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."