Memoirs of Kitty Siam Ch. 40

Memoirs of Kitty Siam – The Priestess and The Monk.

When dawn came and the first rays of sunlight slipped through the gaps in the wooden shutters and the sheer curtains that functioned more as mosquito netting than actual drapes, my housemates stirred to life. First Sneha and Palu attempted to continue where they left off the night before but a slightly disgruntled Raffa interrupted them. He stormed out of his sleeping area and stomped his way across the common room to Sneha's section of the hut, flung back her beaded curtain and started demanding answers as to who she and Palu had let into the hut after dark.

Both Sneha and Palu protested Raffa's insinuation that they had let someone in and began to question him as to what happened. Even in feline form I wanted to bust out laughing and several times I caught myself making cute little snorting noises as I did my best to listen in and understand the banter. As I watched the three humans I was amazed at how much movement there is to the human body when debating an issue totally naked. It appeared that nudity was not an issue here in this village as all three humans were quite comfortable to stand around and argue while unclothed.

The disbelieving couple took Raffa around the house and pointed out the wood plank barred shutters and the even thicker timber plank on the entrance door that would have kept anyone out. Both Sneha and Palu swore that they had let no one in to the hut overnight, which prompted Raffa to escort them into his area to show him the soaked sheets and mattress. Palu broke out in to a deep laugh when Sneha suggested that Raffa had wet the bed in his sleep. Of course Raffa was not amused as he looked down at the giant wet spot that had become more sticky than wet, then as he glanced over the rest of the bed his gaze landed on several small crimson spots on the pillow that were still in the process of drying.

Raffa picked up his pillow and presented it to Sneha as evidence that someone else had been in the hut. She looked the pillow over and passed it to Palu who then asked Raffa if someone assaulted him in the night. Raffa offered his naked body for inspection and both Sneha and Palu began to take Raffa seriously as they checked him over for any sort of wound but found none. Palu made the suggestion that perhaps the temple cat had been sleeping with Raffa. Sneha did not believe that I was involved but agreed to let the two men check me over for injuries. Of course they found none, but I did enjoy both humans running their fingers through my black fur looking for obvious wounds.

I had the feeling that Raffa was also looking for a wet sticky patch on my fur to match the one on his bed, but just like with the search for wounds, they found nothing. My advanced healing properties took care of those little bite marks in short order and being a cat... we just love to preen and clean ourselves so by the time that my humans got around to inspecting me, all of the evidence was long gone.

All three humans agreed that there was a mystery to be solved here and they believed that Raffa experienced something in the night though he did not go into detail about what had really happened. I am not sure that Raffa really knew what happened to him during the night and was confused as to which parts were fact, fiction, imagination, or a really hot and intense dream.

The sun was almost up when the junior detective squad broke up their little bedside huddle and quickly made their way to the shower area. They all had duties to perform in the morning before breakfast so there was little time to waste. Sneha entered the shower with her brother, gave him a quick soap down and rinse, then she did the same for her boyfriend. Once the two men were washed and dried she had time to do the same for herself. It took her a bit longer as she decided to wash her lovely long black hair.

The men dressed and left for their morning ritual. They swept the street where the food was to be served, then helped to set up the tables while Sneha took me with her to the shrine to extinguish the torches, lanterns, and cauldrons that provided light though out the night. Several other girls from the village joined us at the shrine and performed a quick sweep of the floor before we joined the other villagers for breakfast.

The rest of my week with Sneha and Raffa was uneventful, and there were no more sneak attacks on Raffa during the night, though he did sleep lightly and from time to time he would wake and patrol the hut looking for spirits in the night. I honestly have to report that he found none. I was well fed and cared for by my human keepers. I was a bit disappointed when at the end of the week I was handed off to the new keeper of the shrine. Her name was Marsa; she was a few years younger than Sneha. She lived with her parents and her seven siblings on the outskirts of the village where they shared in the maintenance and upkeep of one of the many banana farms that surrounded the village on three sides. Marsa like Sneha was kind and gentle girl and she and her family took excellent care of me.

My third keeper was Diya. She like Marsa lived with her family but during the week that I was in her keep I had only had a chance to be with her and her elderly mother. Diya was the youngest of the family. Her three brothers and her father worked the family's fishing boats and spent most of their time out to sea. Now when I say fishing boats I really mean boats... the kind of boats that must be rowed, though some of the boats were fitted with a single sail. There were no tall ships here, there were however a few flat bottomed boats that would hold around forty men and were equally fitted to sail the rivers or to make their way far out to sea. The small rowboats rarely ventured out so far as to not be able to see the coast.

The village of Pa'u was located slightly inland from the sea but was near enough to the mouth of the river. It was for lack of a better term a village of port and a center of commerce. Closer to the shoreline was a business district of sorts where the merchants would gather to buy and sell their wares. After Diya completed her duties at the temple she would take me to her aunt's shop down by the docks, which allowed me to see more of the village and learn more about the language and the customs of the villagers.

On my last day in Diya's care we went to visit her aunt's little general store. She had done well running the store since the passing of her husband during the same hurricane that claimed the lives of Sneha's parents. She sold all sorts of items in small quantities. There were bigger stores and markets in the center of town, but her store mostly carried convenience items for the sailors who came to load and unload their boats. It was a good place for the port's visitors to grab a loaf of bread, or some dried fish or meat for the trip back home. The most popular item this day seemed to be the small pint bottles of rum.

It was the rum that caused the Captain of one of the larger transport boats to visit this day. He was purchasing a few bottles of rum and an equal number of loaves of bread to take back to his crew when he noticed me sitting in the corner. It did not take him long to recognize what I was and my significance to this village, or any village that possessed me. From what I had gathered that cats of any kind were just a legend to the people of this world, but the most prominent legends involved the Temple Cats.

The Captain completed his purchase and after his men left with the rum and bread the Captain attempted to bargain with Diya's aunt to purchase me. Obviously I was not for sale as I was considered to be the property of the entire village. This was explained to the Captain but he was not listening. He intended to purchase me properly or steal me away if necessary. Diya's aunt still refused to sell which enraged the Captain.

Just as Diya was returning to her aunt's shop the Captain turned to me and grabbed onto my leather leash in an attempt to drag me by force from the shop. Diya did her best to block the door but she was no match for the brutish Captain. With one hand holding my leash he used his free hand to grab Diya by the hair and slam her face first into the doorframe. The first impact caused blood to flow freely from her broken nose; the second impact opened a long deep gash over her forehead and across her cheek. When the Captain released the girl she slumped immediately to the floor.

Seeing this, Diya's aunt made her way out from behind the counter to help her niece. When she was close enough the Captain grabbed her by the hair also and was about to give her the same treatment that he had given Diya. Fearing for her safety I deployed my claws and made a quick leap at the Captain. My claws hooked into his shirt at his shoulders then easily pierced his flesh. He bellowed out in pain as my claws dug in and my weight pulled my paws down his back. My claws raked his flesh raising angry red furrows down his back as his shirt was ripped from his body. Immediately his hand released the woman and my leash as he tumbled out of the door.

Several of the men from the town had observed his assault on Diya and had arrived just in time to take the badly bleeding Captain into custody. Though he was cut badly, there was no muscular or structural damage from my claws, but from what I could see of Diya, she was out cold and possibly had suffered a concussion. As the Captain was led away a very athletic looking young man scooped Diya up and made a mad dash toward the shrine. Along the way he had asked several villagers to run and get the monk. If you were hurt or sick, it was the monk that you sought out for assistance in the village of Pa'u.

As Diya was carried toward the shrine I disconnected myself from my leash using my wardrobe device as I had done before with Sneha and raced off toward the shrine. When we got to the top of the steps Jobu the village monk was already waiting for us at the altar. Jobu was an elderly man, his head and eyebrows shaved as required for his position as the village monk. Jobu was an elderly man of failing health. Even in his flowing silk saffron colored robes he looked very weak and frail. Had I met Jobu on Earth I would have guessed his age to be over ninety but here I did not have enough information on the Pa'u to know their life expectancy or at what rate they showed their true age.

In the other villages it would have been the village monk and his apprentice that took care of the cleaning and maintenance of the temple but give his age, the villagers did their best to help out. Jobu had several apprentices in his service before the great hurricane struck the village. Two of the three were killed by the storm surge and the other had to renounce the monkhood to return to his family's farm to take the place of his brother and father, both had perished in the storm. Since the hurricane no one came to replace the trainees that were lost so Jobu pressed on as best he could in the hope that someone some day would come to lean his craft before he passed on into the care of the Great Maker.

The young man placed Diya on the altar then backed away to let the monk look her over. The few villagers that had made the trip to the shrine with us dropped to their knees in front of the altar with their heads pressed to the floor. In unison they began to chant their healing prayers. I took up a position behind Pesha who had arrived shortly after the rest of the group. I watched as the monk examined the girl before he cleaned and bound her wounds. Several times he tried to assist her into a sitting position but she could not, or would not stay upright without assistance.

I could see that the monk was concerned and as I looked around I noticed that I was the only one watching the monk as the others were all facing the floor in prayer. I was surprised when the monk turned toward a stone panel behind the altar and placed his hands on several worn symbols carved into the wall. It appears that over the centuries that these areas had received many touches as they were greatly worn and slightly discolored. As his hand touched the final symbol there were several random blue flashes from the crystal obelisk behind the alter. I had some experience with these obelisks and I knew that there should be more happening than what I was seeing.

Jobu keyed in the sequence again and received the same negative result. From the look on the his face it seemed like this result was expected and I surmised that this apparatus had been in need of repair for quite some time. The villagers were great at maintaining the outside of the shrine but they had no idea of the technology that was installed under the floor nor did they have the knowledge of how to repair it. Jobu pressed his hands to the symbols once again in the hope that maybe the third time would bring him luck but there was no luck to be found in the malfunctioning obelisk.

The monk looked at the nonfunctioning obelisk, then looked at Diya, then looked at me. He sighed sadly then looked down at the altar with a look of futility on his face. Seeing this I took a quick look over the praying villagers and noticed that the they were all still face down in prayer so I made my way behind the altar to the wall behind the altar to where I had noticed the DNA reader. I transitioned to human form then using the wardrobe device dressed myself in a plain white silk sari that was wrapped around me in a way that left my right arm and shoulder bare, but covered the rest of my body loosely from the chest down to my ankles. My hair was pinned up on top of my head and my feet were bare. I chose this attire with bare feet to show respect for the shrine.

I pressed my hand to the rectangular DNA reader and felt the familiar tingle as my hand was scanned. A second later I was rewarded with a soft hissing sound as the stones of the floor slid open allowing me passage to the stairway below. At the same time a soft female voice came from the panel saying, "Greetings Princess Maew."

I took a quick look around to see if any of the villagers noticed my movements but no one was looking, except the Jobu and he was smiling at me as if a prayer had been answered. My eyes met his and I could see that his eyes were open wide in joyful disbelief as to what he had just witnessed. Before I made my way down the stairs I placed my finger to my lips to ask for his silence. Jobu understood and nodded to me before I disappeared down the steps that led under the shrine. Once I was at the bottom of the steps I touched the control panel in the wall and the stone covering over the stairs once again slid back into place.

Once the hatch over the stairs was closed a few very dim lights flickered to life. It was enough to see where I was going without using my night vision. The facility under the shrine was tiny compared to the other underground facility on this world. This facility had been abandoned for a very long time, as there were no footprints in the several inches of dust and dirt covering the floor. My goal was to see if I could quickly find the problem that was keeping the medical scanner above from working but unfortunately the problem seemed to be a shortage of power. While there was some power flowing into the facility, it was not enough to power the crystal obelisk above.

Most facilities that I had come across that were built by the Annunaki had a medical bay or at least a small first aid station and this one was no different. I was able to follow the signs that lead me to a mini clinic of sorts where I found an emergency medical kit. Inside the kit were several small medical scanners, dermal regenerators, and other assorted healing devices that I was unfamiliar with but knew that they were probably in the technical data given to me on Galora. I quickly took inventory of them all then queried my PDA for the schematics of each device to learn what it did and how it operates. The problem was that they needed charged and the facility was running on minimal power.

Each device was housed in a cradle inside the medical kit with a common charging port connected to the outside of the bag. It was only a matter of taking the cord from the bag and splicing it into one of the emergency light fixtures. While there was not a whole lot of power available to fully charge everything there was perhaps enough power to charge everything for one use. It took several minutes until the power indicator on the charging station read 15%. I hoped that would be enough, as I did not know how long Diya could hold out in her condition.

With the medical kit in hand I made my way back to the stairs, opened the panel and climbed my way back up to the shrine and closed the stone hatch behind me. Jobu watched me as I took up a position next to him, then as I reached into the medical kit he moved away from me to the front of the altar where he took a position on his knees and began to pray with the rest of the villagers. As I applied the medical scanner to Diya's forehead a few more villagers ascended the stairs and took up a praying position on their knees and joined the chant. Seeing me standing over the altar brought quizzical looks from most of them but they did not question or challenge me while I tended to Diya. I suspected that once they noticed the monk in his saffron colored robes in front of the altar praying in my direction, it would be a good idea for them to do the same.

The medical scanner quickly determined that my patient was bleeding internally, and as I watched the display on the device the instructions for treating the injury filled the display window along with a graphic of where and how to place the proper healing devices. I knew now that this equipment designed to be operated in severe emergency by those that had little or no medical training. Quickly I selected the soft tissue and organ regeneration probe from the medical kit, placed it on her forehead then watched as it activated on its own and began to strobe a blue light against her skin. While the villagers continued to pray for my patient the device went about its work repairing Diya's injured brain. Seven minutes later the device's display panel indicated that the operation had completed and was successful. I checked the power reading on the device and it was reading 2%. I considered myself very lucky after seeing that.

Next I removed the crude bandages from her wounds then applied the dermal regenerator to them. This was a manual device that required me to make many passes over the open wounds. I started with the laceration on her forehead and watched and the bright blue beam closed and sealed the wound a bit more after each pass. I set the device to a deeper healing setting then passed the device over her broken nose. In no time the cartilage was healed the bleeding had stopped. As I was making the last pass over her nose her eyes fluttered open and she began to sob. Finally I closed and healed the wound on her cheek. Even though her wounds had been healed she was still in a bit of pain that would take a few days to abate. There was a device to block the pain but I had run out of time once she woke up and her sobbing had attracted the attention of the villager closest to the alter.

My plan was to stow the medical bag under the hatchway to the stairs and put it back in the clinic another day, but once Diya woke up my plans of returning to feline form were nixed. Once she started sobbing the chanting had stopped and the villagers turned their attention to Diya and the tall slender Asian dressed in white silk woman standing over her and the alter. Several of Diya's friends and relatives rushed to the altar to comfort her while the rest of the villagers stared at me and began a new chant of, "Rangatira, Rangatira, Rangatira." Even the village monk Jobu had joined in the chant. The UT was having trouble translating this word, but after a minute or so it came back with two translations that could apply in this situation. The first was, "Princess", and the other was "Priestess." I went with the second translation as that seemed to be the most appropriate at the moment.