"No," she said. "I was taken prisoner by the Aridimis after a battle and given to the Temple priests as an acolyte. As such, I was confined to the Temple to do menial chores. My fighting ability and my affinity for the sacred cats saved me from some of the less pleasant duties I might have been forced into otherwise."
"That must have been terrible for you," Acorna said sympathetically. "No wonder you were so eager to help Mr. Li free the children of Kezdet and establish the training center on Maganos."
Nadhari raised an eyebrow and smiled a half-smile. "Actually, it wasn't bad at all. I let myself be raptured, once I had demonstrated that I could handle myself in battle. I knew our enemy was near the new Federation outpost, and I knew that the Federation recruited likely Makahomian young people and took them off-planet to train for the Corps. One of my cousins had gone and returned, which was quite unusual. He said it was wonderful, but that Makahomia needed him more than the Federation. His stories made me determine to be chosen. Mostly they didn't choose girls, but there were not many girls who could fight as I could."
Becker had wanted Nadhari to open up, and now she was unusually garrulous. Acorna thought it was extreme nervousness, as well as being around people she trusted, that made her so talkative.
"What was your home like?" Acorna asked her. "Now that we are here, will you be able to visit your family? Can we explore the planet with you and see where you come from?"
"I very much doubt it," Nadhari said with a half shrug. "It may not even be advisable to let the Federation know I'm aboard, depending on who rules Hissim these days. Also, the Federation does not allow anyone to introduce alien technologies to our people."
"Why not?" Becker asked.
Nadhari took a deep breath. "Because if one faction had a technological edge, it would upset the balance of power that keeps our continual wars from escalating to a bloodbath that could wipe out the population. You must understand, Jonas, my people are at war all the time-it's part of what we do," she told him.
"But we don't need to worry about someone shooting us down as we land?"
"Oh, no, because the Federation are the only ones who have modern weapons. Anything more advanced than a spear or a knife is considered much too dangerous to be in Makahomian hands."
"By the Federation?" Acorna asked. "That's very… paternalistic, isn't it?"
"Actually, it was our priests, both the war priests and the peace priests, who jointly decided on the taboo and insisted that the Federation enforce it as a condition of their maintaining a presence on the planet. In exchange, the Federation gained the concession that it could choose likely youngsters to train for its service. Of course, when one of us was chosen to leave our world and take up fighting elsewhere, that is a different matter. As expatriates, we could learn anything they wished to teach us, including how to handle all the weapons with which they armed us. We are not allowed to take those weapons back to the indigenous areas of our homeworld with us, however. Or even to speak to our people of their existence."
Becker snorted. "Yeah, I can see where you could become Supreme High Pooh-Bah in a nanosecond if you had Old Betsy with you," he said. Old Betsy was what he called Nadhari's laser rifle.
"Should I visit my planet's surface, I will be allowed to carry no weapons but the dagger I took with me from the Temple when I left," Nadhari said.
"But on the other hand, you're saying that nobody else on your world will have anything badder," Becker said, nodding his understanding. "Well, that'll make things more even. But you don't need a laser rifle to do damage, babe. I've seen you in action."
She grimaced. "It is true I've learned much since leaving the Temple, but many of my people are at least as able in the traditional fighting skills as I was when I was chosen to leave. And though I may have had much more training and experience since, I am older now, and my reflexes are not as fast as once they were."
"You musta been a beautiful baby," Becker said. "And death on wheels if you were any tougher than you are now."
She didn't acknowledge either aspect of the intended compliment, but said seriously, "My bloodlines on my father's side are from the Kashirian Steppes, where the best fighters come from. Kashirians, when they are not personally defending their own territory or attacking someone else's, are hired by the other peoples as mercenaries. Normally, girls are not trained as highly as boys in battle skills. However, my mother's people were Felihari, one of the Makavitian Rainforest tribes. The climate in the forests is hot and very, very wet, and fighting is done with less physical and more intellectual finesse than elsewhere on the planet. My mother was initiated as a Felihari High Priestess."
As Nadhari spoke, Acorna saw the images of her memories quite clearly-the rubbery copper-colored foliage of the jungle, stirring sluggishly in a dripping heat, the striped and spotted creatures slithering along the ground or up and down the trees, the rainfall that came second- and third-hand after first being deposited on the tallest branches, then flowing onto the lower ones, and finally reaching the ground. The Temples draped in drowsing cats and studded with winking jewels-or were those more cats blinking back the light? Nadhari's mother, erect and proud as Nadhari herself but shorter, browner, wearing the practical dress for the climate -that is, very little dress at all. Her skin, coppery as the leaves around her, glistened with moisture. Her auburn/black hair was braided with what looked like-but couldn't be-the eyes of cats.
Nadhari was remembering one cat in particular - a sleek tawny creature with a throaty purr whose butter-soft fur turned red at ears and tail, and whose jonquil eyes always seemed uplifted to a particular young girl.
"The Felihari women hold much of the power in their culture, and since their fighting skills require more of an intelligent application of the laws of physics than brawn, the women are quite effective fighters. When my father was taken prisoner by her people, my mother thought he would make a highly desirable contribution to the tribe's bloodlines and became impregnated by him. Religiosity does not require celibacy on my homeworld. The resulting child, my elder brother, was considered such a success, and I suspect my mother and father found the process so enjoyable, that they formalized their union and made me as well."
"That's romantic," Becker said dryly.
Acorna could tell there was much Nadhari was not saying and didn't wish to say, for reasons of her own. Perhaps the reasons were connected with the emotional problems Becker had described on the way to MOO. But until she was ready to talk about it, it did little good to press her for more information.
Instead, Acorna asked, "Nadhari, the aagroni wanted some information about the Makahomian Temple cats. He believes, having seen RK, that there might be some connection between them and a species that existed on Vhiliinyar before the Khleevi attack. I would like to speak with some of the high priests about them. How much exposure have your people had to people not of their own species? Should I disguise myself, or would it be best to simply present myself as a Linyaari ambassador?"
Nadhari considered, then said, "You will have to-in fact, any of us would have to-obtain a permit from the Federation officials to enter the cities or countryside, and especially to interact with any of our officials. Even I will have to, since I have been away so long."
"Surely they wouldn't keep you from seeing your family?"
"I cannot be sure any of my family members still live," Nadhari said. "My mother was killed by a band of mercenaries unrelated to my father, who was at that time off fighting for another Makavitian tribe involved in a blood feud with Aridimis. My brother was killed defending my mother and her Temple." Nadhari was remembering the tawny cat, accidentally wounded with a great gash in its side, growling over her mother and brother, defending their bodies against all comers, while a little girl screamed desperate war cries and kicked and chopped until she was so exhausted her laughing opponents were able to simply scoop her up and carry her off. "But when the mercenaries who killed them found me and learned who my father was, they ransomed me to him. He was killed in a battle soon after the one in which I was taken prisoner."