage," Miw-Sher urged, heading for it.
"His Eminence did not grant us permission to do so,"
Bulaybub replied, and Acorna again received the impression that he was trying to temper his tone.
"It would save time," the girl pointed out. "She might save a sacred one by its use."
"Perhaps," Bulaybub said reasonably, "but the Mulzar is aware of this concern and yet did not suggest that we had his permission to use his conveyance. If he chooses to leave and we have taken the carriage without permission, the ambassador will not be able to save us."
Acorna didn't think he was entirely serious about the consequences of taking the wagon, but he was senior to Miw-Sher in rank and he clearly did not want to take the carriage. He shot a glance into the twilit streets of the city, as if looking for something or sensing something. Acorna reached out to see if she could sense a bit about his thoughts-that would be very rude, and not honorable, without asking his permission. She sensed that he was waiting, expecting something… someone. And it had nothing to do with their mission. Her probe was not mind reading exactly, just ordinary sensitivity to the movements of body and eye and the expressions of other people. She considered asking him about it, but rejected the thought.
Whatever he was up to could not be nearly as important as the lives of the Temple cats, who needed her so badly that RK had diverted the Condor to get her here. And RK wasn't the only one worried. Miw-Sher was beside herself with impatience. Acorna said lightly, "I'm quite a swift runner. Lead the way at your fastest pace, please."
"If you are indeed swift of foot, there is no need for me to lead you," Miw-Sher replied eagerly. "You can see the Temple very clearly from here. It is not far." She pointed. The Temple was three stories high, and above the highest floor of the Temple rose a spire, a dome, and two conical towers. The structure dwarfed the low homes, shacks, and shops of the city. "Let's go!" Then they were all sprinting toward the Temple.
The Linyaari ambassador, like other Linyaari, was an extremely fast runner, so she paced herself so she would not outrun her guide. However, Miw-Sher was so swift that Acorna needed to slow only slightly to stay behind her. The run through the city was exhilarating after being cooped up on the Condor for so long. It also kept her from absorbing too quickly the noise of this strange place full of unshielded mouths and minds which otherwise could have overwhelmed her senses. Thousands of conversations, laughing, weeping, screaming, soothing, screaming again - she blocked it all out, focusing on her run and preparing herself for the task ahead.
The girl's heels flashed before her. Brother Bulaybub's trudging footfalls fell behind quickly, fading so completely into the general dm that it was as if the priest had taken a different direction.
Rounding a corner, Acorna found herself facing the Temple 's main gate, where the girl stood beckoning impatiently. Now the building's uppermost embellishments made sense. The Temple was in the shape of a gigantic cat with one paw raised aloft. The dome was the head of the cat, and the conical towers rising from it the ears. The open mouth of the muzzle formed a covered balcony. The main part of the building was molded to resemble a cat's haunches; the outer protective wall, the tail. RK would probably want to fight the whole building when he saw it.
Darkness was closing in now, the third sun setting, but it was still very hot. Once she ran into the open gate, Acorna saw that the courtyard was positioned to catch the most sun possible. The building's outer walls were a good six feet thick. Between the first and second story, they were laced with thin planks leading into holes in the walls.
Up the cat's chest a similarly flimsy pair of ladders rose on either side to the balcony in the muzzle. Long galleries of columns supported a shaded cloister inside the tail and along the lower body of the Temple. Though the main structure of the Temple was of a red and brown stone, the columns supporting the cloisters were white and oddly striped down their length.
"This way," the girl said, and led Acorna inside the Temple, pausing for a few words with a sentry who allowed them to pass, though with a long wondering glance at the alien stranger.
"Back here," the girl called over her shoulder. They came at last to a room lit by a gaseous light. The interior, although it looked clean, stank of illness, of the pungency of male cats, of blood, urine, and dead fish.
Five people looked up when the girl entered.
"Miw-Sher, you've returned too late," a woman the right age to be the girl's mother said. "Grimla has left us. She went into convulsions a few minutes ago. She was so weak her dear body could not sustain them."
"No!" the girl cried. "Where are the others? I've brought a doctor, someone from off-planet who can help them."
"I can cure your cats," Acorna said, praying it was true. "If I may I examine them now, please?"
Two feeble squeaks intended to be mews issued from very thin, bony-looking cats no more than half RK's own splendid size. The one with the jaundiced-looking yellow coat wobbled forward on trembling paws and stared at her. His eyes were half clouded with the third eyelid.
She walked to him, and his caretaker stepped in front of him. "No alien hands will touch my Pash," the man declared stoutly. As Acorna started to muster an argument, the man suddenly said, "Aiee!" He jumped wildly, then rubbed his behind.
Miw-Sher said, "Pash seems to think otherwise. Step aside. Let the doctor work."
The man reluctantly stepped aside.
"First I must reassure the cat and let him get to know me," Acorna said, to explain why she picked up Pash. The poor animal felt like bones webbed together with silk, and he smelled as if he had turned himself inside out just recently. But he stroked his face against her hands.
With great care, Acorna stroked and petted him, held him up to her face, rubbing her cheek in his fur and urging him silently to touch her horn. He did, grabbing it with paws still velvet to lever himself upward and rub his jaw against it. The frail shudders running through his skeletal body took a while to be recognizable as purrs, but that's what they were.