The Houses of the Kzinti
Jerry Pournelle
S.M. Stirling
Dean Ing
  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and
events portrayed in this
  book are fictional, and any resemblance to real
people or incidents is purely
  coincidental.

  Cathouse copyright © 1990 by Dean Ing; The
Children's Hour copyright © 1991 by
  Jerry Pournelle & S.M. Stirling.

  All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book or portions
  thereof in any form.

 A Baen Books Original Omnibus

 Baen Publishing Enterprises
 P.O. Box 1403
 Riverdale, NY 10471
 www.baen.com

 ISBN: 0-7434-3577-X

 Cover art by Larry Elmore

 First printing, December 2002

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
  Pournelle, Jerry, 1933-
    The houses of the Kzinti / by Jerry Pournelle,
S.M. Stirling & Dean Ing.
    p. cm.
    "A Baen Books original omnibus"-T.p. verso.
    Contents: Cathouse / by Dean Ing - The children's
hour / by Jerry Pournelle
    & S.M. Stirling.
    ISBN 0-7434-3577-X
    1. Human-alien encounters-Fiction. 2. Life on
other planets-Fiction. 3.
    Science
    fiction, American. I. Ing, Dean. II. Stirling,
S.M. III. Ing, Dean.
    Cathouse. IV.
    Pournelle, Jerry, 1933- Children's hour. V. Title.
  PS3566.O815 H67 2002
  813'.54-dc21
  2002028324

 Distributed by Simon & Schuster
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 New York, NY 10020

  Produced by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH
  Printed in the United States of America
Baen Books by Jerry Pournelle & S.M. Stirling
  The Prince
  The "War World" series
  Blood Feuds
  Blood Vengeance
  Baen Books by Jerry Pournelle
  Janissaries
  Birth of Fire
Baen Books by S.M. Stirling
  The Draka series:
  The Domination
  Drakon
  Drakas! (anthology)
  with James Doohan:
  The Flight Engineer series:
  The Rising
  The Privateer
  The Independent Command
  with David Drake:
  The Forge
  The Chosen
  The Reformer

  The City Who Fought (with Anne McCaffrey)
  The Ship Avenged
  Snowbrother
Cathouse
by Dean Ing
Sampling war's minor ironies: Locklear knew so little
about the Weasel or
wartime alarms, he thought the klaxon was hooting for
planetfall. That is why,
when the Weasel winked into normal space near that
lurking kzin warship, little
Locklear would soon be her only survivor. The second
irony was that, while the
Interworld Commission's last bulletin had announced
sporadic new outbursts of
kzin hostility, Locklear was the only civilian on the
Weasel who had never
thought of himself as a warrior and did not intend to
become one.
Moments after the Weasel's intercom announced
completion of their jump, Locklear
was steadying himself next to his berth, waiting for
the ship's
gravity-polarizer to kick in and swallowing hard
because, like ancient French
wines, he traveled poorly. He watched with envy as
Herrera, the hairless,
whipcord-muscled Belter in the other bunk, swung out
with one foot planted on
the deck and the other against the wall. "Like a
cat," Locklear said admiringly.
"That's no compliment anymore, flatlander," Herrera
said. "It looks like the
goddam tabbies want a fourth war. You'd think they'd
learn," he added with a
grim headshake.
Locklear sighed. As a student of animal psychology in
general, he'd known a few
kzinti well enough to admire the way they learned. He
also knew Herrera was on
his way to enlist if, as seemed likely, the kzinti
were spoiling for another
war. And in that case, Locklear's career was about to
be turned upside down.
Instead of a scholarly life puzzling out the meanings
of Grog forepaw gestures
and kzin ear-twitches, he would probably be
conscripted into some warren full of
psych warfare pundits, for the duration. These days,
an ethologist had to be
part historian, too-Locklear remembered more than he
liked about the three
previous man-kzin wars.
And Herrera was ready to fight the kzinti already,
and Locklear had called him a
cat. Locklear opened his mouth to apologize but the
klaxon drowned him out.
Herrera slammed the door open, vaulted into the
passageway reaching for
handholds.
"What's the matter," Locklear shouted. "Where are
you-?"
Herrera's answer, half-lost between the door-slam and
the klaxon, sounded like
"atta nation" to Locklear, who did not even know the
drill for a deadheading
passenger during battle stations. Locklear was still
waiting for a familiar tug
of gravity when that door sighed, the hermetic seal
swelling as always during a
battle alert, and he had time to wonder why Herrera
was in such a hurry before
the Weasel took her fatal hit amidships.
An energy beam does not always sound like a
thunderclap from inside the stricken
vessel. This one sent a faint crackling down the
length of the Weasel's hull,
like the rustle of pre-space parchment crushed in a
man's hand. Sequestered
alone in a two-man cabin near the ship's aft galley,
Locklear saw his bunk leap
toward him, the inertia of his own body wrenching his
grip from his handhold
near the door. He did not have time to consider the
implications of a blow
powerful enough to send a twelve-hundred-ton
Privateer-class patrol ship
tumbling like a pinwheel, nor the fact that the blow
itself was the reaction
from most of the Weasel's air, exhausting to space in
explosive decompression.
And because his cabin had no external viewport, he
could not see the scatter of
human bodies into the void. The last thing he saw was
the underside of his bunk,
and the metal brace that caught him above the left
cheekbone. Then he knew only
a mild curiosity: wondering why he heard something
like the steady sound of a
thin whistle underwater, and why that yellow flash in
his head was followed by
an infrared darkness crammed with pain.
***
It was the pain that brought him awake; that, and the
sound of loud static. No,
more like the zaps of an arc welder in the hands of a
novice-or like a catfight.
And then he turned a blurred mental page and knew it,
the way a Rorschach blot
suddenly becomes a face half-forgotten but always
feared. So it did not surprise
him, when he opened his eyes, to see two huge kzinti
standing over him.
To a man like Herrera they would merely have been
massive. To Locklear, a man of
less than average height, they were enormous; nearly
half again his height. The
broadest kzin, with the notched right ear and the
black horizontal furmark like
a frown over his eyes, opened his mouth in what, to
humans, might be a smile.
But kzinti smiles showed dagger teeth and always
meant immediate threat. This
one was saying something that sounded like,
"Clash-rowll whuff, rurr fitz."
Locklear needed a few seconds to translate it, and by
that time the second kzin
was saying it in Interworld: "Grraf-Commander says,
'Speak when you are spoken
to.' For myself I would prefer that you remained
silent. I have eaten no
monkey-meat for too long."
While Locklear composed a reply, the big one-the
Grraf-Commander,
evidently-spoke again to his fellow. Something about
whether the monkey knew his
posture was deliberately obscene. Locklear, lying on
his back on a padded table
as big as a Belter's honeymoon bed, realized his arms
and legs were flung wide.
"I am not very fluent in the Hero's tongue," he said
in passable Kzin,
struggling to a sitting position as he spoke.
As he did, some of that pain localized at his right
collarbone. Locklear moved
very slowly thereafter. Then, recognizing the
dot-and-comma-rich labels that
graced much of the equipment in that room, he decided
not to ask where he was.
He could be nowhere but an emergency surgical room
for kzin warriors. That meant
he was on a kzin ship.
A faint slitting of the smaller kzin's eyes might
have meant determination, a
grasping for patience, or-if Locklear recalled the
texts, and if they were
right, a small "if" followed by a very large one-a
pause for relatively cold
calculation. The smaller kzin said, in his own
tongue, "If the monkey speaks the
Hero's tongue, it is probably as a spy."
"My presence here was not my idea," Locklear pointed
out, surprised to find his
memory of the language returning so quickly. "I
boarded the Weasel on command to
leave a dangerous region, not to enter one. Ask the
ship's quartermaster, or
check her records."
The commander spat and sizzled again: "The crew are
all carrion. As you will
soon be, unless you tell us why, of all the monkeys
on that ship, you were the
only one so specially protected."
Locklear moaned. This huge kzin's partial name and
his scars implied the kind of
warrior whose valor and honor forbade lies to a
captive. All dead but himself?
Locklear shrugged before he thought, and the shrug
sent a stab of agony across
his upper chest. "Sonofabitch," he gasped in agony.
The navigator kzin
translated. The larger one grinned, the kind of grin
that might fasten on his
throat.
Locklear said in Kzin, very fast, "Not you! I was
cursing the pain."
"A telepath could verify your meanings very quickly,"
said the smaller kzin.
"An excellent idea," said Locklear. "He will verify
that I am no spy, and not a
combatant, but only an ethologist from Earth. A kzin
acquaintance once told me
it was important to know your forms of address. I do
not wish to give offense."
"Call me Tzak-Navigator," said the smaller kzin
abruptly, and grasped Locklear
by the shoulder, talons sinking into the human flesh.
Locklear moaned again,
gritting his teeth. "You would attack? Good," the
navigator went on, mistaking
the grimace, maintaining his grip, the formidable
kzin body trembling with
intent.
"I cannot speak well with such pain," Locklear
managed to grunt. "Not as
well-protected as you think."
"We found you well-protected and sealed alone in that
ship," said the commander,
motioning for the navigator to slacken his hold. "I
warn you, we must rendezvous
the Raptor with another Ripping-Fang class cruiser to
pick up a full crew before
we hit the Eridani worlds. I have no time to waste on
such a scrawny monkey as
you, which we have caught nearer our home worlds than
to your own."
Locklear grasped his right elbow as support for that
aching collarbone. "I was
surveying life-forms on purely academic study-in
peacetime, so far as I knew,"
he said. "The old patrol craft I leased didn't have a
weapon on it."
"You lie," the navigator hissed. "We saw them."
"The Weasel was not my ship, Tzak-Navigator. Its
commander brought me back under
protest; said the Interworld Commission wanted
noncombatants out of harm's
way-and here I am in its cloaca."
"Then it was already well-known on that ship that we
are at war. I feel better
about killing it," said the commander. "Now, as to
the ludicrous cargo it was
carrying: what is your title and importance?"
"I am scholar Carroll Locklear. I was probably the
least important man on the
Weasel-except to myself. Since I have nothing to
hide, bring a telepath."
"Now it gives orders," snarled the navigator.
"Please," Locklear said quickly.
"Better," the commander said.
"It knows," the navigator muttered. "That is why it
issues such a challenge."
"Perhaps," the commander rumbled. To Locklear he
said, "A skeleton crew of four
rarely includes a telepath. That statement will
either satisfy your challenge,
or I can satisfy it in more-conventional ways." That
grin again, feral, willing.
"I meant no challenge, Grraf-Commander. I only want
to satisfy you of who I am,
and who I'm not."
"We know what you are," said the navigator. "You are
our prisoner, an important
one, fleeing the Patriarchy rim in hopes that the
monkeyship could get you to
safety." He reached again for Locklear's shoulder.
"That is pure torture," Locklear said, wincing, and
saw the navigator stiffen as
the furry orange arm dropped. If only he had recalled
the kzinti disdain for
torture earlier! "I am told you are an honorable
race. May I be treated properly
as a captive?"
"By all means," the commander said, almost in a purr.
"We eat captives."
Locklear, slyly: "Even important ones?"
"If it pleases me," the commander replied. "More
likely you could turn your coat
in the service of the Patriarchy. I say you could; I
would not suggest such an
obscenity. But that is probably the one chance your
sort has for personal
survival."
"My sort?"
The commander looked Locklear up and down, at the
slender body, lightly muscled
with only the deep chest to suggest stamina. "One of
the most vulnerable
specimens of monkeydom I have ever seen," he said.
That was the moment when Locklear decided he was at
war. "Vulnerable, and
important, and captive. Eat me," he said, wondering
if that final phrase was as
insulting in Kzin as it was in Interworld. Evidently
not . . .
"Gunner! Apprentice Engineer," the commander called
suddenly, and Locklear heard
two responses through the ship's intercom. "Lock this
monkey in a wiper's
quarters." He turned to his navigator. "Perhaps Fleet
Commander Skrull-Rrit will
want this one alive. We shall know in an
eight-squared of duty watches." With
that, the huge kzin commander strode out.
***
After his second sleep, Locklear found himself
roughly hustled forward in the
low-polarity ship's gravity of the Raptor by the
nameless Apprentice Engineer.
This smallest of the crew had been a kitten not long
before and, at two-meter
height, was still filling out. The transverse
mustard-tinted band across his
abdominal fur identified Apprentice Engineer down the
full length of the hull
passageway.
Locklear, his right arm in a sling of bandages, tried
to remember all the mental
notes he had made since being tossed into that cell.
He kept his eyes downcast
to avoid a challenging look-and because he did not
want his cold fury to show.
These orange-furred monstrosities had killed a ship
and crew with every
semblance of pride in the act. They treated a
civilian captive at best like
playground bullies treat an urchin, and at worst like
food. It was all very well
to study animal behavior as a detached ethologist. It
was something else when
the toughest warriors in the galaxy attached you to
their food chain.
He slouched because that was as far from a military
posture as a man could
get-and Locklear's personal war could hardly be
declared if he valued his own
pelt. He would try to learn where hand weapons were
kept, but would try to seem
stupid. He would . . . he found the last vow
impossible to keep with the
Grraf-Commander's first question.
Wheeling in his command chair on the Raptor's bridge,
the commander faced the
captive. "If you piloted your own monkeyship, then
you have some menial skills."
It was not a question; more like an accusation. "Can
you learn to read meters if
it will lengthen your pathetic life?"
Ah, there was a question! Locklear was on the point
of lying, but it took a
worried kzin to sing a worried song. If they needed
him to read meters, he might
learn much in a short time. Besides, they'd know
bloody well if he lied on this
matter. "I can try," he said. "What's the problem?"
"Tell him," spat Grraf-Commander, spinning about
again to the holo screen.
Tzak-Navigator made a gesture of agreement, standing
beside Locklear and gazing
toward the vast humped shoulders of the fourth kzin.
This nameless one was of
truly gigantic size. He turned, growling, and
Locklear noted the nose scar that
seemed very appropriate for a flash-tempered gunner.
Tzak-Navigator met his gaze
and paused, with the characteristic tremor of a kzin
who prided himself on
physical control. "Ship's Gunner, you are relieved.
Adequately done."
With the final phrase, Ship's Gunner relaxed his ear
umbrellas and stalked off
with a barely creditable salute. Tzak-Navigator
pointed to the vacated seat, and
Locklear took it. "He has got us lost," muttered the
navigator.
"But you were the navigator," Locklear said.
"Watch your tongue!"
"I'm just trying to understand crew duties. I asked
what the problem was, and
Grraf-Commander said to tell me."
The tremor became more obvious, but Tzak-Navigator
knew when he was boxed. "With
a four-kzin crew, our titles and our duties tend to
vary. When I accept duties
of executive officer and communications officer as
well, another member may
prove his mettle at some simple tasks of astrogation."
"I would think Apprentice Engineer might be good at
reading meters," Locklear
said carefully.
"He has enough of them to read in the engine room.
Besides, Ship's Gunner has
superior time in grade; to pass him over would have
been a deadly insult."
"Um. And I don't count?"
"Exactly. As a captive, you are a nonperson-even if
you have skills that a
gunner might lack."
"You said it was adequately done," Locklear pointed
out.
"For a gunner," spat the navigator, and Locklear
smiled. A kzin, too proud to
lie, could still speak with mental reservations to an
underling. The navigator
went on: "We drew first blood with our chance sortie
to the galactic West, but
Ship's Gunner must verify gravitational blips as we
pass in hyperdrive."
Locklear listened, and asked, and learned. What he
learned initially was fast
mental translation of octal numbers to decimal. What
he learned eventually was
that, counting on the gunner to verify likely blips
of known star masses,
Grraf-Commander had finally realized that they were
monumentally lost,
light-years from their intended rendezvous on the rim
of known space. And that
rendezvous is on the way to the Eridani worlds,
Locklear thought. He said, as if
to himself but in Kzin, "Out Eridani way, I hear
they're always on guard for you
guys. You really expect to get out of this alive?"
"No," said the navigator easily. "Your life may be
extended a little, but you
will die with heroes. Soon."
"Sounds like a suicide run," Locklear said.
"We are volunteers," the navigator said with lofty
arrogance, making no attempt
to argue the point, and then continued his
instructions.
Presently, studying the screen, Locklear said, "That
gunner has us forty parsecs
from anyplace. Jump into normal space long enough for
an astrogation fix and
you've got it."
"Do not abuse my patience, monkey. Our last Fleet
Command message on hyperwave
forbade us to make unnecessary jumps."
After a moment, Locklear grinned. "And your commander
doesn't want to have to
tell Fleet Command you're lost."
"What was that thing you did with your face?"
"Uh,-just stretching the muscles," Locklear lied, and
pointed at one of the
meters. "There; um, that was a field strength of, oh
hell, three eights and
four, right?"
Tzak-Navigator did not have to tremble because his
four-fingered hand was in
motion as a blur, punching buttons. "Yes. I have a
star mass and," the small
screen stuttered its chicken-droppings in Kzinti,
"here are the known
candidates."
Locklear nodded. In this little-known region, some
star masses, especially the
larger ones, would have been recorded. With several
fixes in hyperdrive, he
could make a strong guess at their direction with
respect to the galactic core.
But by the time he had his second group of candidate
stars, Locklear also had a
scheme.
***
Locklear asked for his wristcomp, to help him
translate octal numbers-his chief
motive was less direct-and got it after Apprentice
Engineer satisfied himself
that it was no energy weapon. The engineer, a
suspicious churl quick with his
hands and clearly on the make for status, displayed
disappointment at his own
findings by throwing the instrument in Locklear's
face. Locklear decided that
the kzin lowest on the scrotum pole was most anxious
to advance by any means
available. And that, he decided, just might be common
in all sentient behavior.
Two hours later by his wristcomp, when Locklear tried
to speak to the commander
without prior permission, the navigator backhanded
him for his trouble and then
explained the proper channels. "I will decide whether
your message is worth
Grraf-Commander's notice," he snarled.
Trying to stop his nosebleed, Locklear told him.
"A transparent ruse," the navigator accused, "to save
your own hairless pelt."
"It would have that effect," Locklear agreed. "Maybe.
But it would also let you
locate your position."
The navigator looked him up and down. "Which will aid
us in our mission against
your own kind. You truly disgust me."
In answer, Locklear only shrugged. Tzak-Navigator
wheeled and crossed to the
commander's vicinity, stiff and proper, and spoke
rapidly for a few moments.
Presently, Grraf-Commander motioned for Locklear to
approach.
Locklear decided that a military posture might help
this time, and tried to hold
his body straight despite his pains. The commander
eyed him silently, then said,
"You offer me a motive to justify jumping into normal
space?"
"Yes, Grraf-Commander: to deposit an important
captive in a lifeboat around some
stellar body."
"And why in the name of the Patriarchy would I want
to?"
"Because it is almost within the reach of
plausibility that the occupants of
this ship might not survive this mission," Locklear
said with irony that went
unnoticed. "But en route to your final glory, you can
inform Fleet Command where
you have placed a vitally important captive, to be
retrieved later."
"You admit your status at last."
"I have a certain status," Locklear admitted. It's
damned low, and that's
certain enough. "And while you were doing that in
normal space, a navigator
might just happen to determine exactly where you are."
"You do not deceive me in your motive. If I did not
locate that spot,"
Tzak-Navigator said, "no Patriarchy ship could find
you-and you would soon run
out of food and air."
"And you would miss the Eridani mission," Locklear
reminded him, "because we
aren't getting any blips and you may be getting
farther from your rendezvous
with every breath."
"At the least, you are a traitor to monkeydom," the
navigator said. "No kzin
worthy of the name would assist an enemy mission."
Locklear favored him with a level gaze. "You've
decided to waste all nine lives
for glory. Count on me for help."
"Monkeys are clever where their pelts are concerned,"
rumbled the commander. "I
do not intend to miss rendezvous, and this monkey
must be placed in a safe cage.
Have the crew provision a lifeboat but disable its
drive, Tzak-Navigator. When
we locate a stellar mass, I want all in readiness for
the jump."
The navigator saluted and moved off the bridge.
Locklear received permission to
return to his console, moving slowly, trying to watch
the commander's furry
digits in preparation for a jump that might be
required at any time. Locklear
punched several notes into the wristcomp's memory;
you could never tell when a
scholar's notes might come in handy.
Locklear was chewing on kzin rations, reconstituted
meat which met human teeth
like a leather brick and tasted of last week's
oysters, when the long-range
meter began to register. It was not much of a blip
but it got stronger fast, the
vernier meter registering by the time Locklear called
out. He watched the
commander, alone while the rest of the crew were
arranging that lifeboat, and
used his wristcomp a few more times before
Grraf-Commander's announcement.
***
Tzak-Navigator, eyeing his console moments after the
jump and still
light-minutes from that small stellar mass, was at
first too intent on his
astrogation to notice that there was no nearby solar
blaze. But Locklear
noticed, and felt a surge of panic.
"You will not perish in solar radiation, at least,"
said Grraf-Commander in
evident pleasure. "You have found yourself a black
dwarf, monkey!"
Locklear punched a query. He found no candidate stars
to match this phenomenon.
"Permission to speak, Tzak-Navigator?"
The navigator punched in a final instruction and,
while his screen flickered,
turned to the local viewscreen. "Wait until you have
something worth saying," he
ordered, and paused, staring at what that screen told
him. Then, as if arguing
with his screen, he complained, "But known space is
not old enough for a
completely burnt-out star."
"Nevertheless," the commander replied, waving toward
the screens, "if not a
black dwarf, a very, very brown one. Thank that lucky
star, Tzak-Navigator; it
might have been a neutron star."
"And a planet," the navigator exclaimed. "Impossible!
Before its final collapse,
this star would have converted any nearby planet into
a gas shell. But there it
lies!" He pointed to a luminous dot on the screen.
"That might make it easy to find again," Locklear
said with something akin to
faint hope. He knew, watching the navigator's split
concentration between
screens, that the kzin would soon know the Raptor's
position. No chance beyond
this brown dwarf now, an unheard-of anomaly, to
escape this suicide ship.
The navigator ignored him. "Permission for proximal
orbit," he requested.
"Denied," the commander said. "You know better than
that. Close orbit around a
dwarf could rip us asunder with angular acceleration.
That dwarf may be only the
size of a single dreadnought, but its mass is
enormous enough to bend distant
starlight."
While Locklear considered what little he knew of
collapsed star matter, a cupful
of which would exceed the mass of the greatest
warship in known space, the
navigator consulted his astrogation screen again. "I
have our position," he said
at last. "We were on the way to the galactic rim,
thanks to that untrained-well,
at least he is a fine gunner. Grraf-Commander, I
meant to ask permission for
orbit around the planet. We can discard this offal in
the lifeboat there."
"Granted," said the commander. Locklear took more
notes as the two kzinti
piloted their ship nearer. If lifeboats were piloted
with the same systems as
cruisers, and if he could study the ways in which
that lifeboat drive could be
energized, he might yet take a hand in his fate.
The maneuvers took so much time that Locklear feared
the kzin would drop the
whole idea, but, "Let it be recorded that I keep my
bargains, even with
monkeys," the commander grouched as the planet began
to grow in the viewport.
"Tiny suns, orbiting the planet? Stranger and
stranger," the navigator mused.
"Grraf-Commander, this is-not natural."
"Exactly so. It is artificial," said the commander.
Brightening, he added,
"Perhaps a special project, though I do not know how
we could move a full-sized
planet into orbit around a dwarf. Tzak-Navigator, see
if this tallies with
anything the Patriarchy may have on file." No sound
passed between them when the
navigator looked up from his screen, but their shared
glance did not improve the
commander's mood. "No? Well, backup records in
triplicate," he snapped. "Survey
sensors to full gain."
Locklear took more notes, his heart pounding anew
with every added strangeness
of this singular discovery. The planet orbited
several light-minutes from the
dead star, with numerous satellites in synchronous
orbits, blazing like tiny
suns-or rather, like spotlights in imitation of tiny
suns, for the radiation
from those satellites blazed only downward, toward
the planet's surface. Those
satellites, according to the navigator, seemed to be
moving a bit in complex
patterns, not all of them in the same ways-and one of
them dimmed even as they
watched.
The commander brought the ship nearer, and now
Tzak-Navigator gasped with a
fresh astonishment. "Grraf-Commander, this planet is
dotted with force-cylinder
generators. Not complete shells, but open to space at
orbital height. And the
beam-spread of each satellite's light flux coincides
with the edge of each force
cylinder. No, not all of them; several of those
circular areas are not bathed in
any light at all. Fallow areas?"
"Or unfinished areas," the commander grunted.
"Perhaps we have discovered a
project in the making."
Locklear saw blazes of blue, white, red, and yellow
impinging in vast circular
patterns on the planet's surface. Almost as if
someone had placed small models
of Sirius, Sol, Fomalhaut, and other suns out here,
he thought. He said nothing.
If he orbited this bizarre mystery long enough, he
might probe its secrets. If
he orbited it too long, he would damned well die of
starvation.
Then, "Homeworld," blurted the astonished navigator,
as the ship continued its
close pass around this planet that was at least half
the mass of Earth.
Locklear saw it too, a circular region that seemed to
be hundreds of kilometers
in diameter, rich in colors that reminded him of a
kzin's fur. The green expanse
of a big lake, too, as well as dark masses that might
have been mountain crags.
And then he noticed that one of the nearby circular
patterns seemed achingly
familiar in its colors, and before he thought, he
said it in Interworld:
"Earth!"
The commander leaped to a mind-numbing conclusion the
moment before Locklear
did. "This can only be a galactic prison-or a zoo,"
he said in a choked voice.
"The planet was evidently moved here, after the brown
dwarf was discovered.
There seems to be no atmosphere outside the force
walls, and the planetary
surface between those circular regions is almost as
cold as interstellar deeps,
according to the sensors. If it is a prison, each
compound is well-isolated from
the others. Nothing could live in the interstices."
Locklear knew that the commander had overlooked
something that could live there
very comfortably, but held his tongue awhile. Then,
"Permission to speak," he
said.
"Granted," said the commander. "What do you know of
this-this thing?"
"Only this: whether it is a zoo or a prison, one of
those compounds seems very
Earthlike. If you left me there, I might find air and
food to last me
indefinitely."
"And other monkeys to help in Patriarch-knows-what,"
the navigator put in
quickly. "No one is answering my all-band queries,
and we do not know who runs
this prison. The Patriarchy has no prison on record
that is even faintly like
this."
"If they are keeping heroes in a kzinti compound,"
grated the commander, "this
could be a planet-sized trap."
Tzak-Navigator: "But whose?"
Grraf-Commander, with arrogant satisfaction: "It will
not matter whose it is, if
they set a vermin-sized trap and catch an armed
lifeboat. There is no shell over
these circular walls, and if there were, I would try
to blast through it.
Re-enable the lifeboat's drive. Tzak-Navigator, as
Executive Officer you will
remain on alert in the Raptor. For the rest of us:
sound planetfall!"
***
Caught between fright and amazement, Locklear could
only hang on and wait,
painfully buffeted during reentry because the
kzin-sized seat harness would not
retract to fit his human frame. The lifeboat, the
size of a flatlander's racing
yacht, descended in a broad spiral, keeping well
inside those invisible
force-walls that might have damaged the craft on
contact. At last the commander
set his ship on a search pattern that spiraled inward
while maintaining perhaps
a kilometer's height above the yellow grassy plains,
the kzin-colored steaming
jungle, the placid lake, the dark mountain peaks of
this tiny, synthesized piece
of the kzin homeworld.
Presently, the craft settled near a promontory
overlooking that lake and
partially protected by the rise of a stone
escarpment-the landfall of a good
military mind, Locklear admitted to himself.
"Apprentice-Engineer: report on
environmental conditions," the commander ordered.
Turning to Locklear, he added,
"If this is a zoo, the zookeepers have not yet
learned to capture heroes-nor any
of our food animals, according to our survey. Since
your metabolism is so near
ours, I think this is where we shall deposit you for
safekeeping."
"But without prey, Grraf-Commander, he will soon
starve," said Apprentice
Engineer.
The heavy look of the commander seemed full of ironic
amusement. "No, he will
not. Humans eat monkeyfood, remember? This specimen
is a kshat."
Locklear colored but tried to ignore the insult. Any
creature willing to eat
vegetation was, to the kzinti, kshat, an herbivore
capable of eating offal. And
capable of little else. "You might leave me some
rations anyway," he grumbled.
"I'm in no condition to be climbing trees for food."
"But you soon may be, and a single monkey in this
place could hide very well
from a search party."
Apprentice-Engineer, performing his extra duties
proudly, waved a digit toward
the screen. "Grraf-Commander, the gravity constant is
exactly home normal. The
temperature, too; solar flux, the same; atmosphere
and microorganisms as well. I
suspect that the builders of this zoo planet have
buried gravity polarizers with
the force cylinder generators."
"No doubt those other compounds are equally equipped
to surrogate certain
worlds," the commander said. "I think, whoever they
are-or were-the builders
work very, very slowly."
Locklear, entertaining his own scenario, suspected
the builders worked very
slowly, all right-and in ways, with motives, beyond
the understanding of man or
kzin. But why tell his suspicions to Scarface?
Locklear had by now given his own
private labels to these infuriating kzinti, after
noting the commander's
face-mark, the navigator's tremors of intent, the
gunner's brutal stupidity and
the engineer's abdominal patch: to Locklear, they had
become Scarface,
Brick-shitter, Goon, and Yellowbelly. Those labels
gave him an emotional lift,
but he knew better than to use them aloud.
Scarface made his intent clear to everyone, glancing
at Locklear from time to
time, as he gave his orders. Water and rations for
eight duty watches were to be
offloaded. Because every kzin craft has special
equipment to pacify those kzinti
who displayed criminal behavior, especially the
Kdaptists with their treasonous
leanings toward humankind, Scarface had prepared a
zzrou for their human
captive. The zzrou could be charged with a powerful
soporific drug, or-as the
commander said in this case-a poison. Affixed to a
host and tuned to a
transmitter, the zzrou could be set to inject its
material into the host at
regular intervals-or to meter it out whenever the
host moved too far from that
transmitter.
Scarface held the implant device, no larger than a
biscuit with vicious prongs,
in his hand, facing the captive. "If you try to
extract this, it will kill you
instantly. If you somehow found the transmitter and
smashed it-again you would
die instantly. Whenever you stray two steps too far
from it, you will suffer. I
shall set it so that you can move about far enough to
feed yourself, but not far
enough to make finding you a difficulty."
Locklear chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. "Is
the poison cumulative?"
"Yes. And if you do not know that honor forbids me to
lie, you will soon find
out to your sorrow." He turned and handed a small
device to Yellowbelly. "Take
this transmitter and place it where no monkey might
stumble across it. Do not
wander more than eight-cubed paces from here in the
process-and take a sidearm
and a transceiver with you. I am not absolutely
certain the place is
uninhabited. Captive! Bare your back."
Locklear, dry-mouthed, removed his jacket and shirt.
He watched Yellowbelly
bound back down the short passageway and, soon
afterward, heard the sigh of an
air lock. He turned casually, trying to catch sight
of him as Goon was peering
through the viewport, and then he felt a paralyzing
agony as Scarface impacted
the prongs of the zzrou into his back just below the
left shoulder blade.
***
His first sensation was a chill, and his second was a
painful reminder of those
zzrou prongs sunk into the muscles of his back.
Locklear eased to a sitting
position and looked around him. Except for
depressions in the yellowish grass,
and a terrifyingly small pile of provisions piled
atop his shirt and jacket, he
could see no evidence that a kzin lifeboat had ever
landed here. "For all you
know, they'll never come back," he told himself
aloud, shivering as he donned
his garments. Talking to himself was an old habit
born of solitary researches,
and made him feel less alone.
But now that he thought on it, he couldn't decide
which he dreaded most, their
return or permanent solitude. "So let's take stock,"
he said, squatting next to
the provisions. A kzin's rations would last three
times as long for him, but the
numbers were depressing: within three flatlander
weeks he'd either find water
and food, or he would starve-if he did not freeze
first.
If this was really a compound designed for kzin, it
would be chilly for
Locklear-and it was. The water would be drinkable,
and no doubt he could eat
kzin game animals if he found any that did not eat
him first. He had already
decided to head for the edge of that lake, which lay
shining at a distance that
was hard to judge, when he realized that local
animals might destroy what food
he had.
Wincing with the effort, he removed his light jacket
again. They had taken his
small utility knife but Yellowbelly had not checked
his grooming tool very well.
He deployed its shaving blade instead of the nail
pincers and used it to slit
away the jacket's epaulets, then cut carefully at the
triple-folds of cloth,
grateful for his accidental choice of a woven fabric.
He found that when trying
to break a thread, he would cut his hand before the
thread parted. Good; a
single thread would support all of those rations but
the water bulbs.
His wristcomp told him the kzin had been gone an
hour, and the position of that
ersatz 61 Ursa Majoris hanging in the sky said he
should have several more hours
of light, unless the builders of this zoo had fudged
on their timing. "Numbers,"
he said. "You need better numbers." He couldn't eat a
number, but knowing the
right ones might feed his belly.
In the landing pad depressions lay several stones,
some crushed by the cruel
weight of the kzin lifeboat. He pocketed a few
fragments, two with sharp edges,
tied a third stone to a twenty-meter length of thread
and tossed it clumsily
over a branch of a vine-choked tree. But when he
tried to pull those rations up
to suspend them out of harm's way, that thread sawed
the pulpy branch in two.
Sighing, he began collecting and stripping vines.
Favoring his right shoulder,
ignoring the pain of the zzrou as he used his left
arm, he finally managed to
suspend the plastic-encased bricks of leathery meat
five meters above the grass.
It was easier to cache the water, running slender
vines through the carrying
handles and suspending the water in two bundles. He
kept one brick and one water
bulb, which contained perhaps two gallons of the
precious stuff.
And then he made his first crucial discovery, when a
trickle of moisture issued
from the severed end of a vine. It felt cool, and it
didn't sting his hands, and
taking the inevitable plunge he licked at a droplet,
and then sucked at the end
of that vine. Good clean water, faintly sweet; but
with what subtle poisons? He
decided to wait a day before trying it again, but he
was smiling a ferocious
little smile.
Somewhere within an eight-cubed of kzin paces lay the
transmitter for that
damned thing stuck into his back. No telling exactly
how far he could stray from
it. "Damned right there's some telling," he announced
to the breeze. "Numbers,
numbers," he muttered. And straight lines. If that
misbegotten son of a hairball
was telling the truth-and a kzin always did-then
Locklear would know within a
step or so when he'd gone too far. The safe distance
from that transmitter would
probably be the same in all directions, a hemisphere
of space to roam in. Would
it let him get as far as the lake?
He found out after sighting toward the nearest edge
of the lake and setting out
for it, slashing at the trunks of jungle trees with a
sharp stone to blaze a
straight-line trail. Not exactly straight, but nearly
so. He listened hard at
every step, moving steadily downhill, wondering what
might have a menu with his
name on it.
That careful pace saved him a great deal of pain, but
not enough of it to suit
him. Once, studying the heat-sensors that guided a
captive rattlesnake to its
prey back on Earth, Locklear had been bitten on the
hand. It was like that now
behind and below his left shoulder, a sudden burning
ache that kept aching as he
fell forward, writhing, hurting his right collarbone
again. Locklear scrambled
backward five paces or so and the sting was suddenly,
shockingly, absent. That
part wasn't like a rattler bite, for sure. He cursed,
but knew he had to do it:
moved forward again, very slowly, until he felt the
lancing bite of the zzrou.
He moved back a pace and the sting was gone. "But
it's cumulative," he said
aloud. "Can't do this for a hobby."
He felled a small tree at that point, sawing it with
a thread tied to stones
until the pulpy trunk fell, held at an angle by
vines. Its sap was milky. It
stung his finger. Damned if he would let it sting his
tongue. He couldn't wash
the stuff off in lake water because the lake was
perhaps a klick beyond his
limit. He wondered if Yellowbelly had thought about
that when he hid the
transmitter.
Locklear had intended to pace off the distance he had
moved from his food cache,
but kzin gravity seemed to drag at his heels and he
knew that he needed numbers
more exact than the paces of a tiring man. He unwound
all of the thread on the
ball, then sat down and opened his grooming tool.
Whatever forgotten genius had
stamped a five-centimeter rule along the length of
the pincer lever, Locklear
owed him. He measured twenty of those lengths and
then tied a knot. He then used
that first one-meter length to judge his second knot;
used it again for the
third; and with fingers that stung from tiny cuts,
tied two knots at the
five-meter point. He tied three knots at the
ten-meter point, then continued
until he had fifteen meters of surveying line,
ignoring the last meter or so.
He needed another half-hour to measure the distance,
as straight as he could
make it, back to the food cache: 437 meters. He
punched the datum into his
wristcomp and rested, drinking too much from that
water bulb, noting that the
sunlight was making longer shadows now. The sundown
direction was "West" by
definition. And after sundown, what? Nocturnal
predators? He was already
exhausted, cold, and in need of shelter. Locklear
managed to pile palmlike
fronds as his bed in a narrow cleft of the
promontory, made the best weapon he
could by tying fist-sized stones two meters apart
with a thread, grasped one
stone and whirled the other experimentally. It made a
satisfying whirr-and for
all he knew, it might even be marginally useful.
The sunblaze fooled him, dying slowly while it was
still halfway to his horizon.
He punched the time into his wristcomp, and realized
that the builders of this
zoo might be limited in the degree to which they
could surrogate a planetary
surface, when other vast circular cages were adjacent
to this one. It was too
much to ask that any zoo cage be, for its specimens,
the best of all possible
worlds.
Locklear slept badly, but he slept. During the times
when he lay awake, he felt
the silence like a hermetic seal around him, broken
only by the rasp and slither
of distant tree fronds in vagrant breezes.
Kzin-normal microorganisms, the
navigator had said; maybe, but Locklear had seen no
sign of animal life. Almost,
he would have preferred stealthy footfalls or screams
of nocturnal prowlers.
The next morning he noted on his wristcomp when the
ersatz kzinti sun began to
blaze-not on the horizon, but seeming to kindle when
halfway to its
zenith-rigged a better sling for his right arm, then
sat scratching in the dirt
for a time. The night had lasted thirteen hours and
forty-eight minutes. If
succeeding nights were longer, he was in for a
tooth-chattering winter. But
first: FIND THAT DAMNED TRANSMITTER.
Because it was small enough to fit in a pocket. And
then, ah then, he would not
be held like a lapdog on a leash. He pounded some
kzin meat to soften it and
took his first sightings while swilling from a water
bulb.
The extension of that measured line, this time in the
opposite direction, went
more quickly except when he had to clamber on rocky
inclines or cut one of those
pulpy trees down to keep his sightings near-perfect.
He had no spirit level, but
estimated the inclines as well as he could, as he had
done before, and used the
wristcomp's trigonometric functions to adjust the
numbers he took from his
surveying thread. That damned kzin engineer was the
kind who would be
half-running to do his master's bidding, and an
eight-cubed of his paces might
be anywhere from six hundred meters to a kilometer.
Or the hidden transmitter
might be almost underfoot at the cache; but no more
than a klick at most.
Locklear was pondering that when the zzrou zapped him
again.
He stiffened, yelped, and whirled back several paces,
then advanced very slowly
until he felt its first half-hearted bite, and moved
back, punching in the
datum, working backward using the same system to make
doubly sure of his
numbers. At the cache, he found his two new numbers
varied by five meters and
split the difference. His southwest limit had been
437 meters away, his
northeast limit 529; which meant the total length of
that line was 966 meters.
It probably wasn't the full diameter of his circle,
but those points lay on its
circumference. He halved the number: 483. That
number, minus the 437, was 46
meters. He measured off forty-six meters toward the
northeast and piled pulpy
branches in a pyramid higher than his head. This
point, by God, was one point on
the full diameter of that circle perpendicular to his
first line! Next he had to
survey a line at a right angle to the line he'd
already surveyed, a line passing
through that pyramid of branches.
It took him all morning and then some, lengthening
his thread to be more certain
of that crucial right angle before he set off into
the jungle, and he measured
almost seven hundred meters before that bloody damned
zzrou bit him again, this
time not so painfully because by that time he was
moving very slowly. He
returned to the pyramid of branches and struck off in
the opposite direction,
just to be sure of the numbers he scratched in the
dirt using the wristcomp. He
was filled with joy when the zzrou faithfully
poisoned him a bit over 300 meters
away, within ten meters of his expectation.
Those first three limit points had been enough to
rough out the circle; the
fourth was confirmation. Locklear knew that he had
passed the transmitter on
that long northwest leg; calculated quickly, because
he knew the exact length of
that diameter, that it was a bit over two hundred
meters from his pyramid; and
measured off the distance after lunch.
"Just like that fur-licking bastard," he said,
looking around him at the tangle
of orange, green and yellow jungle growth. "Probably
shit on it before he buried
it."
Locklear spent a fruitless hour clearing punky shrubs
and man-high ferns from
the soft turf before he saw it, and of course it was
not where he had been
looking at all. "It" was not a telltale mound of
dirt, nor a kzin footprint. It
was a group of three globes of milky sap, no larger
than water droplets, just
about knee-high on the biggest palm in the clearing.
And just about the right
pattern for a kzin's toe-claws.
He moved around the trunk, as thick as his body,
staring up the tree, now
picking out other sets of milky puncture marks spaced
up the trunk. More kzin
clawmarks. Softly, feeling the gooseflesh move down
his arms, he called,
"Ollee-ollee-all's-in-free," just for the hell of it.
And then he cut the damned
tree down, carefully, letting the breeze do part of
the work so that the tree
sagged, buckled, and came down at a leisurely pace.
The transmitter, which looked rather like a wristcomp
without a bracelet, lay in
a hole scooped out by Yellowbelly's claws in the
tender young top of the tree.
It was sticky with sap, and Locklear hoped it had
stung the kzin as it was
stinging his own fingers. He wiped it off with vine
leaves, rinsed it with
dribbles of water from severed vines, wiped it off
again, and then returned to
his food cache.
"Yep, the shoulder hurts, and the damned gravity
doesn't help but," he said, and
yelled it at the sky, "Now I'm loose, you rat-tailed
sons of bitches!"
***
He spent another night at the first cache, now with
little concern about things
that went boomp in the ersatz night. The sunblaze
dimmed thirteen hours and
forty-eight minutes after it began, and Locklear
guessed that the days and
nights of this synthetic arena never changed. "It'd
be tough to develop a
cosmology here," he said aloud, shivering because his
right shoulder simply
would not let him generate a fire by friction. "Maybe
that was deliberate." If
he wanted to study the behavior of intelligent
species without risking their
learning too much, and had not the faintest kind of
ethics about it, Locklear
decided he might imagine just such a vast enclosure
for the kzinti. Only they
were already a spacefaring race, and so was
humankind, and he could have sworn
the adjacent area on this impossible zoo planet was a
ringer for one of the wild
areas back on Earth. He cudgeled his memory until he
recalled the lozenge shape
of that lake seen from orbit, and the earthlike area.
"Right-about-there," he said, nodding to the
southwest, across the lake. "If I
don't starve first."
He knew that any kzinti searching for him could
simply home in on the
transmitter. Or maybe not so simply, if the signal
was balked by stone or dirt.
A cave with a kink in it could complicate their
search nicely. He could test the
idea-at the risk of absorbing one zap too many from
that infuriating zzrou
clinging to his back.
"Well, second things second," he said. He'd attended
to the first things first.
He slept poorly again, but the collarbone seemed to
be mending.
Locklear admitted an instant's panic the next morning
(he had counted down to
the moment when the ersatz sun began to shine,
missing it by a few seconds) as
he moved beyond his old limit toward the lake. But
the zzrou might have been a
hockey puck for its inertness. The lake had small
regular wavelets-easy enough
to generate if you have a timer on your gravity
polarizer, he mused to the
builders-and a narrow beach that alternated between
sand and pebbles. No prints
of any kind, not even birds or molluscs. If this huge
arena did not have
extremes of weather, a single footprint on that sand
might last a geologic era.
The food cache was within a stone's throw of the kzin
landing, good enough
reason to find a better place. Locklear found one,
where a stream trickled to
the lake (pumps, or rainfall? Time enough to find
out), after cutting its
passage down through basalt that was half-hidden by
foliage. Locklear found a
hollow beneath a low waterfall and, in three trips,
portaged all his meagre
stores to that hideyhole with its stone shelf. The
water tasted good, and again
he tested the trickle from slashed vines because he
did not intend to stay tied
to that lakeside forever.
The channel cut through basalt by water told him that
the stream had once been a
torrent and might be again. The channel also hinted
that the stream had been
cutting its patient way for tens of centuries,
perhaps far longer. "Zoo has been
here a long time," he said, startled at the tinny
echo behind the murmur of
water, realizing that he had begun to think of this
planet as "Zoo." It might be
untenanted, like that sad remnant of a capitalist's
dream that still drew
tourists to San Simeon on the coast of Earth's
California. Cages for exotic
fauna, but the animals long since gone. Or never
introduced? One more puzzle to
be shelved until more pieces could be studied.
During his fourth day on Zoo, Locklear realized that
the water was almost
certainly safe, and that he must begin testing the
tubers, spiny nuts, and
poisonous-looking fruit that he had been eyeing with
mistrust. Might as well
test the stuff while circumnavigating the lake, he
decided, vowing to try one
new plant a day. Nothing had nibbled at anything
beyond mosslike growths on some
soft-surfaced fruit. He guessed that the growths
meant that the fruit was
overripe, and judged ripeness that way. He did not
need much time deciding about
plants that stank horribly, or that stung his hands.
On the seventh day on Zoo,
while using a brown plant juice to draw a map on
plastic food wrap (a pathetic
left-handed effort), he began to feel distinct
localized pains in his stomach.
He put a finger down his throat, bringing up bits of
kzin rations and pieces of
the nutmeats he had swallowed after trying to chew
them during breakfast. They
had gone into his mouth like soft rubber capsules,
and down his throat the same
way.
But they had grown tiny hair-roots in his belly, and
while he watched the nasty
stuff he had splashed on stone, those roots continued
to grow, waving blindly.
He applied himself to the task again and finally
coughed up another. How many
had he swallowed? Three, or four? He thought four,
but saw only three, and only
after smashing a dozen more of the nutshells was he
satisfied that each shell
held three, and only three, of the loathsome things.
Not animals, perhaps, but
they would eat you nonetheless. Maybe he should've
named the place "Herbarium."
The hell with it:
"Zoo" it remained.
On the ninth day, carrying the meat in his jacket, he
began to use his right arm
sparingly. That was the day he realized that he had
rounded the broad curve of
the lake and, if his brief memory of it from orbit
was accurate, the placid lake
was perhaps three times as long as it was wide. He
found it possible to run, one
of his few athletic specialties, and despite the wear
of kzin gravity he put
fourteen thousand running paces behind him before
exhaustion made him gather
high grasses for a bed.
At a meter and a half per step, he had covered
twenty-one klicks, give or take a
bit, that day. Not bad in this gravity, he decided,
even if the collarbone was
aching again. On his abominable map, that placed him
about midway down the long
side of the lake. The following morning he turned
west, following another stream
through an open grassy plain, jogging, resting,
jogging. He gathered tubers
floating downstream and ate one, fearing that it
would surely be deadly because
it tasted like a wild strawberry.
He followed the stream for three more days, living
mostly on those delicious
tubers and water, nesting warmly in thick sheaves of
grass. On the next day he
spied a dark mass of basalt rising to the northwest,
captured two litres of
water in an empty plastic bag, and risked all. It was
well that he did for, late
in the following day with heaving chest, he saw
clouds sweeping in from the
north, dragging a gray downpour as a bride drags her
train. That stream far
below and klicks distant was soon a broad river which
would have swept him to
the lake. But now he stood on a rocky escarpment,
seeing the glisten of water
from those crags in the distance, and knew that he
would not die of thirst in
the highlands. He also suspected, judging from the
shredded-cotton roiling of
cloud beyond those crags, that he was very near the
walls of his cage.
***
Even for a runner, the two-kilometer rise of those
crags was daunting in high
gravity. Locklear aimed for a saddleback only a
thousand meters high where
sheets of rain had fallen not long before, hiking
beside a swollen stream until
he found its source. It wasn't much as glaciers went,
but he found green depths
of ice filling the saddleback, shouldering up against
a force wall that beggared
anything he had ever seen up close.
The wall was transparent, apparent to the eye only by
its effects and by the
eldritch blackness just beyond it. The thing was
horrendously cold, seeming to
cut straight across hills and crags with an inner
border of ice to define this
kzin compound. Locklear knew it only seemed straight
because the curvature was
so gradual. When he tossed a stone at it, the stone
slowed abruptly and
soundlessly as if encountering a meters-deep cushion,
then slid downward and
back to clatter onto the minuscule glacier. Uphill
and down, for as far as he
could see, ice rimmed the inside of the force wall.
He moved nearer, staring
through that invisible sponge, and saw another line
of ice a klick distant.
Between those ice rims lay bare basalt, as
uncompromisingly primitive as the
surface of an asteroid. Most of that raw surface was
so dark as to seem
featureless, but reflections from ice lenses on each
side dappled the dark
basalt here and there. The dapples of light were
crystal clear, without the
usual fuzziness of objects a thousand meters away,
and Locklear realized he was
staring into a vacuum.
"So visitors to Zoo can wander comfortably around
with gravity polarizer
platforms between the cages," he said aloud, angrily
because he could see the
towering masses of conifers in the next compound. It
was an Earth compound, all
right-but he could see no evidence of animals across
that distance, and that
made him fiercely glad for some reason. He ached to
cross those impenetrable
barriers, and his vision of lofty conifers blurred
with his tears.
His feet were freezing, now, and no vegetation grew
as near as the frost that
lined the ice rim. "You're good, but you're not
perfect," he said to the
builders. "You can't keep the heat in these compounds
from leaking away at the
rims." Hence frozen moisture and the lack of
vegetation along the rim, and
higher rainfall where clouds skirted that cold force
wall.
Scanning the vast panoramic arc of that ice rim,
Locklear noted that his prison
compound had a gentle bowl shape, though some hills
and crags surged up in the
lowlands. Maybe using the natural contours of old
craters? Or maybe you made
those craters. It was an engineering project that
held tremendous secrets for
humankind, and it had been there for one hell of a
long time. Widely spaced
across that enormous bowl were spots of dramatic
color, perhaps flowers. But
they won't scatter much without animal vectors to
help the wind disperse seeds
and such. Dammit, this place wasn't finished!
He retraced his steps downward. There was no point in
making a camp in this
inclement place, and with every sudden whistle of
breeze now he was starting to
look up, scanning for the kzin ship he knew might
come at any time. He needed to
find a cave, or to make one, and that would require
construction tools.
Late in the afternoon, while tying grass bundles at
the edge of a low rolling
plain, Locklear found wood of the kind he'd hardly
dared to hope for. He simply
had not expected it to grow horizontally. With a thin
bark that simulated its
surroundings, it lay mostly below the surface with
shallow roots at intervals
like bamboo. Kzinti probably would've known to seek
it from the first, damn
their hairy hides. The stuff-he dubbed it
shamboo-grew parallel to the ground
and arrow-straight, and its foliage popped up at
regular intervals too. Some of
its hard, hollow segments stored water, and some
specimens grew thick as his
thighs and ten meters long, tapering to wicked growth
spines on each end.
Locklear had been walking over potential hiking
staffs, construction shoring,
and rafts for a week without noticing. He pulled up
one the size of a javelin
and clipped it smooth.
His grooming tool would do precision work, but
Locklear abraded blisters on his
palms fashioning an axehead from a chertlike stone
common in seams where basalt
crags soared from the prairie. He spent two days
learning how to socket a
handaxe in a shamboo handle, living mostly on
tuberberries and grain from
grassheads, and elevated his respect for the first
tool-using creatures in the
process.
By now, Locklear's right arm felt almost as good as
new, and the process of
rediscovering primitive technology became a
compelling pastime. He was so intent
on ways to weave split shamboo filaments into cordage
for a firebow, while
trudging just below the basalt heights, that he
almost missed the most important
moment of his life.
He stepped from savannah grass onto a gritty surface
that looked like other dry
washes, continued for three paces, stepped up onto
grassy turf again, then
stopped. He recalled walking across sand-sprinkled
tiles as a youth, and
something in that old memory made him look back. The
dry wash held wavelike
patterns of grit, pebbles, and sand, but here and
there were bare patches.
And those bare patches were as black and as smooth as
machine-polished obsidian.
Locklear crammed the half-braided cord into a pocket
and began to follow that
dry wash up a gentle slope, toward the cleft ahead,
and toward his destiny.
***
His heart pounding with hope and fear, Locklear stood
five meters inside the
perfect arc of obsidian that formed the entrance to
that cave. No runoff had
ever spilled grit across the smooth broad floor
inside, and he felt an
irrational concern that his footsteps were defiling
something perfectly
pristine, clean and cold as an ice cavern. But a far,
far more rational concern
was the portal before him, its facing made of the
same material as the floor,
the opening itself four meters wide and just as high.
A faint flickering
luminescence, as of gossamer film stretched across
the portal, gave barely
enough light to see. Locklear saw his reflection in
it, and wanted to laugh
aloud at this ragged, skinny, barrel-chested
apparition with the stubble of
beard wearing stained flight togs. And the apparition
reminded him that he might
not be alone.
He felt silly, but after clearing his throat twice he
managed to call out:
"Anybody home?"
Echoes; several of them, more than this little
entrance space could possibly
generate. He poked his sturdy shamboo hiking staff
into the gossamer film and
jumped when stronger light flickered in the distance.
"Maybe you just eat animal
tissue," he said, with a wavering chuckle. "Well-" He
took his grooming pincers
and cut away the dried curl of skin around a broken
blister on his palm, clipped
away sizeable crescents of fingernails, tossed them
at the film.
Nothing but the tiny clicks of cuticles on obsidian,
inside; that's how quiet it
was. He held the pointed end of the staff like a
lance in his right hand,
extended the handaxe ahead in his left. He was
right-handed, after all, so he'd
rather lose the left one . . .
No sensation on his flesh, but a sudden flood of
light as he moved through the
portal, and Locklear dashed backward to the mouth of
the cave. "Take it easy,
fool," he chided himself. "What did you see?"
A long smooth passageway; walls without signs or
features; light seeming to leap
from obsidian walls, not too strong but damned
disconcerting. He took several
deep breaths and went in again, standing his ground
this time when light flooded
the artificial cave. His first thought, seeing the
passageway's apparent end in
another film-spanned portal two hundred meters
distant, was, Does it go all the
way from Kzersatz to Newduvai? He couldn't recall
when he'd begun to think of
this kzin compound as Kzersatz and the adjoining,
Earthlike, compound as
Newduvai.
Footfalls echoing down side corridors, Locklear
hurried to the opposite portal,
but frost glistened on its facing and his staff would
not penetrate more than a
half-meter through the luminous film. He could see
his exhalations fogging the
film. The resistance beyond it felt spongy but
increasingly hard, probably an
extension of that damned force wall. If his sense of
direction was right, he
should be just about beneath the rim of Kzersatz. No
doubt someone or something
knew how to penetrate that wall, because the portal
was there. But Locklear knew
enough about force walls and screens to despair of
getting through it without
better understanding. Besides, if he did get through
he might punch a hole into
vacuum. If his suspicions about the builders of Zoo
were correct, that's exactly
what lay beyond the portal.
Sighing, he turned back, counting nine secondary
passages that yawned darkly on
each side, choosing the first one to his right. Light
flooded it instantly.
Locklear gasped.
Row upon row of cubical, transparent containers
stretched down the corridor for
fifty meters, some of them tiny, some the size of a
small room. And in each
container floated a specimen of animal life, rotating
slowly, evidently above
its own gravity polarizer field. Locklear had seen a
few of the creatures; had
seen pictures of a few more; all, every last one that
he could identify, native
to the kzin homeworld. He knew that many museums
maintained ranks of pickled
specimens, and told himself he should not feel such a
surge of anger about this
one. Well, you're an ethologist, you twit, he told
himself silently. You're just
pissed off because you can't study behaviors of dead
animals. Yet, even taking
that into consideration, he felt a kind of righteous
wrath toward builders who
played at godhood without playing it perfectly. It
was a responsibility he would
never have chosen. He did not yet realize that he was
surrounded with similar
choices.
He stood before a floating vatach, in life a
fast-moving burrower the size of an
earless hare, reputedly tasty but too mild-mannered
for kzinti sport. No symbols
on any container, but obvious differences among the
score of vatach in those
containers.
How many sexes? He couldn't recall. "But I bet you
guys would," he said aloud.
He passed on, shuddering at the critters with fangs
and leathery wings,
marveling at the stump-legged creatures the height of
a horse and the mass of a
rhino, all in positions that were probably fetal
though some were obviously
adult.
Retracing his steps to the vatach again, Locklear
leaned a hand casually against
the smooth metal base of one container. He heard
nothing, but when he withdrew
his hand the entire front face of the glasslike
container levered up, the vatach
settling gently to a cage floor that slid forward
toward Locklear like an
offering.
The vatach moved.
Locklear leaped back so fast he nearly fell, then
darted forward again and
shoved hard on the cage floor. Back it went, down
came the transparent panel, up
went the vatach, inert, into its permanent rotating
waltz.
"Stasis fields! By God, they're alive," he said. The
animals hadn't been pickled
at all, only stored until someone was ready to stock
Kzersatz. Vatach were
edible herbivores-but if he released them without
natural enemies, how long
before they overran the whole damned compound? And
did he really want to release
their natural enemies, even if he could identify them?
"Sorry, fellas. Maybe I can find you an island," he
told the little creatures,
and moved on with an alertness that made him forget
the time. He did not
consider time because the glow of illumination did
not dim when the sun of
Kzersatz did, and only the growl of his empty belly
sent him back to the cave
entrance where he had left his jacket with his
remaining food and water. Even
then he chewed tuberberries from sheer necessity, his
hands trembling as he
looked out at the blackness of the Kzersatz night.
Because he had passed down
each of those eighteen side passages, and knew what
they held, and knew that he
had some godplaying of his own to ponder.
He said to the night and to himself, "Like for
instance, whether to take one of
those goddamned kzinti out of stasis."
***
His wristcomp held a hundred megabytes, much of it
concerning zoology and
ethology. Some native kzin animals were marginally
intelligent, but he found
nothing whatever in memory storage that might help
him communicate abstract
ideas with them. "Except the tabbies themselves,
eighty-one by actual count," he
mused aloud the next morning, sitting in sunlight
outside. "Damned if I do.
Damned if I don't. Damn if I know which is the
damnedest," he admitted. But the
issue was never very much in doubt; if a kzin ship
did return, they'd find the
cave sooner or later because they were the best
hunters in known space. He'd
make it expensive in flying fur, maybe-but there
seemed to be no rear entrance.
Well, he didn't have to go it alone; Kdaptist kzinti
made wondrous allies. Maybe
he could convert one, or win his loyalty by setting
him free.
If the kzin ship didn't return, he was stuck with a
neolithic future or with
playing God to populate Kzersatz, unless-"Aw
shitshitshit," he said at last,
getting up, striding into the cave. "I'll just wake
the smallest one and hope
he's reasonable."
But the smallest ones weren't male; the females, with
their four small but
prominent nipples and the bushier fur on their tails,
were the runts of that
exhibit. In their way they were almost beautiful,
with longer hindquarters and
shorter torsos than the great bulky males, all
eighty-one of the species
rotating nude in fetal curls before him. He studied
his wristcomp and his own
memory, uncomfortably aware that female kzin were, at
best, morons. Bred for
bearing kits, and for catering to their warrior
males, female kzinti were little
more than ferociously protected pets in their own
culture.
"Maybe that's what I need anyhow," he muttered, and
finally chose the female
that bulked smallest of them all. When he pressed
that baseplate, he did it with
grim forebodings.
She settled to the cage bottom and slid out, and
Locklear stood well away, axe
in one hand, lance in the other, trying to look as if
he had no intention of
using either. His Adam's apple bobbed as the female
began to uncoil from her
fetal position.
Her eyes snapped open so fast, Locklear thought they
should have clicked
audibly. She made motions like someone waving cobwebs
aside, mewing in a way
that he found pathetic, and then she fully noticed
the little man standing near,
and she screamed and leaped. That leap carried her to
the top of a nearby
container, away from him, cowering, eyes wide, ear
umbrellas folded flat.
He remembered not to grin as he asked, "Is this my
thanks for bringing you
back?"
She blinked. "You (something, something) a devil,
then?"
He denied it, pointing to the scores of other kzin
around her, admitting he had
found them this way.
If curiosity killed cats, this one would have died
then and there. She remained
crouched and wary, her eyes flickering around as she
formed more questions. Her
speech was barely understandable. She used a form of
verbal negation utterly new
to him, and some familiar words were longer the way
she pronounced them. The
general linguistic rule was that abstract ideas first
enter a lexicon as several
words, later shortened by the impatient.
Probably her longer words were primitive forms; God
only knew how long she had
been in stasis! He told her who he was, but that did
not reduce her wary
hostility much. She had never heard of men. Nor of
any intelligent race other
than kzinti. Nor, for that matter, of spaceflight.
But she was remarkably quick
to absorb new ideas, and from Locklear's demeanor she
realized all too soon that
he, in fact, was scared spitless of her. That was the
point when she came down
off that container like a leopard from a limb,
snatched his handaxe while he
hesitated, and poked him in the gut with its haft.
It appeared, after all, that Locklear had revived a
very, very old-fashioned
female.
***
"You (something or other) captive," she sizzled,
unsheathing a set of shining
claws from her fingers as if to remind him of their
potency. She turned a bit
away from him then, looking sideways at him. "Do you
have sex?"
His Adam's apple bobbed again before he intuited her
meaning. Her first move was
to gain control, her second to establish sex roles. A
bright female; yeah,
that's about what an ethologist should expect . . .
"Humans have two sexes just
as kzinti do," he said, "and I am male, and I won't
submit as your captive. You
people eat captives. You're not all that much bigger
than I am, and this lance
is sharp. I'm your benefactor. Ask yourself why I
didn't spear you for lunch
before you awoke."
"If you could eat me, I could eat you," she said.
"Why do you cut words short?"
Bewildering changes of pace but always practical, he
thought. Oh yes, an
exceedingly bright female. "I speak modern Kzinti,"
he explained. "One day we
may learn how many thousands of years you have been
asleep." He enjoyed the
almost human widening of her yellow eyes, and went on
doggedly. "Since I have
honorably waked you from what might have been a
permanent sleep, I ask this:
what does your honor suggest?"
"That I (something) clothes," she said. "And owe you
a favor, if nakedness is
what you want."
"It's cold for me, too." He'd left his food outside
but was wearing the jacket,
and took it off. "I'll trade this for the axe."
She took it, studying it with distaste, and
eventually tied its sleeves like an
apron to hide her mammaries. It could not have warmed
her much. His question was
half disbelief: "That's it? Now you're clothed?"
"As (something) of the (something) always do," she
said. "Do you have a special
name?"
He told her, and she managed "Rockear." Her own name,
she said, was (something
fiendishly tough for humans to manage), and he
smiled. "I'll call you 'Miss
Kitty.' "
"If it pleases you," she said, and something in the
way that phrase rolled out
gave him pause.
He leaned the shamboo lance aside and tucked the axe
into his belt. "We must try
to understand each other better," he said. "We are
not on your homeworld, but I
think it is a very close approximation. A kind of
incomplete zoo. Why don't we
swap stories outside where it's warm?"
She agreed, still wary but no longer hostile, with a
glance of something like
satisfaction toward the massive kzin male rotating in
the next container. And
then they strolled outside into the wilderness of
Kzersatz which, for some
reason, forced thin mewling miaows from her. It had
never occurred to Locklear
that a kzin could weep.
***
As near as Locklear could understand, Miss Kitty's
emotions were partly relief
that she had lived to see her yellow fields and
jungles again, and partly grief
when she contemplated the loneliness she now faced. I
don't count, he thought.
But if I expect to get her help, I'd best see that I
do count.
Everybody thinks his own dialect is superior,
Locklear decided. Miss Kitty fumed
at his brief forms of Kzinti, and he winced at her
ancient elaborations, as they
walked to the nearest stream. She had a temper, too,
teaching him genteel curses
as her bare feet encountered thorns. She seemed
fascinated by this account of
the kzin expansion, and that of humans, and others as
well through the galaxy.
She even accepted his description of the planet Zoo
though she did not seem to
understand it.
She accepted his story so readily, in fact, that he
hit on an intuition. "Has it
occurred to you that I might be lying?"
"Your talk is offensive," she flared. "My benefactor
a criminal? No. Is it
common among your kind?"
"More than among yours," he admitted, "but I have no
reason to lie to you.
Sorry," he added, seeing her react again. Kzinti
don't flare up at that word
today; maybe all cusswords have to be replaced as
they weaken from overuse. Then
he told her how man and kzin got along between wars,
and ended by admitting it
looked as if another war was brewing, which was why
he had been abandoned here.
She looked around her. "Is Zoo your doing, or ours?"
"Neither. I think it must have been done by a race we
know very little about:
Outsiders, we call them. No one knows how many years
they have traveled space,
but very, very long. They live without air, without
much heat. Just beyond the
wall that surrounds Kzersatz, I have seen airless
corridors with the cold
darkness of space and dapples of light. They would be
quite comfortable there."
"I do not think I like them."
Then he laughed, and had to explain how the display
of his teeth was the
opposite of anger.
"Those teeth could not support much anger," she
replied, her small pink ear
umbrellas winking down and up. He learned that this
was her version of a smile.
Finally, when they had taken their fill of water,
they returned as Miss Kitty
told her tale. She had been trained as a palace
prret; a servant and casual
concubine of the mighty during the reign of Rrawlrit
Eight and Three. Locklear
said that the "Rritt" suffix meant high position
among modern kzinti, and she
made a sound very like a human sniff. Rrawlritt was
the arrogant son of an
arrogant son, and so on. He liked his females, lots
of them, especially young
ones. "I was (something) than most," she said, her
four-digited hand slicing the
air at her ear height.
"Petite, small?"
"Yes. Also smart. Also famous for my appearance," she
added without the
slightest show of modesty. She glanced at him as
though judging which haunch
might be tastiest. "Are you famous for yours?"
"Uh-not that I know of."
"But not unattractive?"
He slid a hand across his face, feeling its stubble.
"I am considered petite,
and by some as, uh, attractive." Two or three are
"Some." Not much, but some . .
.
"With a suit of fur you would be (something)," she
said, with that ear-waggle,
and he quickly asked about palace life because he
damned well did not want to
know what that final word of hers had meant. It made
him nervous as hell. Yeah,
but what did it mean? Mud-ugly? Handsome? Tasty?
Listen to the lady, idiot, and
quit suspecting what you're suspecting.
She had been raised in a culture in which females
occasionally ran a regency,
and in which males fought duels over the argument as
to whether females were
their intellectual equals. Most thought not. Miss
Kitty thought so, and proved
it, rising to palace prominence with her backside, as
she put it.
"You mean you were no better than you should be," he
commented.
"What does that mean?"
"I haven't the foggiest idea, just an old phrase."
She was still waiting, and
her aspect was not benign. "Uh, it means nobody could
expect you to do any
better."
She nodded slowly, delighting him as she adopted one
of the human gestures he'd
been using. "I did too well to suit the males jealous
of my power, Rockear. They
convinced the regent that I was conspiring with other
palace prrets to gain
equality for our sex."
"And were you?"
She arched her back with pride. "Yes. Does that
offend you?"
"No. Would you care if it did?"
"It would make things difficult, Rockear. You must
understand that I loathe,
admire, hate, desire kzintosh-male kzin. I fought for
equality because it was
common knowledge that some were planning to breed
kzinrret, females, to be no
better than pets."
"I hate to tell you this, Miss Kitty, but they've
done it."
"Already?"
"I don't know how long it took, but-" He paused, and
then told her the worst.
Long before man and kzin first met, their females had
been bred into brainless
docility. Even if Miss Kitty found modern sisters,
they would be of no help to
her.
She fought the urge to weep again, strangling her
miaows with soft snarls of
rage.
Locklear turned away, aware that she did not want to
seem vulnerable, and
consulted his wristcomp's encyclopedia. The earliest
kzin history made reference
to the downfall of a Rrawlrit the fifty-seventh-Seven
Eights and One, and he
gasped at what that told him. "Don't feel too bad,
Miss Kitty," he said at last.
"That was at least forty thousand years ago; do you
understand eight to the
fifth power?"
"It is very, very many," she said in a choked voice.
"It's been more years than that since you were
brought here. How did you get
here, anyhow?"
"They executed several of us. My last memory was of
grappling with the lord high
executioner, carrying him over the precipice into the
sacred lagoon with me. I
could not swim with those heavy chains around my
ankles, but I remember trying.
I hope he drowned," she said, eyes slitted. "Sex with
him had always been my
most hated chore."
A small flag began to wave in Locklear's head; he
furled it for further
reference. "So you were trying to swim. Then?"
"Then suddenly I was lying naked with a very strange
creature staring at me,"
she said with that ear-wink, and a sharp talon
pointed almost playfully at him.
"Do not think ill of me because I reacted in fright."
He shook his head, and had to explain what that
meant, and it became a short
course in subtle nuances for each of them. Miss
Kitty, it seemed, proved an old
dictum about downtrodden groups: they became highly
expert at reading body
language, and at developing secret signals among
themselves. It was not
Locklear's fault that he was constantly, and
completely unaware, sending
messages that she misread.
But already, she was adapting to his gestures as he
had to her language. "Of all
the kzinti I could have taken from stasis, I got
you," he chuckled finally, and
because her glance was quizzical, he told a gallant
half-lie; "I went for the
prettiest, and got the smartest."
"And the hungriest," she said. "Perhaps I should hunt
something for us."
He reminded her that there was nothing to hunt. "You
can help me choose animals
to release here. Meanwhile, you can have this," he
added, offering her the
kzinti rations.
The sun faded on schedule, and he dined on
tuberberries while she devoured an
entire brick of meat. She amazed him by popping a few
tuberberries for dessert.
When he asked her about it, she replied that
certainly kzinti ate vegetables in
her time; why should they not?
"Males want only meat," he shrugged.
"They would," she snarled. "In my day, some select
warriors did the same. They
claimed it made them ferocious and that eaters of
vegetation were mere kshauvat,
dumb herbivores; we prret claimed their diet just
made them hopelessly
aggressive."
"The word's been shortened to kshat now," he mused.
"It's a favorite cussword of
theirs. At least you don't have to start eating the
animals in stasis to stay
alive. That's the good news; the bad news is that the
warriors who left me here
may return at any time. What will you do then?"
"That depends on how accurate your words have been,"
she said cagily.
"And if I'm telling the plain truth?"
Her ears smiled for her: "Take up my war where I left
it," she said.
***
Locklear felt his control slipping when Miss Kitty
refused to wait before
releasing most of the vatach. They were nocturnal
with easily-spotted burrows,
she insisted, and yes, they bred fast-but she pointed
to specimens of a winged
critter in stasis and said they would control the
vatach very nicely if the need
arose. By now he realized that this kzin female
wasn't above trying to vamp him;
and when that failed, a show of fang and talon would
succeed.
He showed her how to open the cages only after she
threatened him, and watched
as she grasped waking vatach by their legs, quickly
releasing them to the
darkness outside. No need to release the (something)
yet, she said; Locklear
called the winged beasts "batowls." "I hope you know
what you're doing," he
grumbled. "I'd stop you if I could do it without a
fight."
"You would wait forever," she retorted. "I know the
animals of my world better
than you do, and soon we may need a lot of them for
food."
"Not so many; there's just the two of us."
The cat-eyes regarded him shrewdly. "Not for long,"
she said, and dropped her
bombshell. "I recognized a friend of mine in one of
those cages."
Locklear felt an icy needle down his spine. "A male?"
"Certainly not. Five of us were executed for the same
offense, and at least one
of them is here with us. Perhaps those Outsiders of
yours collected us all as we
sank in that stinking water."
"Not my Outsiders," he objected. "Listen, for all we
know they're monitoring us,
so be careful how you fiddle with their setup here."
She marched him to the kzin cages and purred her
pleasure on recognizing two
females, both prret like herself, both imposingly
large for Locklear's taste.
She placed a furry hand on one cage, enjoying the
moment. "I could release you
now, my sister in struggle," she said softly. "But I
think I shall wait. Yes, I
think it is best," she said to Locklear, turning
away. "These two have been here
a long time, and they will keep until-"
"Until you have everything under your control?"
"True," she said. "But you need not fear, Rockear.
You are an ally, and you know
too many things we must know. And besides," she
added, rubbing against him
sensuously, "you are (something)."
There was that same word again, t'rralap or some
such, and now he was sure, with
sinking heart, that it meant "cute." He didn't feel
cute; he was beginning to
feel like a Pomeranian on a short leash.
More by touch than anything else, they gathered
bundles of grass for a bower at
the cave entrance, and Miss Kitty showed no
reluctance in falling asleep next to
him, curled becomingly into a buzzing ball of fur.
But when he moved away, she
moved too, until they were touching again. He knew
beyond doubt that if he moved
too far in the direction of his lance and axe, she
would be fully awake and
suspicious as hell.
And she'd call my bluff, and I don't want to kill
her, he thought, settling his
head against her furry shoulder. Even if 1 could,
which is doubtful. I'm no
longer master of all I survey. In fact, now I have a
mistress of sorts, and I'm
not too sure what kind of mistress she has in mind.
They used to have a word for
what I'm thinking. Maybe Miss Kitty doesn't care who
or what she diddles; hell,
she was a palace courtesan, doing it with males she
hated. She thinks I'm
t'rralap. Yeah, that's me, Locklear, Miss Kitty's
trollop; and what the hell can
I do about it? I wish there were some way I could get
her back in that stasis
cage . . . And then he fell asleep.
***
To Locklear's intense relief, Miss Kitty seemed
uninterested in the remaining
cages on the following morning. They foraged for
breakfast and he hid his
astonishment as she taught him a dozen tricks in an
hour. The root bulb of one
spiny shrub tasted like an apple; the seed pods of
some weeds were delicious;
and she produced a tiny blaze by rapidly pounding an
innocent-looking nutmeat
between two stones. It occurred to him that nuts
contained great amounts of
energy. A pile of these firenuts, he reflected, might
be turned into a weapon .
..
Feeding hunks of dry brush to the fire, she announced
that those root bulbs
baked nicely in coals. "If we can find clay, I can
fire a few pottery dishes and
cups, Rockear. It was part of my training, and I
intend to have everything in
domestic order before we wake those two."
"And what if a kzin ship returns and spots that
smoke?"
That was a risk they must take, she said. Some woods
burned more cleanly than
others. He argued that they should at least build
their fires far from the cave,
and while they were at it, the cave entrance might be
better disguised. She
agreed, impressed with his strategy, and then went
down on all-fours to inspect
the dirt near a dry wash. As he admired her lithe
movements, she shook her head
in an almost human gesture. "No good for clay."
"It's not important."
"It is vitally important!" Now she wheeled upright,
impressive and fearsome.
"Rockear, if any kzintosh return here, we must be
ready. For that, we must have
the help of others-the two prret. And believe me,
they will be helpful only if
they see us as their (something)."
She explained that the word meant, roughly, "paired
household leaders." The
basic requirements of a household, to a kzin female,
included sleeping
bowers-easily come by-and enough pottery for that
household. A male kzin needed
one more thing, she said, her eyes slitting: a wtsai.
"You mean one of those knives they all wear?"
"Yes. And you must have one in your belt." From the
waggle of her ears, he
decided she was amused by her next statement: "It is
a-badge, of sorts. The edge
is usually sharp but I cannot allow that, and the tip
must be dull. I will show
you why later."
"Dammit, these things could take weeks!"
"Not if we find the clay, and if you can make a wtsai
somehow. Trust me,
Rockear; these are the basics. Other kzinrret will
not obey us otherwise. They
must see from the first that we are proper providers,
proper leaders with the
pottery of a settled tribe, not the wooden implements
of wanderers. And they
must take it for granted that you and I," she added,
"are (something)." With
that, she rubbed lightly against him.
He caught himself moving aside and swallowed hard.
"Miss Kitty, I don't want to
offend you, but, uh, humans and kzinti do not mate."
"Why do they not?"
"Uhm. Well, they never have."
Her eyes slitted, yet with a flicker of her ears:
"But they could?"
"Some might. Not me."
"Then they might be able to," she said as if to
herself. "I thought I felt
something familiar when we were sleeping." She
studied his face carefully. "Why
does your skin change color?"
"Because, goddammit, I'm upset!" He mastered his
breathing after a moment and
continued, speaking as if to a small child, "I don't
know about kzinti, but a
man can not, uh, mate unless he is, uh-"
"Unless he is intent on the idea?"
"Right!"
"Then we will simply have to pretend that we do mate,
Rockear. Otherwise, those
two kzinrret will spend most of their time trying to
become your mate and will
be useless for work."
"Of all the . . ." he began, and then dropped his
chin and began to laugh
helplessly. Human tribal customs had been just as
complicated, once, and she was
probably the only functioning expert in known space
on the customs of ancient
kzinrret. "We'll pretend, then, up to a point. Try
and make that point, ah, not
too pointed."
"Like your wtsai," she retorted. "I will try not to
make your face change
color."
"Please," he said fervently, and suggested that he
might find the material for a
wtsai inside the cave while she sought a deposit of
clay. She bounded away on
all-fours with the lope of a hunting leopard, his
jacket a somehow poignant
touch as it flapped against her lean belly.
When he looked back from the cave entrance, she was a
tiny dot two kilometers
distant, coursing along a shallow creekbed. "Maybe
you won't lie, and I've got
no other ally," he said to the swift saffron dot.
"But you're not above
misdirection with your own kind. I'll remember that."
***
Locklear cursed as he failed to locate any kind of
tool chest or lab implements
in those inner corridors. But he blessed his grooming
tool when the tip of its
pincer handle fitted screwheads in the cage that had
held Miss Kitty prisoner
for so long. He puzzled for minutes before he learned
to turn screwheads a
quarter-turn, release pressure to let the screwheads
emerge, then another
quarter-turn, and so on, nine times each. He felt
quickening excitement as the
cage cover detached, felt it stronger when he
disassembled the base and realized
its metal sheeting was probably one of a myriad
stainless steel alloys. The
diamond coating on his nail file proved the sheet was
no indestructible
substance. It was thin enough to flex, even to be
dented by a whack against an
adjoining cage. It might take awhile, but he would
soon have his wtsai blade.
And two other devices now lay before him, ludicrously
far advanced beyond an
ornamental knife. The gravity polarizer's main bulk
was a doughnut of ceramic
and metal. Its switch, and that of the stasis field,
both were energized by the
sliding cage floor he had disassembled. The switches
worked just as well with
fingertip pressure. They boasted separate energy
sources which Locklear dared
not assault; anything that worked for forty thousand
years without harming the
creatures near it would be more sophisticated than
any fumble-fingered mechanic.
Using the glasslike cage as a test load, he learned
which of the two switches
flung the load into the air. The other, then, had to
operate the stasis
field-and both devices had simple internal levers for
adjustments. When he
learned how to stop the cage from spinning, and then
how to make it hover only a
hand's breadth above the device or to force it
against the ceiling until it
creaked, he was ecstatic. Then he energized the
stasis switch with a chill of
gooseflesh. Any prying paws into those devices would
not pry for long, unless
someone knew about that inconspicuous switch.
Locklear could see no
interconnects between the stasis generator and the
polarizer, but both were
detachable. If he could get that polarizer
outside-Locklear strode out of the
cave laughing. It would be the damnedest vehicle
ever, but its technologies
would be wholly appropriate. He hid the device in
nearby grass; the less his
ally knew about such things, the more freedom he
would have to pursue them.
Miss Kitty returned in late afternoon with a sopping
mass of clay wrapped in
greenish-yellow palm leaves. The clay was poor
quality, she said, but it would
have to serve-and why was he battering that piece of
metal with his stone axe?
If she knew a better way to cut off a wtsai-sized
strip of steel than bending it
back and forth, he replied, he'd love to hear it.
Bickering like an old married
couple, they sat near the cave mouth until dark and
pursued their separate
Stone-Age tasks. Locklear, whose hand calluses were
still forming, had to admit
that she had been wonderfully trained for domestic
chores; under those quick
four-digited hands of hers, rolled coils of clay soon
became shallow bowls with
thin sides, so nearly perfect they might have been
turned on a potter's wheel.
By now he was calling her "Kit," and she seemed
genuinely pleased when he
praised her work. Ah, she said, but wait until the
pieces were sun-dried to
leather hardness; then she would make the bowls
lovely with talon-etched
decoration. He objected that decoration took time.
She replied curtly that
kzinrret did not live for utility alone.
He helped pull flat fibers from the stalks of palm
leaves, which she began to
weave into a mat. "For bedding," he asked? "Certainly
not," she said
imperiously; "for the clothing which modesty required
of kzinrret." He pursued
it: "Would they really care all that much with only a
human to see them?" "A
human male," she reminded him; if she considered him
worthy of mating, the
others would see him as a male first, and a non-kzin
second. He was half-amused
but more than a little uneasy as they bedded down,
she curled slightly facing
away, he crowded close at her insistence, "-For
companionship," as she put it.
Their last exchange that night implied a difference
between the rigorously
truthful male kzin and their females. "Kit, you can't
tell the others we're
mated unless we are."
"I can ignore their questions and let them draw their
own conclusions," she said
sleepily.
"Aren't you blurring that fine line between
half-truths and, uh, non-truths?"
"I do not intend to discuss it further," she said,
and soon was purring in sleep
with the faint growl of a predator.
***
He needed two more days, and a repair of the handaxe,
before he got that jagged
slice of steel pounded and, with abrasive stones,
ground into something
resembling a blade. Meanwhile, Kit built her
open-fired kiln of stones in a
ravine some distance from the cave, ranging widely
with that leopard lope of
hers to gather firewood. Locklear was glad of her
absence; it gave him time to
finish a laminated shamboo handle for his blade,
bound with thread, and to
collect the thickest poles of shamboo he could find.
The blade was sharp enough
to trim the poles quickly, and tough enough to hold
an edge.
He was tying crosspieces with plaited fiber to bind
thick shamboo poles into a
slender raft when, on the third day of those labors,
he felt a presence behind
him. Whirling, he brandished his blade. "Oh," he
said, and lowered the wtsai.
"Sorry, Kit. I keep worrying about the return of
those kzintosh."
She was not amused. "Give it to me," she said,
thrusting her hand out.
"The hell I will. I need this thing."
"I can see that it is too sharp."
"I need it sharp."
"I am sure you do. I need it dull." Her gesture for
the blade was more than
impatient.
Half straightening into a crouch, he brought the
blade up again, eyes narrowed.
"Well, by God, I've had about all your whims I can
take. You want it? Come and
get it."
She made a sound that was deeper than a purr, putting
his hackles up, and went
to all-fours, her furry tailtip flicking as she began
to pace around him. She
was a lovely sight. She scared Locklear silly. "When
I take it, I will hurt
you," she warned.
"If you take it," he said, turning to face her,
moving the wtsai in what he
hoped was an unpredictable pattern. Dammit, I can't
back down now. A puncture
wound might be fatal to her, so I've got to slash
lightly. Or maybe he wouldn't
have to, when she saw he meant business.
But he did have to. She screamed and leaped toward
his left, her own left hand
sweeping out at his arm. He skipped aside and then
felt her tail lash against
his shins like a curled rope. He stumbled and whirled
as she was twisting to
repeat the charge, and by sheer chance his blade
nicked her tail as she whisked
it away from his vicinity.
She stood erect, holding her tail in her hands, eyes
wide and accusing. "You-you
insulted my tail," she snarled.
"Damn tootin'," he said between his teeth.
With arms folded, she turned her back on him, her
tail curled protectively at
her backside. "You have no respect," she said, and
because it seemed she was
going to leave, he dropped the blade and stood up,
and realized too late just
how much peripheral vision a kzin boasted. She spun
and was on him in an
instant, her hands gripping his wrists, and hurled
them both to the grass,
bringing those terrible ripping foot talons up to his
stomach. They lay that way
for perhaps three seconds. "Drop the wtsai," she
growled, her mouth near his
throat. Locklear had not been sure until now whether
a very small female kzin
had more muscular strength than he. The answer was
not just awfully encouraging.
He could feel sharp needles piercing the skin at his
stomach, kneading,
releasing, piercing; a reminder that with one move
she could disembowel him. The
blade whispered into the grass. She bit him lightly
at the juncture of his neck
and shoulder, and then faced him with their noses
almost touching. "A love
bite," she said, and released his wrists, pushing
away with her feet.
He rolled, hugging his stomach, fighting for breath,
grateful that she had not
used those fearsome talons with her push. She found
the blade, stood over him,
and now no sign of her anger remained. Right; she's
in complete control, he
thought.
"Nicely made, Rockear. I shall return it to you when
it is presentable," she
said.
"Get the hell away from me," he husked softly.
She did, with a bound, moving toward a distant wisp
of smoke that skirled
faintly across the sky. If a kzin ship returned now,
they would follow that wisp
immediately.
Locklear trotted without hesitation to the cave,
cursing, wiping trickles of
blood from his stomach and neck, wiping a tear of
rage from his cheek. There
were other ways to prove to this damned tabby that he
could be trusted with a
knife. One, at least, if he didn't get himself wasted
in the process.
***
She returned quite late, with half of a cooked vatach
and tuberberries as a
peace offering, to find him weaving a huge triangular
mat. It was a sail, he
explained, for a boat. She had taken the little
animal on impulse, she said,
partly because it was a male, and ate her half on the
spot for old times' sake.
He'd told her his distaste for raw meat and evidently
she never forgot anything.
He sulked awhile, complaining at the lack of salt,
brightening a bit when she
produced the wtsai from his jacket which she still
wore. "You've ruined it," he
said, seeing the colors along the dull blade as he
held it. "Heated it up,
didn't you?"
"And ground its edge off on the stones of my hot
kiln," she agreed. "Would you
like to try its point?" She placed a hand on her
flank, where a man's kidney
would be, moving nearer.
"Not much of a point now," he said. It was rounded
like a formal dinner knife at
its tip.
"Try it here," she said, and guided his hand so that
the blunt knifetip pointed
against her flank. He hesitated. "Don't you want to?"
He dug it in, knowing it wouldn't hurt her much, and
heard her soft miaow. Then
she suggested the other side, and he did, feeling a
suspicious unease. That, she
said, was the way a wtsai was best used.
He frowned. "You mean, as a symbol of control?"
"More or less," she replied, her ears flicking, and
then asked how he expected
to float a boat down a dry wash, and he told her
because he needed her help with
it. "A skyboat? Some trick of man, or kzin?"
"Of man," he shrugged. It was, so far as he knew,
uniquely his trick-and it
might not work at all. He could not be sure about his
other trick either, until
he tried it. Either one might get him killed.
When they curled up to sleep again, she turned her
head and whispered, "Would
you like to bite my neck?"
"I'd like to bite it off."
"Just do not break the skin. I did not mean to make
yours bleed, Rockear. Men
are tender creatures."
Feeling like an ass, he forced his nose into the fur
at the curve of her
shoulder and bit hard. Her miaow was familiar. And
somehow he was sure that it
was not exactly a cry of pain. She thrust her rump
nearer, sighed, and went to
sleep.
After an eternity of minutes, he shifted position,
putting his knees in her
back, flinging one of his hands to the edge of their
grassy bower. She moved
slightly. He felt in the grass for a familiar object;
found it. Then he pulled
his legs away and pressed with his fingers. She
started to turn, then drew
herself into a ball as he scrambled further aside,
legs tingling.
He had not been certain the stasis field would
operate properly when its flat
field grid was positioned beneath sheaves of grass,
but obviously it was
working. Indeed, his lower legs were numb for several
minutes, lying in the edge
of the field as they were when he threw that switch.
He stamped the pins and
needles from his feet, barely able to see her inert
form in the faint luminosity
of the cave portal. Once, while fumbling for the
wtsai, he stumbled near her and
dropped to his knees.
He trembled for half a minute before rising. "Fall
over her now and you could
lie here for all eternity," he said aloud. Then he
fetched the heavy coil of
fiber he'd woven, with those super-strength threads
braided into it. He had no
way of lighting the place enough to make sure of his
work, so he lay down on the
sail mat inside the cave. One thing was sure: she'd
be right there the next
morning.
***
He awoke disoriented at first, then darted to the
cave mouth. She lay inert as a
carven image. The Outsiders probably had good reason
to rotate their specimens,
so he couldn't leave her there for the days-or
weeks!-that temptation suggested.
He decided that a day wouldn't hurt, and hurriedly
set about finishing his
airboat. The polarizer was lashed to the underside of
his raft, with a slot
through the shamboo so that he could reach down and
adjust the switch and
levers. The crosspieces, beneath, held the polarizer
off the turf.
Finally, with a mixture of fear and excitement, he
sat down in the middle of the
raft-bottomed craft and snugged fiber straps across
his lap. He reached down
with his left hand, making sure the levers were
pulled back, and flipped the
switch. Nothing. Yet. When he had moved the second
lever halfway, the raft began
to rise very slowly. He vented a whoop-and suddenly
the whole rig was tipping
before he could snap the switch. The raft hit on one
side and crashed flat like
a barn door with a tooth-loosening impact.
Okay, the damn thing was tippy. He'd need a keel-a
heavy rock on a short rope.
Or a little rock on a long rope! He erected two short
lengths of shamboo upright
with a crosspiece like goalposts, over the seat of
his raft, enlarging the hole
under his thighs. Good; now he'd have a better view
straight down, too. He used
the cord he'd intended to bind Kit, tying it to a
twenty-kilo stone, then
feeding the cord through the hole and wrapping most
of its fifteen-meter length
around and around that thick crosspiece. Then he
sighed, looked at the westering
sun, and tried again.
The raft was still a bit tippy, but by paying the
cordage out slowly he found
himself ten meters up. By shifting his weight, he
could make the little platform
slant in any direction, yet he could move only in the
direction the breeze took
him. By adjusting the controls he rose until the
heavy stone swung lazily, free
of the ground, and then he was drifting with the
breeze. He reduced power and
hauled in on his keel weight until the raft settled,
and then worked out the
needed improvements. Higher skids off the ground, so
he could work beneath the
raft; a better method for winding that weight up and
down; and a sturdy shamboo
mast for his single sail-better still, a two-piece
mast bound in a narrow
A-frame to those goalposts. It didn't need to be
high; a short catboat sail for
tacking was all he could handle anyhow. And come to
think of it, a pair of
shamboo poles pivoted off the sides with small
weights at their free ends just
might make automatic keels.
He worked on that until a half-hour before dark, then
carried his keel cordage
inside the cave. First he made a slip noose, then
flipped it toward her hands,
which were folded close to her chin. He finally got
the noose looped properly,
pulled it tight, then moved around her at a safe
distance, tugging the cord so
that it passed under her neck and, with sharp tugs,
down to her back. Then
another pass. Then up to her neck, then around her
flexed legs. He managed a
pair of half-hitches before he ran short of cordage,
then fetched his shamboo
lance. With the lance against her throat, he snapped
off the stasis field with
his toe.
She began her purring rumble immediately. He pressed
lightly with the lance, and
then she waked, and needed a moment to realize that
she was bound. Her ears
flattened. Her grin was nothing even faintly like
enjoyment. "You drugged me,
you little vatach."
"No. Worse than that. Watch," he said, and with his
free hand he pointed at her
face, staring hard. He toed the switch again and
watched her curl into an inert
ball. The half-hitches came loosed with a tug, and
with some difficulty he
managed to pull the cordage away until only the loop
around her hand remained.
He toed the switch again; watched her come awake, and
pointed dramatically at
her as she faced him. "I loosened your bonds," he
said. "I can always tie you up
again. Or put you back in stasis," he added with a
tight smile, hoping this
paltry piece of flummery would be taken as magic.
"May I rise?"
"Depends. Do you see that I can defeat you instantly,
anytime I like?" She moved
her hands, snarling at the loop, starting to bite it
asunder. "Stop that! Answer
my question," he said again, stern and unyielding,
the finger pointing, his toe
ready on the switch.
"It seems that you can," she said grudgingly.
"I could have killed you as you slept. Or brought one
of the other prret out of
stasis and made her my consort. Any number of things,
Kit." Her nod was slow,
and almost human. "Do you swear to obey me hereafter,
and not to attack me
again?"
She hated it, but she said it: "Yes. I-misjudged you,
Rockear. If all men can do
what you did, no wonder you win wars."
He saw that this little charade might get him in a
mess later. "It is a special
trick of mine; probably won't work for male kzin. In
any case, I have your word.
If you forget it, I will make you sorry. We need each
other, Kit; just like I
need a sharp edge on my knife." He lowered his arm
then, offering her his hand.
"Here, come outside and help me. It's nearly dark
again."
She was astonished to find, from the sun's position,
that she had "slept" almost
a full day. But there was no doubting he had spent
many hours on that airboat of
his. She helped him for a few moments, then
remembered that her kiln would now
be cool, the bowls and water jug waiting in its
primitive chimney. "May I
retrieve my pottery, Rockear?"
He smiled at her obedient tone. "If I say no?"
"I do it tomorrow."
"Go ahead, Kit. It'll be dark soon." He watched her
bounding away through high
grass, then hurried into the cave. He had to put that
stasis gadget back where
he'd got it or, sure as hell, she'd figure it out and
one fine day he would wake
up hogtied. Or worse.
***
Locklear's praise of the pottery was not forced; Kit
had a gift for handcrafts,
and they ate from decorated bowls that night. He
sensed her new deference when
she asked, "Have you chosen a site for the manor?"
"Not until I've explored further. We'll want a hidden
site we can defend and
retreat from, with reliable sources of water,
firewood, food-not like this cave.
And I'll need your help in that decision, Kit."
"It must be done before we wake the others," she
said, adding as if to echo his
own warnings, "And soon, if we are to be ready for
the kzintosh."
"Don't nag," he replied. He blew on blistered palms
and lay full-length on their
grassy bower. "We have to get that airboat working
right away," he said, and
patted the grass beside him. She curled up in her
usual way. After a few moments
he placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Thank you, Rockear," she murmured, and fell asleep.
He lay awake for another
hour, gnawing the ribs of two sciences. The
engineering of the airboat would be
largely trial and error. So would the ethology of a
relationship between a man
and a kzin female, with all those nuances he was
beginning to sense. How, for
example, did a kzin make love? Not that he intended
to-unless, a vagrant thought
nudged him, I'm doing some of it already . . .
Two more days and a near-disastrous capsizing later,
Locklear found the right
combination of ballast and sail. He found that Kit
could sprint for short
distances faster than he could urge the airboat, but
over long distances he had
a clear edge. Alone, tacking higher, he found
stronger winds that bore him far
across the sky of Kzersatz, and once he found himself
drifting in cross-currents
high above that frost line that curved visibly, now,
tracing the edge of the
force cylinder that was their cage.
He returned after a two-hour absence to find Kit
weaving more mats, more
cordage, for furnishings. She approached the airboat
warily, mistrusting its
magical properties but relieved to see him. "You'll
be using this thing
yourself, pretty soon, Kit," he confided. "Can you
make us some decent ink and
paper?"
In a day, yes, she said, if she found a scroll-leaf
palm, to soak, pound, and
dry its fronds. Ink was no problem. Then hop aboard,
he said, and they'd go
cruising for the palm. That was a problem; she was
plainly terrified of flight
in any form. Kzinti were fearless, he reminded her.
Females were not, she said,
adding that the sight of him dwindling in the sky to
a scudding dot had "drawn
up her tail"-a fear reaction, he learned.
He ordered her, at last, to mount the raft, sitting
in tandem behind him. She
found the position somehow obscene, but she did it.
Evidently it was highly
acceptable for a male to crowd close behind a female,
but not the reverse. Then
Locklear recalled how cats mated, and he understood.
"Nobody will see us, Kit.
Hang on to these cords and pull only when I tell
you." With that, he levitated
the airboat a meter, and stayed low for a time-until
he felt the flexure of her
foot talons relax at his thighs.
In another hour they were quartering the sky above
the jungles and savannahs of
Kzersatz, Kit enjoying the ride too much to retain
her fears. They landed in a
clearing near the unexplored end of the lake, Kit
scrambling up a thick palm to
return with young rolled fronds. "The sap stings when
fresh," she said,
indicating a familiar white substance. "But when
dried and reheated it makes
excellent glue." She also gathered fruit like purple
leather melons, with flesh
that smelled faintly of seafood, and stowed them for
dinner.
The return trip was longer. He taught her how to tack
upwind and later, watching
her soak fronds that night inside the cave, exulted
because soon they would have
maps of this curious country. In only one particular
was he evasive.
"Rockear, what is that thing I felt on your back
under your clothing," she
asked.
"It's, uh, just a thing your warriors do to captives.
I have to keep it there,"
he said, and quickly changed the subject.
***
In another few days, they had crude air maps and
several candidate sites for the
manor. Locklear agreed to Kit's choice as they
hovered above it, a gentle slope
beneath a cliff overhang where a kzinrret could sun
herself half the day.
Fast-growing hardwoods nearby would provide timber
and firewood, and the stream
burbling in the throat of the ravine was the same
stream where he had found that
first waterfall down near the lake, and had
conjectured on the age of Kzersatz.
She rubbed her cheek against his neck when he
accepted her decision.
He steered toward the hardwood grove, feeling a faint
dampness on his neck.
"What does that mean?"
"Why-marking you, of course. It is a display of
affection." He pursued it. The
ritual transferred a pheromone from her furry cheeks
to his flesh. He could not
smell it, but she maintained that any kzin would
recognize her marker until the
scent evaporated in a few hours.
It was like a lipstick mark, he decided-"Or a hickey
with your initials," he
told her, and then had to explain himself. She
admitted he had not guessed far
off the mark. "But hold on, Kit. Could a kzin warrior
track me by my scent?"
"Certainly. How else does one follow a spoor?"
He thought about that awhile. "If we come to the
manor and leave it always by
air, would that make it harder to find?"
Of course, she said. Trackers needed a scent trail;
that's why she intended them
to walk in the nearby stream, even if splashing in
water was unpleasant. "But if
they are determined to find you, Rockear, they will."
He sighed, letting the airboat settle near a stand of
pole-straight trees, and
as he hacked with the dulled wtsai, told her of the
new weaponry: projectiles,
beamers, energy fields, bombs. "When they do find us,
we've got to trap them
somehow; get their weapons. Could you kill your own
kind?"
"They executed me," she reminded him and added after
a moment, "Kzinrret weapons
might be best. Leave it to me." She did not
elaborate. Well, women's weapons had
their uses.
He slung several logs under the airboat and left Kit
stone-sharpening the long
blade as he slowly tacked his way back to their
ravine. Releasing the hitches
was the work of a moment, thick poles thudding onto
yellow-green grass, and soon
he was back with Kit. By the time the sun faded, the
wtsai was biting like a
handaxe and Kit had prepared them a thick grassy
pallet between the cliff face
and their big foundation logs. It was the coldest
night Locklear had spent on
Kzersatz, but Kit's fur made it endurable.
Days later, she ate the last of the kzin rations as
he chewed a fishnut and
sketched in the dirt with a stick. "We'll run the
shamboo plumbing out here from
the kitchen," he said, "and dig our escape tunnel out
from our sleep room
parallel with the cliff. We'll need help, Kit. It's
time."
She vented a long purring sigh. "I know. Things will
be different, Rockear. Not
as simple as our life has been."
He laughed at that, reminding her of the
complications they had already faced,
and then they resumed notching logs, raising the
walls beyond window height.
Their own work packed the earthen floors, but the
roofing would require more
hands than their own. That night, Kit kindled their
first fire in the central
room's hearth, and they fell asleep while she tutored
him on the ways of ancient
kzin females.
***
Leaning against the airboat alone near the cave,
Locklear felt new misgivings.
Kit had argued that his presence at the awakenings
would be a Bad Idea. Let them
grow used to him slowly, she'd said. Stand tall, give
orders gently, and above
all don't smile until they understand his show of
teeth. No fear of that, he
thought, shifting nervously a half-hour after Kit
disappeared inside. I don't
feel like smiling.
He heard a shuffling just out of sight; realized he
was being viewed covertly;
threw out his chest and flexed his pectorals. Not
much by kzin standards, but
he'd developed a lot of sinew during the past weeks.
He felt silly as hell, and
those other kzinrret had not made him any promises.
The wtsai felt good at his
belt.
Then Kit was striding into the open, with an
expression of strained patience.
Standing beside him, she muttered, "Mark me." Then,
seeing his frown: "Your
cheek against my neck, Rockear. Quickly."
He did so. She bowed before him, offering the tip of
her tail in both hands, and
he stroked it when she told him to. Then he saw a
lithe movement of orange at
the cave and raised both hands in a universal
weaponless gesture as the second
kzinrret emerged, watching him closely. She was much
larger than Kit, with
transverse stripes of darker orange and a banded
tail. Close on her heels came a
third, more reluctantly but staying close behind as
if for protection, with
facial markings that reminded Locklear of an ocelot
and very dark fur at hands
and feet. They were admirable creatures, but their
ear umbrellas lay flat and
they were not yet his friends.
Kit moved to the first, urging her forward to
Locklear. After a few tentative
sniffs the big kzinrret said, in that curious ancient
dialect, "I am (something
truly unpronounceable), prret in service of Rockear."
She bent toward him, her
stance defensive, and he marked her as Kit had said
he must, then stroked her
tabby-banded tail. She moved away and the third
kzinrret approached, and
Locklear's eyes widened as he performed the greeting
ritual. She was either
potbellied, or carrying a litter!
Both of their names being beyond him, he dubbed the
larger one Puss; the
pregnant one, Boots. They accepted their new names as
proof that they were
members of a very different kind of household than
any they had known. Both wore
aprons of woven mat, Kit's deft work, and she offered
them water from bowls.
As they stood eyeing one another speculatively, Kit
surprised them all. "It is
time to release the animals," she said. "My lord
Rockear-the-magician, we are
excellent herders, and from your flying boat you can
observe our work. The
larger beasts might also distract the kzintosh, and
we will soon need meat. Is
it not so?"
She knew be couldn't afford an argument now-and
besides, she was right. He had
no desire to try herding some of those big critters
outside anyhow, and kzinti
had been doing it from time immemorial. Damned clever
tactic, Kit; Puss and
Boots will get a chance to work off their nerves, and
so will I. He swept a
permissive arm outward and sat down in the airboat as
the three kzin females
moved into the cave.
The next two hours were a crash course in zoology for
Locklear, safe at
fifty-meter height as he watched herds, coveys,
throngs and volleys of creatures
as they crawled, flapped, hopped and galumphed off
across the yellow prairie. A
batowl found a perch atop his mast, trading foolish
blinks with him until it
whispered away after another of its kind. One huge
ruminant with the bulk of a
rhino and murderous spikes on its thick tail sat down
to watch him, raising its
bull's muzzle to issue a call like a wolf. An
answering howl sent it lumbering
off again, and Locklear wondered whether they were to
be butchered, ridden, or
simply avoided. He liked the last option best.
When at last Kit came loping out with shrill screams
of false fury at the heels
of a collie-sized, furry tyrannosaur, the operation
was complete. He'd
half-expected to see a troop of more kzinti bounding
outside, but Kit was as
good as her word. None of them recognized any of the
other stasized kzinti, and
all seemed content to let the strangers stay as they
were.
The airboat did not have room for them all, but by
now Kit could operate the
polarizer levers. She sat ahead of Locklear for
decorum's sake, making a show of
her pairing with him, and let Puss and Boots follow
beneath as the airboat slid
ahead of a good breeze toward their tacky, unfinished
little manor. "They will
be nicely exhausted," she said to him, "by the time
we reach home."
Home. My God, it may be my home for the rest of my
life, he thought, watching
the muscular Puss bound along behind them with Boots
in arrears. Three kzin
courtesans for company; a sure 'nough cathouse! Is
that much better than having
those effing warriors return? And if they don't, is
there any way I could get
across to my own turf, to Newduvai? The gravity
polarizer could get him to
orbit, but he would need propulsion, and a woven sail
wasn't exactly de rigueur
for travel in vacuum, and how the hell could he build
an airtight cockpit
anyhow? Too many questions, too few answers, and two
more kzin females who might
be more hindrance than help, hurtling along in the
yellowsward behind him. One
of them pregnant.
And kzin litters were almost all twins, one male.
Like it or not, he was doomed
to deal with at least one kzintosh. The notion of
killing the tiny male forced
itself forward. He quashed the idea instantly, and
hoped it would stay quashed.
Yeah, and one of these days it'll weigh three times
as much as I do, and two of
these randy females will be vying for mating
privileges. The return of the kzin
ship, he decided, might be the least of his troubles.
That being so, the least of his troubles could kill
him.
***
Puss and Boots proved far more help than hindrance.
Locklear admitted it to Kit
one night, lying in their small room off the "great
hall," itself no larger than
five meters by ten and already pungent with cooking
smokes. "Those two hardly
talk to me, but they thatch a roof like crazy. How
well can they tunnel?"
This amused her. "Every pregnant kzinrret is an
expert at tunneling, as you will
soon see. Except that you will not see. When birthing
time nears, a mother digs
her secret birthing place. The father sometimes
helps, but oftener not."
"Too lazy?"
She regarded him with eyes that reflected a dim
flicker from the fire dying in
the next room's hearth, and sent a shiver through
him. "Too likely to eat the
newborn male," she said simply.
"Good God. Not among modern kzinti, I hope."
"Perhaps. Females become good workers; males become
aggressive hunters likely to
challenge for household mastery. Which would you
value more?"
"My choice is a matter of record," he joked, adding
that they were certainly
shaping the manor up fast. That, she said, was
because they knew their places
and their leaders. Soon they would be butchering and
curing meat, making
(something) from the milk of ruminants, cheese
perhaps, and making ready for the
kittens. Some of the released animals seemed already
domesticated. A few vatach,
she said, might be trapped and released nearby for
convenience.
He asked if the others would really fight the
returning kzin warriors, and she
insisted that they would, especially Puss. "She was a
highly valued prret, but
she hates males," Kit warned. "In some ways I think
she wishes to be one."
"Then why did she ask if I'd like to scratch her
flanks with my wtsai," he
asked.
"I will claw her eyes out if you do," she growled.
"She is only negotiating for
status. Keep your blade in your belt," she said
angrily, with a metaphor he
could not miss.
That blade reminded him (as he idly scratched her
flanks with its dull tip to
calm her) that the cave was now a treasury of
materials. He must study the
planting of the fast-growing vines which, according
to Kit, would soon hide the
roof thatching; those vines could also hide the cave
entrance. He could scavenge
enough steel for lances, more of the polarizers to
build a whopping big
airsloop, maybe even- He sat up, startling her. "Meat
storage!"
Kit did not understand. He wasn't sure he wanted her
to. He would need wire for
remote switches, which might be recovered from
polarizer toroids if he had the
nerve to try it. "I may have a way to keep meat
fresh, Kit, but you must help me
see that no one else touches my magics. They could be
dangerous." She said he
was the boss, and he almost believed it.
***
Once the females began their escape tunnel, Locklear
rigged a larger sail and
completed his mapping chores, amassing several
scrolls which seemed gibberish to
the others. And each day he spent two hours at the
cave. When vines died, he
planted others to hide the entrance. He learned that
polarizers and stasis units
came in three sizes, and brought trapped vatach back
in large cages he had
separated from their gravity and stasis devices.
Those clear cage tops made
admirable windows, and the cage metal was then
reworked by firelight in the main
hall.
Despite Kit's surly glances, he bade Puss sit beside
him to learn metalwork,
while Boots patiently wove mats and formed trays of
clay to his specifications
for papermaking. One day he might begin a journal.
Meanwhile he needed awls,
screwdrivers, pliers-and a longbow with arrows. He
was all thumbs while shaping
them.
Boots became more shy as her pregnancy advanced.
Locklear's new social problem
became the casual nuances from Puss that, by now, he
knew were sexual. She
rarely spoke unless spoken to, but one day while
resting in the sun with the big
kzinrret he noticed her tailtip flicking near his
leg. He had noticed previously
that a moving rope or vine seemed to mesmerize a
kzin; they probably thought it
fascinated him as well.
"Puss, I-uh-sleep only with Kit. Sorry, but that's
the way of it."
"Pfaugh. I am more skilled at ch'rowl than she, and I
could make you a pillow of
her fur if I liked." Her gaze was calm, challenging;
to a male kzin, probably
very sexy.
"We must all work together, Puss. As head of the
household, I forbid you to make
trouble."
"My Lord," she said with a small nod, but her
ear-flick was amused. "In that
case, am I permitted to help in the birthing?"
"Of course," he said, touched. "Where is Boots,
anyway?"
"Preparing her birthing chamber. It cannot be long
now," Puss added, setting off
down the ravine.
Locklear found Kit dragging a mat of dirt from the
tunnel and asked her about
the problems of birthing. The hardest part, she said,
was the bower-and when
males were near, the hiding. He asked why Puss would
be needed at the birthing.
"Ah," said Kit. "It is symbolic, Rockear. You have
agreed to let her play the
mate role. It is not unheard-of, and the newborn male
will be safe."
"You mean, symbolic like our pairing?"
"Not quite that symbolic," she replied with sarcasm
as they distributed stone
and earth outside. "Prret are flexible."
Then he asked her what ch'rowl meant.
Kit vented a tiny miaow of pleasure, then realized
suddenly that he did not know
what he had said. Furiously: "She used that word to
you? I will break her tail!"
"I forbid it," he said. "She was angry because I told
her I slept only with
you." Pleased with this, Kit subsided as they moved
into the tunnel again. Some
kzin words, he learned, were triggers. At least one
seemed to be blatantly
lascivious. He was deflected from this line of
thought only when Kit, digging
upward now, broke through to the surface.
They replanted shrubs at the exit before dark, and
lounged before the hearthfire
afterward. At last Locklear yawned; checked his
wristcomp. "They are very late,"
he said.
"Kittens are born at night," she replied, unworried.
"But-I assumed she'd tell us when it was time."
"She has not said eight-cubed of words to you. Why
should she confide that to a
male?"
He shrugged at the fire. Perhaps they would always
treat him like a kzintosh. He
wondered for the hundredth time whether, when push
came to shove, they would
fight with him or against him.
***
In his mapping sorties, Locklear had skirted near
enough to the force walls to
see that Kzersatz was adjacent to four other
compounds. One, of course, was the
tantalizing Newduvai. Another was hidden in swirling
mists; he dubbed it Limbo.
The others held no charm for him; he named them Who
Needs It, and No Thanks. He
wondered what collections of life forms roamed those
mysterious lands, or slept
there in stasis. The planet might have scores of such
zoo compounds.
Meanwhile, he unwound a hundred meters of wire from a
polarizer, and stole
switches from others. One of his jury-rigs, outside
the cave, was a catapult
using a polarizer on a sturdy frame. He could stand
fifty meters away and, with
his remote switch, lob a heavy stone several hundred
meters. Perhaps a series of
the gravity polarizers would make a kind of mass
driver-a true space drive!
There was yet hope, he thought, of someday visiting
Newduvai.
And then he transported some materials to the manor
where he installed a stasis
device to keep meat fresh indefinitely; and late that
same day, Puss returned.
Even Kit, ignoring their rivalry, welcomed the big
kzinrret.
"They are all well," Puss reported smugly,
paternally. To Locklear's delighted
question she replied in severe tones, "You cannot see
them until their eyes
open, Rockear."
"It is tradition," Kit injected. "The mother will
suckle them until then, and
will hunt as she must."
"I am the hunter," Puss said. "When we build our own
manor, will your household
help?"
Kit looked quickly toward Locklear, who realized the
implications. By God,
they're really pairing off for another household, he
thought. After a moment he
said, "Yes, but you must locate it nearby." He saw
Kit relax and decided he'd
made the right decision. To celebrate the new
developments, Puss shooed Locklear
and Kit outside to catch the late sun while she made
them an early supper. They
sat on their rough-hewn bench above the ravine to
eat, Puss claiming she could
return to the birthing bower in full darkness, and
Locklear allowed himself to
bask in a sense of well-being. It was not until Puss
had headed back down the
ravine with food for Boots, that Locklear realized
she had stolen several small
items from his storage shelves.
He could accept the loss of tools and a knife; Puss
had, after all, helped him
make them. What caused his cold sweat was the fact
that the tiny zzrou
transmitter was missing. The zzrou prongs in his
shoulder began to itch as he
thought about it. Puss could not possibly know the
importance of the transmitter
to him; maybe she thought it was some magical
tool-and maybe she would destroy
it while studying it. "Kit," he said, trying to keep
the tremor from his voice,
"I've got a problem and I need your help."
She seemed incensed, but not very surprised, to learn
the function of the device
that clung to his back. One thing was certain, he
insisted: the birthing bower
could not be more than a klick away. Because if Puss
took the transmitter
farther than that, he would die in agony. Could Kit
lead him to the bower in
darkness?
"I might find it, Rockear, but your presence there
would provoke violence," she
said. "I must go alone." She caressed his flank
gently, then set off slowly down
the ravine on all-fours, her nose close to the turf
until she disappeared in
darkness.
Locklear stood for a time at the manor entrance,
wondering what this night would
bring, and then saw a long scrawl of light as it
slowed to a stop and winked
out, many miles above the plains of Kzersatz. Now he
knew what the morning would
bring, and knew that he had not one deadly problem,
but two. He began to check
his pathetic little armory by the glow of his
memocomp, because that was better
than giving way entirely to despair.
***
When he awoke, it was to the warmth of Kit's fur
nestled against his backside.
There was a time when she called this obscene, he
thought with a smile-and then
he remembered everything, and lit the display of his
memocomp. Two hours until
dawn. How long until death, he wondered, and woke her.
She did not have the zzrou transmitter. "Puss heard
my calls," she said, "and
warned me away. She will return this morning to
barter tools for things she
wants."
"I'll tell you who else will return," he began. "No,
don't rebuild the fire,
Kit. I saw what looked like a ship stationing itself
many miles away overhead,
while you were gone. Smoke will only give us away. It
might possibly be a
Manship, but-expect the worst. You haven't told me
how you plan to fight."
His hopes fell as she stammered out her ideas, and he
countered each one,
reflecting that she was no planner. They would hide
and ambush the searchers-but
he reminded her of their projectile and beam weapons.
Very well, they would
claim absolute homestead rights accepted by all
ancient Kzinti clans-but modern
Kzinti, he insisted, had probably forgotten those
ancient immunities.
"You may as well invite them in for breakfast," he
grumbled. "Back on earth,
women's weapons included poison. I thought you had
some kzinrret weapons."
"Poisons would take time, Rockear. It takes little
time, and not much talent, to
set warriors fighting to the death over a female.
Surely they would still
respond with foolish bravado?"
"I don't know; they've never seen a smart kzinrret.
And ship's officers are very
disciplined. I don't think they'd get into a
free-for-all. Maybe lure them in
here and hit 'em while they sleep . . ."
"As you did to me?"
"Uh no, I-yes!" He was suddenly galvanized by the
idea, tantalized by the
treasures he had left in the cave. "Kit, the machine
I set up to preserve food
is exactly the same as the one I placed under you, to
make you sleep when I hit
a foot switch." He saw her flash of anger at his
earlier duplicity. "An ancient
sage once said anything that's advanced enough beyond
your understanding is
indistinguishable from magic, Kit. But magic can turn
on you. Could you get a
warrior to sit or lie down by himself?"
"If I cannot, I am no prret," she purred. "Certainly
I can leave one lying by
himself. Or two. Or . . ."
"Okay, don't get graphic on me," he snapped. "We've
got only one stasis unit
here. If only I could get more-but I can't leave in
the airboat without that
damned little transmitter! Kit, you'll have to go and
get Puss now. I'll promise
her anything within reason."
"She will know we are at a disadvantage. Her demands
will be outrageous."
"We're all at a disadvantage! Tell her about the kzin
warship that's hanging
over us."
"Hanging magically over us," she corrected him. "It
is true enough for me."
Then she was gone, loping away in darkness, leaving
him to fumble his way to the
meat storage unit he had so recently installed. The
memocomp's faint light
helped a little, and he was too busy to notice the
passage of time until, with
its usual sudden blaze, the sunlet of Kzersatz began
to shine.
He was hiding the wires from Puss's bed to the foot
switch near the little
room's single doorway when he heard a distant roll of
thunder. No, not thunder:
it grew to a crackling howl in the sky, and from the
nearest window he saw what
he most feared to see. The kzin lifeboat left a thin
contrail in its pass,
circling just inside the force cylinder of Kzersatz,
and its wingtips slid out
as it slowed. No doubt of the newcomer now, and it
disappeared in the direction
of that first landing, so long ago. If only he'd
thought to booby-trap that
landing zone with stasis units! Well, he might've,
given time.
He finished his work in fevered haste, knowing that
time was now his enemy, and
so were the kzinti in that ship, and so, for all
practical purposes, was the
traitor Puss. And Kit? How easy it will be for her to
switch sides! Those
females will make out like bandits wherever they are,
and I may learn Kit's
decision when these goddamned prongs take a lethal
bite in my back. Could be any
time now. And then he heard movements in the high
grass nearby, and leaped for
his longbow.
Kit flashed to the doorway, breathless. "She is
coming, Rockear. Have you set
your sleeptrap?"
He showed her the rig. "Toe it once for sleep, again
for waking, again for
sleep," he said. "Whatever you do, don't get near
enough to touch the sleeper,
or stand over him, or you'll be in the same fix. I've
set it for maximum power."
"Why did you put it here, instead of our own bed?"
He coughed and shrugged. "Uh,-I don't know. Just
seemed like-well, hell, it's
our bed, Kit! I, um, didn't like the idea of your
using it, ah, the way you'll
have to use it."
"You are an endearing beast," she said, pinching him
lightly at the neck, "to
bind me with tenderness."
They both whirled at Puss's voice from the main
doorway: "Bind who with
tenderness?"
"I will explain," said Kit, her face bland. "If you
brought those trade goods,
display them on your bed."
"I think not," said Puss, striding into the room
she'd shared with Boots. "But I
will show them to you." With that, she sat on her bed
and reached into her apron
pocket, drawing out a wtsai for inspection.
An instant later she was unconscious. Kit, with
Locklear kibitzing, used a grass
broom to whisk the knife safely away. "I should use
it on her throat," she
snarled, but she let Locklear take the weapon.
"She came of her own accord," he said, "and she's a
fighter. We need her, Kit.
Hit the switch again."
A moment later, Puss was blinking, leaping up, then
suddenly backing away in
fear. "Treachery," she spat.
In reply, Locklear tossed the knife onto her bed
despite Kit's frown. "Just a
display, Puss. You need the knife, and I'm your ally.
But I've got to have that
little gadget that looks like my wristcomp." He held
out his hand.
"I left it at the birthing bower. I knew it was
important," she said with a
surly glance as she retrieved the knife. "For its
return, I demand our total
release from this household, I demand your help to
build a manor as large as
this, wherever I like. I demand teaching in your
magical arts." She trembled,
but stood defiant; a dangerous combination.
"Done, done, and done," he said. "You want equality,
and I'm willing. But we may
all be equally dead if that kzin ship finds us. We
need a leader. Do you have a
good plan?"
Puss swallowed hard. "Yes. Hunt at night, hide until
they leave."
Sighing, Locklear told her that was no plan at all.
He wasted long minutes
arguing his case: Puss to steal near the landing site
and report on the
intruders; the return of his zzrou transmitter so he
could try sneaking back to
the cave; Kit to remain at the manor preparing food
for a siege-and to defend
the manor through what he termed guile, if necessary.
Puss refused. "My place," she insisted, "is defending
the birthing bower."
"And you will not have a male as a leader," Kit said.
"Is that not the way of
it?"
"Exactly," Puss growled.
"I have agreed to your demands, Puss," Locklear
reminded her. "But it won't
happen if the kzin warriors get me. We've proved we
won't abuse you. At least
give me back that transmitter. Please," he added
gently.
Too late, he saw Puss's disdain for pleading. "So
that is the source of your
magic," she said, her ears lifting in a kzinrret
smile. "I shall discover its
secrets, Rockear."
"He will die if you damage it," Kit said quickly, "or
take it far from him. You
have done a stupid thing; without this manbeast who
knows our enemy well, we
will be slaves again. To males," she added.
Puss sidled along the wall, now holding the knife at
ready, menacing Kit until a
single bound put her through the doorway into the big
room. Pausing at the outer
doorway she stuck the wtsai into her apron. "I will
consider what you say," she
growled.
"Wait," Locklear said in his most commanding tone,
the only one that Puss seemed
to value. "The kzintosh will be searching for me.
They have magics that let them
see great distances even at night, and a big metal
airboat that flies with the
sound of thunder."
"I heard thunder this morning," Puss admitted.
"You heard their airboat. If they see you, they will
probably capture you. You
and Boots must be very careful, Puss."
"And do not hesitate to tempt males into (something)
if you can," Kit put in.
"Now you would teach me my business," Puss spat at
Kit, and set off down the
ravine.
Locklear moved to the outer doorway, watching the
sky, listening hard. Presently
he asked, "Do you think we can lay siege to the
birthing bower to get that
transmitter back?"
"Boots is a suckling mother, which saps her
strength," Kit replied
matter-of-factly. "So Puss would fight like a crazed
warrior. The truth is, she
is stronger than both of us."
With a morose shake of his head, Locklear began to
fashion more arrows while Kit
sharpened his wtsai into a dagger, arguing tactics,
drawing rough conclusions.
They must build no fires at the manor, and hope that
the searchers spread out
for single, arrogant sorties. The lifeboat would hold
eight warriors, and others
might be waiting in orbit. Live captives might be
better for negotiations than
dead heroes-"But even as captives, the bastards would
eat every scrap of meat in
sight," Locklear admitted.
Kit argued persuasively that any warrior worth his
wtsai would be more likely to
negotiate with a potent enemy. "We must give them
casualties," she insisted, "to
gain their respect. Can these modern males be that
different from those I knew?"
Probably not, he admitted. And knowing the modern
breed, he knew they would be
infuriated by his escape, dishonored by his
shrewdness. He could expect no
quarter when at last they did locate him. "And they
won't go until they do," he
said. On that, they agreed; some things never changed.
***
Locklear, dog-tired after hanging thatch over the
gleaming windows, heard the
lifeboat pass twice before dark but fell asleep as
the sun faded.
Much later, Kit was shaking him. "Come to the door,"
she urged. "She refuses to
come in."
He stumbled outside, found the bench by rote, and
spoke to the darkness. "Puss?
You have nothing to fear from us. Had a change of
heart?"
Not far distant: "I hunted those slopes where you
said the males left you,
Rockear."
It was an obvious way to avoid saying she had
reconnoitered as he'd asked, and
he maintained the ruse. "Did you have good hunting?"
"Fair. A huge metal thing came and went and came
again. I found four warriors,
in strange costume and barbaric speech like yours,
with strange weapons. They
are making a camp there, and spoke with surprise of
seeing animals to hunt." She
spoke slowly, pausing often. He asked her to describe
the males. She had no
trouble with that, having lain in her natural
camouflage in the jungle's verge
within thirty paces of the ship until dark. Must've
taken her hours to get here
in the dark over rough country, he thought. This is
one tough bimbo.
He waited, his hackles rising, until she finished.
"You're sure the leader had
that band across his face?" She was. She'd heard him
addressed as
"Grraf-Commander." One with a light-banded belly was
called "Apprentice
Something." And the other two tallied, as well. "I
can't believe it," he said to
the darkness. "The same foursome that left me here!
If they're all down here,
they're deadly serious. Damn their good luck."
"Better than you think," said Puss. "You told me they
had magic weapons. Now I
believe it."
Kit, leaning near, whispered into Locklear's ear. "If
she were injured, she
would refuse to show her weakness to us."
He tried again. "Puss, how do you know of their
weapons?"
With dry amusement and courage, the disembodied voice
said, "The usual way: the
huge sentry used one. Tiny sunbeams that struck as I
reached thick cover. They
truly can see in full darkness."
"So they've seen you," he said, dismayed.
"From their shouts, I think they were not sure what
they saw. But I will kill
them for this, sentry or no sentry."
Her voice was more distant now. Locklear raised his
voice slightly: "Puss, can
we help you?"
"I have been burned before," was the reply.
Kit, moving into the darkness quietly: "You are
certain there are only four?"
"Positive," was the faint reply, and then they heard
only the night wind.
Presently Kit said, "It would take both of us, and
when wounded she will
certainly fight to the death. But we might overpower
her now, if we can find the
bower."
"No. She did more than she promised. And now she
knows she can kill me by
smashing the transmitter. Let's get some sleep, Kit,"
he said. Then, when he had
nestled behind her, he added with a chuckle, "I begin
to see why the kzinti
decided to breed females as mere pets. Sheer
self-defense."
"I would break your tail for that, if you had one,"
she replied in mock
ferocity. Then he laid his hand on her flank, heard
her soft miaow, and then
they slept.
***
Locklear had patrolled nearly as far as he dared down
the ravine at midmorning,
armed with his wtsai, longbow, and an arrow-filled
quiver rubbing against the
zzrou when he heard the first scream. He knew that
Kit, with her short lance,
had gone in the opposite direction on her patrol, but
the repeated kzin screams
sent gooseflesh up his spine. Perhaps the tabbies had
surrounded Boots, or Puss.
He nocked an arrow, half climbing to the lip of the
ravine, and peered over low
brush. He stifled the exclamation in his throat.
They'd found Puss, all right-or she'd found them. She
stood on all-fours on a
level spot below, her tail erect, its tip curled
over, watching two hated
familiar figures in a tableau that must have been as
old as kzin history. Almost
naked for this primitive duel, ebony talons out and
their musky scent heavy on
the breeze, they bulked stupefyingly huge and
ferocious. The massive gunner,
Goon, and engineer Yellowbelly circled each other
with drawn stilettoes. What
boggled Locklear was that their modern weapons lay
ignored in neat groups. Were
they going through some ritual?
They were like hell, he decided. From time to time,
Puss would utter a single
word, accompanied by a tremor and a tail-twitch; and
each time, Yellowbelly and
Goon would stiffen, then scream at each other in
frustration.
The word she repeated was ch'rowl. No telling how
long they'd been there, but
Goon's right forearm dripped blood, and Yellowbelly's
thigh was a sodden red
mess. Swaying drunkenly, Puss edged nearer to the
weapons. As Yellowbelly
screamed and leaped, Goon screamed and parried;
bearing his smaller opponent to
the turf. What followed then was fast enough to be
virtually a blur in a roil of
Kzersatz dust as two huge tigerlike bodies thrashed
and rolled, knives flashing,
talons ripping, fangs sinking into flesh.
Locklear scrambled downward through the grass, his
progress unheard in the
earsplitting caterwauls nearby. He saw Puss reach a
beam rifle, grasp it, swing
it experimentally by the barrel. That's when he
forgot all caution and shouted,
"No, Puss! Put the stock to your shoulder and pull
the trigger!"
He might as well have told her to bazzfazz the
shimstock; and in any case, poor
valiant Puss collapsed while trying to figure the
rifle out. He saw the long
ugly trough in her side then, caked with dried blood.
A wonder she was
conscious, with such a wound. Then he saw something
more fearful still, the
quieter thrashing as Goon found the throat of
Yellowbelly, whose stiletto handle
protruded from Goon's upper arm.
Ducking below the brush, Locklear moved to one side,
nearer to Puss, whose
breathing was as labored as that of the males. Or
rather, of one male, as Goon
stood erect and uttered a victory roar that must have
carried to Newduvai.
Yellowbelly's torn throat pumped the last of his
blood onto alien dust.
"I claim my right," Goon screamed, and added a Word
that Locklear was beginning
to loathe. Only then did the huge gunner notice that
Puss was in no condition to
present him with what he had just killed to get. He
nudged her roughly, and did
not see Locklear approach with one arrow nocked and
another held between his
teeth.
But his ear umbrellas pivoted as a twig snapped under
Locklear's foot, and Goon
spun furiously, the big legs flexed, and for one
instant man and kzin stood
twenty paces apart, unmoving. Goon leaped for the
nearest weapon, the beam rifle
Puss had dropped, and saw Locklear release the short
arrow. It missed by a full
armspan and now, his bloodlust rekindled and with no
fear of such a marksman,
Goon dropped the rifle and pulled Yellowbelly's
stiletto from his own arm. He
turned toward Locklear, who was unaccountably running
toward him instead of
fleeing as a monkey should flee a leopard, and threw
his head back in a battle
scream.
Locklear's second arrow, fired from a distance of
five paces, pierced the roof
of Goon's mouth, its stainless steel barb severing
nerve bundles at the brain
stem. Goon fell like a jointed tree, knees buckling
first, arms hanging, and the
ground's impact drove the arrow tip out the back of
his head, slippery with
gore. Goon's head lay two paces from Locklear's feet.
He neither breathed nor
twitched.
Locklear hurried to the side of poor, courageous,
ill-starred Puss and saw her
gazing calmly at him. "One for you, one for me, Puss.
Only two more to go."
"I wish-I could live to celebrate that," she said,
more softly than he had ever
heard her speak.
"You're too tough to let a little burn," he began.
"They shot tiny things, too," she said, a finger
migrating to a bluish
perforation at the side of her rib cage. "Coughing
blood. Hard to breathe," she
managed.
He knew then that she was dying. A spray of slugs,
roughly aimed at night from a
perimeter-control smoothbore, had done to Puss what a
beam rifle could not. Her
lungs filling slowly with blood, she had still
managed to report her patrol and
then return to guard the birthing bower. He asked
through the lump in his
throat, "Is Boots all right?"
"They followed my spoor. When I-came out, twitching
my best prret routine-they
did not look into the bower."
"Smart, Puss."
She grasped his wrist, hard. "Swear to protect
it-with your life." Now she was
coughing blood, fighting to breathe.
"Done," he said. "Where is it, Puss?"
But her eyes were already glazing. Locklear stood up
slowly and strode to the
beam rifle, hefting it, thinking idly that these
weapons were too heavy for him
to carry in one trip. And then he saw Puss again, and
quit thinking, and lifted
the rifle over his head with both hands in a
manscream of fury, and of vengeance
unappeased.
***
The battle scene was in sight of the lake, fully in
the open within fifty paces
of the creek, and he found it impossible to lift
Puss. Locklear cut bundles of
grass and spread them to hide the bodies, trembling
in delayed reaction, and
carried three armloads of weapons to a hiding place
far up the ravine just under
its lip. He left the dead kzinti without stripping
them; perhaps a mistake, but
he had no time now to puzzle out tightband comm sets
or medkits. Later, if there
was a later . . .
He cursed his watery joints, knowing he could not
carry a kzin beam rifle with
its heavy accumulator up to the manor. He moved more
cautiously now, remembering
those kzin screams, wondering how far they'd carried
on the breeze, which was
toward the lake. He read the safety legends on Goon's
sidearm, found he could
handle the massive piece with both hands, and stuck
it and its twin from
Yellowbelly's arsenal into his belt, leaving his bow
and quiver with the other
weapons.
He had stumbled within sight of the manor, planning
how he could unmast the
airboat and adjust its buoyancy so that it could be
towed by a man afoot to
retrieve those weapons, when a crackling hum sent a
blast of hot air across his
cheeks. Face down, crawling for the lip of the
ravine, he heard a shout from
near the manor.
"Grraf-Commander, the monkey approaches!" The reply,
deep-voiced and muffled,
seemed to come from inside the manor. So they'd known
where the manor was. Heat
or motion sensors, perhaps, during a pass in the
lifeboat-not that it mattered
now. A classic pincers from down and up the ravine,
but one of those pincers now
lay under shields of grass. They could not know that
he was still tethered
invisibly to that zzrou transmitter. But where was
Kit?
Another hail from Brickshitter, whose tremors of
impatience with a beam rifle
had become Locklear's ally: "The others do not answer
my calls, but I shall
drive the monkey down to them."
Well, maybe he'd intended merely to wing his quarry,
or follow him.
You do that, Locklear thought to himself in cold rage
as he scurried back in the
ravine toward his weapons cache; you just do that,
Brickshitter. He had covered
two hundred meters when another crackle announced the
pencil-thin beam, brighter
than the sun, that struck a ridge of stone above him.
White-hot bees stung his face, back and arms; tiny
smoke trails followed
fragments of superheated stone into the ravine as
Locklear tumbled to the creek,
splashing out again, stumbling on slick stones. He
turned, intending to fire a
sidearm, but saw no target and realized that firing
from him would tell volumes
to that big sonofabitchkitty behind and above him.
Well, they wouldn't have
returned unless they wanted him alive, so
Brickshitter was just playing with
him, driving him as a man drives cattle with a prod.
Beam weapons were limited
in rate of fire and accumulator charge; maybe
Brickshitter would empty this one
with his trembling.
Then, horrifyingly near, above the ravine lip, the
familiar voice: "I offer you
honor, monkey."
Whatthehell: the navigator knew where his quarry was
anyhow. Mopping a runnel of
blood from his face, Locklear called upward as he
continued his scramble. "What,
a prisoner exchange?" He did not want to be more
explicit than that.
"We already have the beauteous kzinrret," was the
reply that chilled Locklear to
his marrows. "Is that who you would have sacrificed
for your worthless hide?"
That tears it; no hope now, Locklear thought. "Maybe
I'll give myself up if
you'll let her go," he called. Would I? Probably not.
Dear God, please don't
give me that choice because I know there would be no
honor in mine . . .
"We have you caged, monkey," in tones of scorn. "But
Grraf-Commander warned that
you may have some primitive hunting weapon, so we
accord you some little honor.
It occurs to me that you would retain more honor if
captured by an officer than
by a pair of rankings."
Locklear was now only a hundred meters from the
precious cache. He's too close;
he'll see the weapons cache when I get near it and
that'll be all she wrote.
I've got to make the bastard careless and use what
I've got. He thought
carefully how to translate a nickname into Kzin and
began to ease up the far
side of the ravine. "Not if the officer has no honor,
you trembling shitter of
bricks," he shouted, slipping the safety from a
sidearm.
Instantly a scream of raw rage and astonishment from
above at this unbelievably
mortal insult, followed by the head and shoulders of
an infuriated navigator.
Locklear aimed fast, squeezed the firing stud, and
saw a series of dirt clods
spit from the verge of the ravine. The damned thing
shot low!
But Brickshitter had popped from sight as though
propelled by levers, and now
Locklear was climbing, stuffing the sidearm into his
belt again to keep both
hands free for the ravine, and when he vaulted over
the lip into low brush, he
could hear Brickshitter babbling into his comm unit.
He wanted to hear the exchange more than he wanted to
move. He heard: " . . .
has two kzin handguns-of course I saw them, and heard
them; had I been slower he
would have an officer's ears on his belt now!-Nossir,
no reply from the others.
How else would he have hero's weapons? What do you
think?-I think so, too."
Locklear began to move out again, below brush-tops,
as the furious Brickshitter
was promising a mansack to his commander as a trophy.
And they won't get that
while I live, he vowed to himself. In fact, with his
promise, Brickshitter was
admitting they no longer wanted him alive. He did not
hear the next hum, but saw
brush spatter ahead of him, some of it bursting into
flame, and then he was
firing at the exposed Brickshitter who now stood with
brave stance, seven and a
half feet tall and weaving from side to side, firing
once a second, as fast as
the beam rifle's accumulator would permit.
Locklear stood and delivered, moving back and forth.
At his second burst, the
weapon's receiver locked open. He ducked below,
discarded the thing, and drew
its twin, estimating he had emptied the first one
with thirty rounds. When next
he lifted his head, he saw that Brickshitter had
outpaced him across the ravine
and was firing at the brush again. Even as the stuff
ahead of him was kindling,
Locklear noticed that the brush behind him flamed
higher than a man, now a
wildfire moving in the same direction as he, though
the steady breeze swept it
away from the ravine. His only path now was along the
ravine lip, or in it.
He guessed that this weapon would shoot low as well,
and opened up at a distance
of sixty paces. Good guess; Brickshitter turned
toward him and at the same
instant was slapped by an invisible fist that flung
the heavy rifle from his
grasp. Locklear dodged to the lip of the ravine to
spot the weapons, saw them
twenty paces away, and dropped the sidearm so that he
could hang onto brush as
he vaulted over, now in full view of Brickshitter.
Whose stuttering fire with his good arm reminded
Locklear, nearly too late, that
Brickshitter had other weapons beside that beam
rifle. Spurts of dirt flew into
Locklear's eyes as he flung himself back to safety.
He crawled back for the
sidearm, watching the navigator fumble for his rifle,
and opened up again just
as Brickshitter dropped from sight. More wasted ammo.
Behind him, the fire was raging downslope toward
their mutual dead. Across the
ravine, Brickshitter's enraged voice: "Small caliber
flesh wound in the right
shoulder but I have started brush fires to flush him.
I can see beam rifles,
close-combat weapons and other things almost below
him in the ravine.-Yessir, he
is almost out of ammunition and wants that
cache.-Yessir, a few more bolts. An
easy shot."
Locklear had once seen an expedition bundle burn with
a beam rifle in it. He
began to run hard, skirting still-smouldering brush
and grass, and had already
passed the inert bodies of their unprotesting dead
when the ground bucked
beneath him. He fell to one knee, seeing a cloud of
debris fan above the ravine,
echoes of the explosion shouldering each other down
the slopes, and he knew that
Brickshitter's left-armed aim had been as good as
necessary. Good enough, maybe,
to get himself killed in that cloud of turf and stone
and metal fragments, yes,
and good wooden arrows that had made a warrior of
Locklear. Yet any sensible
warrior knows how to retreat.
The ravine widened now, the creek dropping in a
series of lower falls, and
Locklear knew that further headlong flight would send
him far into the open, so
far that the zzrou would kill him if Brickshitter
didn't. And Brickshitter could
track his spoor-but not in water. Locklear raced to
the creek, heedless of the
misstep that could smash a knee or ankle, and began
to negotiate the little
falls.
The last one faced the lake. He turned, recognizing
that he had cached his
pathetic store of provisions behind that waterfall
soon after his arrival. It
was flanked by thick fronds and ferns, and Locklear
ducked into the hideyhole
behind that sheet of water streaming wet, gasping for
breath.
A soft inquiry from somewhere behind him. He whirled
in sudden recognition. It's
REALLY a small world, he thought idiotically.
"Boots?" No answer. Well, of
course not, to his voice, but he could see the dim
outline of a deep horizontal
tunnel, turning left inside its entrance, with dry
grasses lining the floor.
"Boots, don't be afraid of me. Did you know the kzin
males have returned?"
Guarded, grudging it: "Yes. They have wounded my
mate."
"Worse, Boots. But she killed one," -it was her doing
as surely as if her fangs
had torn out Yellowbelly's throat-"and I killed
another. She told me to-to
retrieve the things she took from me." It seemed his
heart must burst with this
cowardly lie. He was cold, exhausted, and on the run,
and with the transmitter
he could escape to win another day, and, and- And he
wanted to slash his wrists
with his wtsai.
"I will bring them. Do not come nearer," said the
soft voice, made deeper by
echoes. He squatted under the overhang, the plash of
water now dwindling, and he
realized that the blast up the ravine had made a
momentary check-dam. He
distinctly heard the mewing of tiny kzin twins as
Boots removed the security of
her warm, soft fur. A moment later, he saw her head
and arms. Both hands, even
the one bearing a screwdriver and the transmitter,
had their claws fully
extended and her ears lay so flat on her skull that
they might have been caps of
skin. Still, she shoved the articles forward.
Pocketing the transmitter with a thrill of undeserved
success, he bade her keep
the other items. He showed her the sidearm. "Boots,
one of these killed Puss. Do
you see that it could kill you just as easily?"
The growl in her throat was an illustrated manual of
counterthreat.
"But I began as your protector. I would never harm
you or your kittens. Do you
see that now?"
"My head sees it. My heart says to fight you. Go."
He nodded, turned away, and eased himself into the
deep pool that was now fed by
a mere trickle of water. Ahead was the lake, smoke
floating toward it, and he
knew that he could run safely in the shallows hidden
by smoke without leaving
prints. And fight another day. And, he realized,
staring back at the
once-talkative little falls, leave Boots with her
kittens where the cautious
Brickshitter would almost certainly find them because
now the mouth of her
birthing bower was clearly visible.
No, I'm damned if you will!
"So check into it, Brickshitter," he muttered softly,
backing deep into the cool
cover of yellow ferns. "I've still got a few rounds
here, if you're still
alive."
He was alive, all right. Locklear knew it in his guts
when a stone trickled its
way down near the pool. He knew it for certain when
he felt soft footfalls, the
almost silent track of a big hunting cat, vibrate the
damp grassy embankment
against his back. He eased forward in water that was
no deeper than his armpits,
still hidden, but when the towering kzin warrior
sprang to the verge of the
water he made no sound at all. He carried only his
sidearm and knife, and
Locklear fired at a distance of only ten paces,
actually a trifling space.
But a tremendous trifle, for Brickshitter was
well-trained and did not pause
after his leap before hopping aside in a squat. He
was looking straight at
Locklear and the horizontal spray of slugs ceased
before it reached him.
Brickshitter's arm was a blur. Foliage shredded where
Locklear had hidden as the
little man dropped below the surface, feeling two hot
slugs trickle down his
back after their velocity was spent underwater.
Locklear could not see clearly, but propelled himself
forward as he broke the
surface in a desperate attempt to reach the other
side. He knew his sidearm was
empty. He did not know that his opponent's was, until
the kzin navigator threw
the weapon at him, screamed, and leaped.
Locklear pulled himself to the bank with fronds as
the big kzin strode toward
him in water up to his belly. Too late to run, and
Brickshitter had a look of
cool confidence about him. I like him better when
he's not so cool. "Come on,
you kshat, you vatach's ass," he chanted, backing
toward the only place where he
might have safety at his back-the stone shelf before
Boots's bower, where great
height was a disadvantage. "Come on, you fur-licking,
brickshitting hairball, do
it!" Leaping and screaming, screaming and leaping;
"you stupid no-name," he
finished, wondering if the last was an insult.
Evidently it was. With a howling scream of savagery,
the big kzin tried to leap
clear of the water, falling headlong as Locklear
reached the stone shelf. Dagger
now in hand, Brickshitter floundered to the bank
spitting, emitting a string of
words that doubled Locklear's command of kzinti
curses. Then, almost as if
reading Locklear's mind, the navigator paused a few
paces away and held up his
knife. And his voice, though quivering, was
exceedingly mild. "Do you know what
I am going to do with this, monkey?"
To break through this facade, Locklear made it
offhanded. "Cut your ch'rowling
throat by accident, most likely," he said.
The effect was startling. Stiffening, then baring his
fangs in a howl of
frustration, the warrior sprang for the shelf, seeing
in midleap that Locklear
was waiting for exactly that with his wtsai thrust
forward, its tip made
needle-sharp by the same female who had once dulled
it. But a kzin warrior's
training went deep. Pivoting as he landed, rolling to
one side, the navigator
avoided Locklear's thrust, his long tail lashing to
catch the little man's legs.
Locklear had seen that one before. His blade cut
deeply into the kzin's tail and
Brickshitter vented a yelp, whirling to spring. He
feinted as if to hurl the
knife and Locklear threw both arms before his face,
seeing too late the
beginning of the kzin's squatting leap in close
quarters, like a swordsman's
balestra. Locklear slammed his back painfully against
the side of the cave, his
own blade slashing blindly, and felt a horrendous
fiery trail of pain down the
length of his knife arm before the graceful kzin
moved out of range. He switched
hands with the wtsai.
"I am going to carve off your maleness while you
watch, monkey," said
Brickshitter, seeing the blood begin to course from
the open gash on Locklear's
arm.
"One word before you do," Locklear said, and pulled
out all the stops. "Ch'rowl
your grandmother. Ch'rowl your patriarch, and ch'rowl
yourself."
With each repetition, Brickshitter seemed to coil
into himself a bit farther,
his eyes not slitted but saucer-round, and with his
last phrase Locklear saw
something from the edge of his vision that the big
kzin saw clearly. Ropelike,
temptingly bushy, it was the flick of Boots's tail at
the mouth of her bower.
Like most feline hunters from the creche onward, the
kzin warrior reacted to
this stimulus with rapt fascination, at least for an
instant, already goaded to
insane heights of frustration by the sexual
triggerword. His eyes rolled upward
for a flicker of time, and in that flicker Locklear
acted. His headlong rush
carried him in a full body slam against the
navigator's injured shoulder, the
wtsai going in just below the rib cage, torn from
Locklear's grasp as his
opponent flipped backward in agony to the water.
Locklear cartwheeled into the
pool, weaponless, choosing to swim because it was the
fastest way out of reach.
He flailed up the embankment searching wildly for a
loose stone, then tossed a
glance over his shoulder. The navigator lay on his
side, half out of the water,
blood pumping from his belly, and in his good arm he
held Locklear's wtsai by
its handle. As if his arm were the only part of him
still alive, he flipped the
knife, caught it by the tip, forced himself erect.
Locklear did the first thing he could remember from
dealing with vicious
animals: reached down, grasped a handful of thin air,
and mimicked hurling a
stone. It did not deter the navigator's convulsive
move in the slightest, the
wtsai a silvery whirr before it thunked into a tree
one pace from Locklear's
breast. The kzin's motion carried him forward into
the water, face down. He did
not entirely submerge, but slid forward inert, arms
at his sides. Locklear
wrestled his blade from the tree and waited, his
chest heaving. The navigator
did not move again.
Locklear held the knife aloft, eyes shut, for long
moments, tears of exultation
and vengeance coursing down his cheeks, mixing with
dirty water from his hair
and clean blood from his cheek. His eyes snapped open
at the voice.
"May I name my son after you, Rockear?" Boots, just
inside the overhang, held
two tiny spotted kittens protectively where they
could suckle. It was, he felt,
meant to be an honor merely for him to see them.
"I would be honored, Boots. But the modern kzin
custom is to make sons earn
their names, I think."
"What do I care what they do? We are starting over
here."
Locklear stuffed the blade into his belt, wiping wet
stuff from his face again.
"Not unless I can put away that scarfaced commander.
He's got Kit at the
manor-unless she has him. I'm going to try and bias
the results," he said
grimly, and scanned the heights above the ravine.
To his back, Boots said, "It is not traditional,
but-if you come for us, we
would return to the manor's protection."
He turned, glancing up the ravine. "An honor. But
right now, you'd better come
out and wait for the waterfall to resume. When it
does, it might flood your
bower for a few minutes." He waved, and she waved
back. When next he glanced
downslope, from the upper lip of the ravine, he could
see the brushfire
dwindling at the jungle's edge, and water just
beginning to carve its way
through a jumble of debris in the throat of the
ravine, and a small lithe
orange-yellow figure holding two tiny spotted dots,
patiently waiting in the
sunlight for everything he said to come true.
"Lady," he said softly to the waiting Boots, "I sure
hope you picked a winner."
***
He could have disappeared into the wilds of Kzersatz
for months but Scarface,
with vast advantages, might call for more searchers.
Besides, running would be
reactive, the act of mindless prey. Locklear opted to
be proactive-a hunter's
mindset. Recalling the violence of that exploding
rifle, he almost ignored the
area because nothing useful could remain in the
crater. But curiosity made him
pause, squinting down from the heights, and excellent
vision gave him an edge
when he saw the dull gleam of Brickshitter's beam
rifle across the ravine. It
was probably fully discharged, else the navigator
would not have abandoned it.
But Scarface wouldn't know that.
Locklear doubled back and retrieved the heavy weapon,
chuckling at the sharp
stones that lay atop the turf. Brickshitter must have
expended a few curses as
those stones rained down. The faint orange light near
the scope was next to a
legend in Kzinti that translated as "insufficient
charge." He thought about that
a moment, then smeared his own blood over the light
until its gleam was hidden.
Shouldering the rifle, he set off again, circling
high above the ravine so that
he could come in from its upper end. Somehow the
weapon seemed lighter now, or
perhaps it was just his second wind. Locklear did not
pause to reflect that his
decision for immediate action brought optimism, and
that optimism is another
word for accumulated energy.
The sun was at his back when he stretched prone
behind low cover and paused for
breath. The zoom scope of the rifle showed that
someone had ripped the thatches
from the manor's window bulges, no doubt to give
Scarface a better view. Works
both ways, hotshot, he mused; but though he could see
through the windows, he
saw nothing move. Presently he began to crawl forward
and down, holding the
heavy rifle in the crooks of his arms, abrading his
elbows as he went from brush
to outcrop to declivity. His shadow stretched before
him. Good; the sun would be
in a watcher's eyes and he was dry-mouthed with
awareness that Scarface must
carry his own arsenal.
The vines they had planted already hid the shaft of
their escape tunnel but
Locklear paused for long moments at its mouth,
listening, waiting until his
breath was quiet and regular. What if Scarface were
waiting in the tunnel? He
ducked into the rifle sling, put his wtsai in his
teeth, and eased down
feet-first using remembered hand and footholds, his
heart hammering his ribs.
Then he scuffed earth with his knee and knew that his
entry would no longer be a
surprise if Scarface was waiting. He dropped the
final two meters to soft dirt,
squatting, hopping aside as he'd seen Brickshitter do.
Nothing but darkness. He waited for his panting to
subside and then moved
forward with great caution. It took him five minutes
to stalk twenty meters of
curving tunnel, feeling his way until he saw faint
light filtering from above.
By then, he could hear the fitz-rowr of kzin voices.
He eased himself up to the
opening and peered through long slits of shamboo
matting that Boots had woven to
cover the rough walls.
" . . . Am learning, milady, that even the most
potent Word loses its strength
when used too often," a male voice was saying.
Scarface, in tones Locklear had
never expected to hear. "As soon as this operation is
complete, rest assured I
shall be the most gallant of suitors."
Locklear's view showed only their legs as modern
warrior and ancient courtesan
faced each other, seated on benches at the rough-hewn
dining table. Kit, with a
sulk in her voice, said, "I begin to wonder if your
truthfulness extends to my
attractions, milord."
Scarface, fervently: "The truth is that you are a
warrior's wildest fantasies in
fur. I cannot say how often I have wished for a mate
I could actually talk to!
Yet I am first Grraf-Commander, and second a
kzintosh. Excuse me," he added,
stood up, and strode to the main doorway, now in full
view of Locklear. His belt
held ceremonial wtsai, a sidearm and God knew what
else in those pockets. His
beam rifle lay propped beside the doorway. Taking a
brick-sized device from his
broad belt, he muttered, "I wonder if this rude hut
is interfering with our
signals."
A click and then, in gruff tones of frustrated
command, he said, "Hunt leader to
all units: report! If you cannot report, use a signal
bomb from your beltpacs,
dammit! If you cannot do that, return to the hut at
triple time or I will hang
your hides from a pennant pole."
Locklear grinned as Scarface moved back to the table
with an almost human sigh.
Too bad I didn't know about those signal bombs. Warm
this place up a little.
Maybe I should go back for those beltpacs. But he
abandoned the notion as
Scarface resumed his courtship.
"I have hinted, and you have evaded, milady. I must
ask you now, bluntly: will
you return with me when this operation is over?"
"I shall do as the commander wishes," she said
demurely, and Locklear grinned
again. She hadn't said "Grraf-Commander"; and even if
Locklear didn't survive,
she might very well wind up in command. Oh sure,
she'd do whatever the commander
liked.
"Another point on which you have been evasive,"
Scarface went on; "your
assessment of the monkey, and what relationship he
had to either of you."
Locklear did not miss this nuance; Scarface knew of
two kzinrret, presumably an
initial report from one of the pair who'd found Puss.
He did not know of Boots,
then.
"The manbeast ruled us with strange magic forces,
milord. He made us fearful at
times. At any time he might be anywhere. Even now."
Enough of that crap,
Locklear thought at her, even though he felt she was
only trying to put the wind
up Scarface's backside. Fat chance! Lull the bastard,
put him to sleep.
Scarface went to the heart of his question. "Did he
act honorably toward you
both?"
After a long pause: "I suppose he did, as a manbeast
saw honor. He did not
ch'rowl me, if that is-"
"Milady! You will rob the Word of its meaning, or
drive me mad."
"I have an idea. Let me dance for you while you lie
at your ease. I will avoid
the term and drive you only a little crazy."
"For the eighth-squared time, I do not need to lie
down. I need to complete this
hunt; duty first, pleasure after. I-what?"
Locklear's nose had brushed the matting. The noise
was faint, but Scarface was
on his feet and at the doorway, rifle in hand, in two
seconds. Locklear's nose
itched, and he pinched his nostrils painfully. It
seemed that the damned tabby
was never completely off-guard, made edgy as a wtsai
by his failure to contact
his crew. Locklear felt a sneeze coming, sank down on
his heels, rubbed
furiously at his nose. When he stood up again,
Scarface stood a pace outside,
demanding a response with his comm set while Kit
stood at the doorway. Locklear
scratched carefully at the mat, willing Kit alone to
hear it. No such luck.
Scarface began to pace back and forth outside, and
Locklear scratched louder.
Kit's ear-umbrellas flicked, lifted. Another scratch.
She turned, and saw him
move the matting. Her mouth opened slightly. She's
going to warn him, Locklear
thought wildly.
"Perhaps we could stroll down the ravine, milord,"
she said easily, taking a few
steps outside.
Locklear saw the big kzin commander pass the doorway
once, twice, muttering
furiously about indecision. He caught the words, " .
. . Return to the lifeboat
with you now if I have not heard from them very
soon," and knew that he could
never regain an advantage if that happened. He paced
his advance past the
matting to coincide with Scarface's movements, easing
the beam rifle into plain
sight on the floor, now with his head and shoulders
out above the dusty floor,
now his waist, now his-his-his sneeze came without
warning.
Scarface leaped for the entrance, snatching his
sidearm as he came into view,
and Locklear gave himself up then even though he was
aiming the heavy beam rifle
from a prone position, an empty threat. But a bushy
tail flashed between the
warrior's ankles, and his next bound sent him
skidding forward on his face, the
sidearm still in his hand but pointed away from
Locklear.
And the muzzle of Locklear's beam rifle poked so near
the commander's nose that
he could only focus on it cross-eyed. Locklear said
it almost pleasantly: "Could
even a monkey miss such a target?"
"Perhaps," Scarface said, and swallowed hard. "But I
think that rifle is
exhausted."
"The one your nervous brickshitting navigator used?
It probably was," said
Locklear, brazening it out, adding the necessary lie
with, "I broiled him with
this one, which doesn't have that cute little light
glowing, does it? Now then:
skate that little shooter of yours across the floor.
Your crew is all bugbait,
Scarface, and the only thing between you and kitty
heaven is my good humor."
Much louder than need be, unless he was counting on
Kit's help: "Have you no end
of insults? Have you no sense of honor? Let us settle
this as equals." Kit stood
at the doorway now.
"The sidearm, Grraf-Commander. Or meet your
ancestors. Your crew tried to kill
me-and monkey see, monkey do."
The sidearm clattered across the rough floor mat.
Locklear chose to avoid
further insult; the last thing he needed was a loss
of self-control from the big
kzin. "Hands behind your back. Kit, get the strongest
cord we have and bind him;
the feet, then the hands. And stay to one side. If I
have to pull this trigger,
you don't want to get splattered."
Minutes later, holding the sidearm and sitting at the
table, Locklear studied
the prisoner who sat, legs before him, back against
the doorway, and explained
the facts of Kzersatz life while Kit cleaned his
wounds. She murmured that his
cheek scar would someday be t'rralap as he explained
the options. "So you see,
you have nothing to lose by giving your honorable
parole, because I trust your
honor. You have everything to lose by refusing,
because you'll wind up as
barbecue."
"Men do not eat captives," Scarface said. "You speak
of honor and yet you lie."
"Oh, I wouldn't eat you. But they would. There are
two kzinrret here who, if
you'll recall, hate everything you stand for."
Scarface looked glumly at Kit. "Can this be true?"
She replied, "Can it be true that modern kzinrret
have been bred into cattle?"
"Both can be true," he conceded. "But monk-men are
devious, false, conniving
little brutes. How can a kzinrret of your
intelligence approve of them?"
"Rockear has defeated your entire force-with a little
help," she said. "I am
content to pledge my honor to a male of his
resourcefulness, especially when he
does not abuse his leadership. I only wish he were of
our race," she added
wistfully.
Scarface: "My parole would depend on your absolute
truthfulness, Rockear."
A pause from Locklear, and a nod. "You've got it as
of now, but no backing out
if you get some surprises later."
"One question, then, before I give my word: are all
my crew truly casualties?"
"Deader than this beam rifle," Locklear said,
grinning, holding its muzzle
upward, squeezing its trigger.
Later, after pledging his parole, Scarface observed
reasonably that there was a
world of difference between an insufficient charge
and no charge. The roof
thatching burned slowly at first; slowly enough that
they managed to remove
everything worth keeping. But at last the whole place
burned merrily enough. To
Locklear's surprise, it was Scarface who mentioned
safe removal of the zzrou,
and pulled it loose easily after a few deft
manipulations of the transmitter.
Kit seemed amused as they ate al fresco, a hundred
meters from the embers of
their manor. "It is a tradition in the ancient
culture that a major change of
household leadership requires burning of the old
manor," she explained with a
smile of her ears.
Locklear, still uneasy with the big kzin warrior so
near and now without his
bonds, surreptitiously felt the sidearm in his belt
and asked, "Am I not still
the leader?"
"Yes," she said. "But what kind of leader would deny
happiness to his
followers?" Her lowered glance toward Scarface could
hardly be misunderstood.
The ear umbrellas of the big male turned a deeper
hue. "I do not wish to
dishonor another warrior, Locklear, but-if I am to
remain your captive here as
you say, um, such females may be impossibly
overstimulating."
"Not to me," Locklear said. "No offense, Kit; I'm
half in love with you myself.
In fact, I think the best thing for my own sanity
would be to seek, uh, females
of my own kind."
"You intended to take us back to the manworlds, I
take it," said Scarface with
some smugness.
"After a bit more research here, yes. The hell with
wars anyhow. There's a lot
about this planet you don't know about yet.
Fascinating!"
"You will never get back in a lifeboat," said
Scarface, "and the cruiser is now
only a memory."
"You didn't!"
"I assuredly did, Locklear. My first act when you
released my bonds was to send
the self-destruct signal."
Locklear put his head between his hands. "Why didn't
we hear the lifeboat go
up?"
"Because I did not think to set it for destruct. It
is not exactly a major
asset."
"For me it damned well is," Locklear growled, then
went on. "Look here: I won't
release Kit from any pair-bonding to me unless you
promise not to sabotage me in
any way. And I further promise not to try turning you
over to some military
bunch, because I'm the, uh, mayor of this frigging
planet and I can declare
peace on it if I want to. Honor bound, honest injun,
whatever the hell that
means, and all the rigamarole that goes with it.
Goddammit, I could have blown
your head off."
"But you did not know that."
"With the sidearm, then! Don't ch'r-don't fiddle me
around. Put your honor on
the line, mister, and put your big paw against mine
if you mean it."
After a long look at Kit, the big kzin commander
reached out a hand, palm
vertical, and Locklear met it with his own. "You are
not the man we left here,"
said the vanquished kzin, eyeing Locklear without
malice. "Brown and tough as
dried meat-and older, I would say."
"Getting hunted by armed kzinti tends to age a
feller," Locklear chuckled. "I'm
glad we found peace with honor."
"Was any commander," the commander asked no one in
particular, "ever faced with
so many conflicts of honor?"
"You'll resolve them," Locklear predicted. "Think
about it: I'm about to make
you the head captive of a brand new region that has
two newborn babes in it, two
intelligent kzinrret at least, and over an
eight-squared other kzinti who have
been in stasis for longer than you can believe. Wake
'em, or don't, it's up to
you, just don't interfere with me because I expect to
be here part of the time,
and somewhere else at other times. Kit, show him how
to use the airboat. If you
two can't figure out how to use the stuff in this
Outsider zoo, I miss my-"
"Outsiders?" Scarface did not seem to like the sound
of that.
"That's just my guess," Locklear shrugged. "Maybe
they have hidden sensors that
tell 'em what happens on the planet Zoo. Maybe they
don't care. What I care
about, is exploring the other compounds on Zoo, one
especially. I may not find
any of my kind on Newduvai, and if I do they might
have foreheads a half-inch
high, but it bears looking into. For that I need the
lifeboat. Any reason why it
wouldn't take me to another compound on Zoo?"
"No reason." After a moment of rumination, Scarface
put on his best negotiation
face again. "If I teach you to be an expert pilot,
would you let me disable the
hyperwave comm set?"
Locklear thought hard for a similar time. "Yes, if
you swear to leave its local
functions intact. Look, fella, we may want to talk to
one another with it."
"Agreed, then," said the kzin commander. That night,
Locklear slept poorly. He
lay awake for a time, wondering if Newduvai had its
own specimen cave, and
whether he could find it if one existed. The fact was
that Kzersatz simply
lacked the kind of company he had in mind. Not even
the right kind of cathouse,
he groused silently. He was not enormously heartened
by the prospect of wooing a
Neanderthal nymphet, either. Well, that was what
field research was for. Please,
God, at least a few Cro-Magnons! Patience, Locklear,
and earplugs, because he
could not find sleep for long.
It was not merely that he was alone, for the embers
near his pallet kept him as
toasty as kzinrret fur. No, it was the infernal
yowling of those cats somewhere
below in the ravine.


Briar Patch

If Locklear had been thinking straight, he never
would have stayed in the god
business. But when a man has been thrust into the
Fourth Man-Kzin War, won peace
with honor from the tigerlike kzinti on a synthetic
zoo planet, and released
long-stored specimens so that his vast prison
compound resembles the kzin
homeworld, it's hard for that man to keep his sense
of mortality.
It's hard, that is, until someone decides to kill
him. His first mistake was
lust, impure and simple. A week after he paroled
Scarface, the one surviving
kzin warrior, Locklear admitted his problem during
supper. "All that
caterwauling in the ravine," he said, refilling his
bowl from the hearth
stewpot, "is driving me nuts. Good thing you haven't
let the rest of those
kzinti out of stasis; the racket would be
unbelievable!"
Scarface wiped his muzzle with a brawny forearm and
handed his own bowl to Kit,
his new mate. The darkness of the huge Kzersatz
region was tempered only by
coals, but Locklear saw those coals flicker in
Scarface's cat eyes. "A condition
of my surrender was that you release Kit to me," the
big kzin growled. "And
besides: do humans mate so quietly?"
Because they were speaking Kzin, the word Scarface
had used was actually
"ch'rowl"-itself a sexual goad. Kit, who was
refilling the bowl, let slip a tiny
mew of surprise and pleasure. "Please, milord," she
said, offering the bowl to
Scarface. "Poor Rockear is already overstimulated. Is
it not so?" Her huge eyes
flicked to Locklear, whom she had grown to know quite
well after Locklear waked
her from age-long sleep.
"Dead right," Locklear agreed with a morose glance.
"Not by the word; by the
goddamn deed!"
"She is mine," Scarface grinned; a kzin grin, the
kind with big fangs and no
amusement.
"Calm down. I may have been an animal psychologist,
but I only have letches for
human females," Locklear gloomed toward his kzin
companions. "And every night
when I hear you two flattening the grass out there,"
he nodded past the
half-built walls of the hut, "I get, uh, . . ." He
did not know how to translate
"horny" into Kzin.
"You get the urge to travel," Scarface finished,
making it not quite a
suggestion. The massive kzin stared into darkness as
if peering across the force
walls surrounding Kzersatz. Those towering invisible
walls separated the air,
and lifeforms, of Kzersatz from other synthetic
compounds of this incredible
planet, Zoo. "I can see the treetops in the next
compound as easily as you,
Locklear. But I see no monkeys in them."
Before his defeat, Scarface had been
"Graf-Commander." The same strict kzin
honor that bound him to his surrender, forbade him to
curse his captor as a
monkey. But he could still sharpen the barb of his
wit. Kit, with real affection
for Locklear, did not approve. "Be nice," she hissed
to her mate.
"Forget it," Locklear told her, stabbing with his
Kzin wtsai blade for a hunk of
meat in his stew. "Kit, he's stuck with his military
code, and it won't let him
insist that his captor get the hell out of here. But
he's right. I still don't
know if that next compound I call Newduvai is really
Earth-like." He smiled at
Scarface, remembering not to show his teeth, and
added, "Or whether it has my
kind of monkey."
"And we must not try to find out until your war
wounds have completely healed,"
Kit replied.
The eyes of man and kzin warrior met. "Whoa,"
Locklear said quickly, sparing
Scarface the trouble. "We won't be scouting over
there; I will, but you won't.
I'm an ethologist," he went on, holding up a hand to
bar Kit's interruption. "If
Newduvai is as completely stocked as Kzersatz,
somebody-maybe the Outsiders,
maybe not, but damn certain a long time ago-somebody
intended all these
compounds to be kept separate. Now, I won't say I
haven't played god here a
little . . ."
"And intend to play it over there a lot," said Kit,
who had never yet
surrendered to anyone.
"Hear me out, I'm not going to start mixing species
from Kzersatz and Newduvai
any more than I already have, and that's final." He
pried experimentally at the
scab running down his knife arm. "But I'm pretty much
healed, thanks to your
medkit, Scarface. And I meant it when I said you'd
have free run of this place.
It's intended for kzinti, not humans. High time I
took your lifeboat over those
force walls to Newduvai."
"Boots will miss you," said Kit.
Locklear smiled, recalling the other kzin female he'd
released from stasis in a
very pregnant condition. According to Kit, a kzin
mother would not emerge from
her birthing creche until the eyes of her twins had
opened-another week, at
least. "Give her my love," he said, and swilled the
last of his stew.
"A pity you will not do that yourself," Kit sighed.
"Milady." Scarface became, for the moment, every inch
a Graf-Commander. "Would
you ask me to ch'rowl a human female?" He waited for
Kit to control her mixed
expression. "Then please be silent on the subject.
Locklear is a warrior who
knows what he fights for."
Locklear yawned. "There's an old song that says,
'Ain't gonna study war no
more,' and a slogan that goes, 'Make love, not war.' "
Kit stood up with a fetching twitch of her tail. "I
believe our leader has
spoken, milord," she purred.
Locklear watched them swaying together into the
night, and his parting call was
plaintive. "Just try and keep it down, okay? A fellow
needs his sleep."
***
The kzin lifeboat was over ten meters long,
well-armed and furnished with
emergency rations. In accord with their handshake
armistice, Scarface had given
flight instructions to his human pupil after
disabling the hyperwave portion of
its comm set. He had given no instructions on
armament because Locklear, a
peaceable man, saw no further use for anything larger
than a sidearm. Neither of
them could do much to make the lifeboat seating
comfortable for Locklear, who
was small even by human standards in an acceleration
couch meant for a
two-hundred-kilo kzin.
Locklear paused in the air lock in midmorning and
raised one arm in a universal
peace sign. Scarface returned it. "I'll call you now
and then, if those force
walls don't stop the signal," Locklear called. "If
you let your other kzinti out
of stasis, call and tell me how it works out."
"Keep your tail dry, Rockear," Kit called, perhaps
forgetting he lacked that
appendage-a compliment, of sorts.
"Will do," he called back as the air lock swung shut.
Moments later, he brought
the little craft to life and, cursing the cradle-rock
motion that branded him a
novice, urged the lifeboat into the yellow sky of
Kzersatz.
Locklear made one pass, a "goodbye sweep," high above
the region with its yellow
and orange vegetation, taking care to stay well
inside the frostline that
defined those invisible force walls. He spotted the
cave from the
still-flattened grass where Kit had herded the
awakened animals from the crypt
and their sleep of forty thousand years, then
steepened his climb and used aero
boost to begin his trajectory. No telling whether the
force walls stopped
suddenly, but he did not want to find out by plowing
into the damned things. It
was enough to know they stopped below orbital height,
and that he could toss the
lifeboat from Kzersatz to Newduvai in a low-energy
ballistic arc.
And he knew enough to conserve energy in the craft's
main accumulators because
one day, when the damned stupid Man-Kzin War was
over, he'd need that energy to
jump from Zoo to some part of known space. Unless, he
amended silently, somebody
found Zoo first. The war might already be over, and
certainly the warlike kzinti
must have the coordinates of Zoo . . .
Then he was at the top of his trajectory, seeing the
planetary curvature of Zoo,
noting the tiny satellite sunlets that bathed
hundred-mile-diameter regions in
light, realizing that a warship could condemn any one
of those circular regions
to death with one well-placed shot against its
synthetic, automated little sun.
He was already past the circular force walls now, and
felt an enormous
temptation to slow the ship by main accumulator
energy. A good pilot could lower
that lifeboat down between the walls of those force
cylinders, in the hard
vacuum between compounds. Outsiders might be lurking
there, idly studying the
specimens through invisible walls.
But Locklear was no expert with a kzin lifeboat, not
yet, and he had to use his
wristcomp to translate the warning on the console
screen. He set the wing
extensions just in time to avoid heavy buffeting,
thankful that he had not
needed orbital speed to manage his brief trajectory.
He bobbled a maneuver once,
twice, then felt the drag of Newduvai's atmosphere on
the lifeboat and gave the
lifting surfaces full extension. He put the craft
into a shallow bank to
starboard, keeping the vast circular frostline far to
portside, and punched in
an autopilot instruction. Only then did he dare to
turn his gaze down on
Newduvai.
Like Kzersatz it boasted a big lake, but this one
glinted in a sun
heartbreakingly like Earth's. A rugged jumble of
cliffs soared into cloud at one
side of the region, and green hills mounded above
plains of mottled hues: tan,
brown, green, Oh, God, all that green! He'd
forgotten, in the saffron of
Kzersatz, how much he missed the emerald of grass,
the blue of sky, the darker
dusty green of Earth forests. For it was, in every
respect, perfectly Earthlike.
He wiped his misting eyes, grinned at himself for
such foolishness, and eased
the lifeboat down to a lazy circular course that kept
him two thousand meters
above the terrain. If the builders of Zoo were
consistent, one of those shallow
creekbeds would begin not in a marshy meadow but in a
horizontal shaft. And
there he would find-he dared not think it through any
further.
After his first complete circuit of Newduvai, he knew
it had no herds of
animals. No birds dotted the lakeshore; no bugs
whacked his viewport. A dozen
streams meandered and leapt down from the frostline
where clouds dumped their
moisture against cold encircling force walls. One
stream ended in a second small
lake with no obvious outlet, but none of the creeks
or dry washes began with a
cave.
Mindful of his clumsiness in this alien craft,
Locklear set it down in soft sand
where a dry wash delta met the kidney-shaped lake.
After further consulting
between his wristcomp and the ship's computer, he
punched in his most important
queries and listened to the ship cool while its
sensors analyzed Newduvai.
Gravity: Earth normal. Atmosphere, solar flux, and
temperature: all Earth
normal. "And not a critter in sight," he told the
cabin walls. In a burst of
insight, he asked the computer to list anything that
might be a health hazard to
a kzin. If man and kzin could make steaks of each
other, they probably should
fear the same pathogens. The computer took its time,
but its most fearsome
finding was of tetanus in the dust.
He waited no longer, thrusting at the air lock in his
hurry, filling his lungs
with a rich soup of odors, and found his eyes
brimming again as he stepped onto
a little piece of Earth. Smells, he reflected, really
got you back to basics.
Scents of cedar, of dust, of grasses and yes, of
wildflowers. Just like
home-yet, in some skinprickling way, not quite.
Locklear sat down on the sand then, with an earthlike
sunlet baking his back
from a turquoise sky, and he wept. Outsiders or not,
any bunch that could
engineer a piece of home on the rim of known space
couldn't be all bad.
He was tasting the lake water's very faint
brackishness when, in a process that
took less than a minute, the sunlight dimmed and was
gone. "But it's only
noontime," he protested, and then laughed at himself
and made a notation on his
wristcomp, using its faint light to guide him back to
the air lock.
As with Kzersatz, he saw no stars; and then he
realized that the position of
Newduvai's sun had been halfway to the horizon
when-almost as it happened on
Kzersatz-the daily ration of sunlight was quenched.
Why should Newduvai's sun
keep the same time as that of Kzersatz? It didn't;
nor did it wink off as
suddenly as that of Kzersatz.
He activated the still-functioning local mode of the
lifeboat's comm set,
intending to pass his findings on to Scarface. No
response. Scarface's handset
was an allband unit; perhaps some wavelength could
bounce off of debris from the
kzin cruiser scuttled in orbit-but Locklear knew that
was a slender hope, and
soon it seemed no hope at all. He spent the longest
few hours of his life then,
turning floodlights on the lake in the forlorn hope
of seeing a fish leap, and
with the vague fear that a tyrannosaur might pay him
a social call. But no
matter where he turned the lights he saw no gleam of
eyes, and the sand was
innocent of any tracks. Sleep would not come until he
began to address the
problem of the stasis crypt in logical ways.
***
Locklear came up from his seat with a bound, facing a
sun that brightened as he
watched. His wristcomp said not quite twelve hours
had passed since the sunlet
dimmed. His belly said it was late. His memory said
yes, by God, there was one
likely plan for locating that horizontal shaft: fly
very near the frostline and
scan every dark cranny that was two hundred meters or
so inside the force walls.
On Kzersatz, the stasis crypt had ended exactly
beneath the frostline, perhaps a
portal for those who'd built Zoo. And the front
entrance had been two hundred
meters inside the force walls.
He lifted the lifeboat slowly, ignoring hunger pangs,
beginning to plot a rough
map of Newduvai on the computer screen because he did
not know how to make the
computer do it for him. Soon, he passed a dry plateau
with date palms growing in
its declivities and followed the ship's shadow to
more fertile soil. Near
frostline, he set the aeroturbine reactor just above
idle and, moving briskly a
hundred meters above the ground, began a careful scan
of the terrain because he
was not expert enough with kzin computers to automate
the search.
After three hours he had covered more than half of
his sweep around Newduvai,
past semidesert and grassy fields to pine-dotted
mountain slopes, and the
lifeboat's reactor coolant was overheating from the
slow pace. Locklear set the
craft down nicely near that smaller mountain lake,
chopped all power systems,
and headed for scrubby trees in the near distance.
Scattered among the pines
were cedar and small oak. Nearer stood tall poplar
and chestnut, invaded by wild
grape with immature fruit. But nearest of all, the
reason for his landing here,
were gnarled little pear trees and, amid wild shoots
of rank growth, trees laden
with small ripe plums. He wolfed them down until
juice dripped from his chin,
washed in the lake, and then found the pears unripe.
No matter: he'd seen dates,
grapes, and chestnut, which suggested a model of some
Mediterranean region.
After identifying juniper, oleander and honeysuckle,
he sent his wristcomp
scurrying through its megabytes and narrowed his
opinion of the area: a
surrogate slice of Asia Minor.
He might have sat on sunwarmed stones until dark,
lulled by this sensation of
being, somehow, back home without a care. But then he
glanced far across the
lower hills and saw, proceeding slowly across a
parched desert plateau many
miles distant, a whirlwind with its whiplike curve
and bloom of dust where it
touched the soil.
"Uh-huh! That's how you reseed plants without insect
vectors," he said aloud to
the builders of Zoo. "But whirlwinds don't make
honey, and they'll sting anyway.
Hell, even I can play god better than that," he said,
and bore a pocketful of
plums into the lifeboat, filled once more with the
itch to find the cave that
might not even exist on Newduvai.
But it was there, all right. Locklear saw it only
because of the perfect arc of
obsidian, gleaming through a tangle of brush that had
grown around the cave
mouth.
He made a botch of the landing because he was
trembling with anticipation. A
corner of his mind kept warning him not to assume
everything here was the same
as on Kzersatz, so Locklear stopped just outside that
brush-choked entrance. His
wtsai blade made short work of the brush, revealing a
polished floor. He strode
forward, wtsai in one hand, his big kzin sidearm in
the other, to the
now-familiar luminous film that flickered, several
meters inside the cave mouth,
across an obsidian portal. He thrust his blade
through the film and saw, as he
had expected to see, stronger light flash behind the
portal. Then he stepped
through and stopped, listening.
He might have been back in the Kzersatz crypt: a
quiet so deep his own breathing
made echoes; the long obsidian central passage, with
nine branches on each side,
ending in a frost-covered force wall that filled the
passageway. And the clear
plastic containers ranked in the side passages were
of three sizes on smooth
metal bases, as expected. But Locklear took one look
at the nearest specimen,
spinning slowly in its stasis cage, and knew that
here the resemblance to
Kzersatz ended forever.
***
The monster lay in something like a fetal crouch,
tumbling slowly in response to
the grav polarizer as it had been doing for many
thousands of years. It was
black, with great forward-curving horns and heavy
shoulders, and when
released-if anyone dared, he amended-it would stand
six feet at the shoulder.
Locklear figured its weight at a ton. Some European
zoologists had once tried to
breed cattle back to this brute, but with scant
success, and Locklear had not
seen so much as a sketch of it since his undergrad
work. It was a bull aurochs,
a beast which had survived on Earth into historic
times; and counting the cows,
Locklear realized there were over forty of them.
No point in kidding himself about his priorities.
Locklear walked past the
stasized camels and gerbils, hurried faster beyond
small horses and cheetahs and
bats, began to trot as he ran to the next passage
past lions and hares and
grouse, and was sprinting as he passed whole schools
of fish (without water? Why
the hell not? They were in stasis, he reminded
himself-) in their respective
containers. He was out of breath by the time he
dashed between specimens of
reindeer and saw the monkeys.
NO! A mistake any kzin might have made, but: "How
could I play such a shameful
joke on myself?" They were in fetal curls, and some
of them boasted a lot of
body hair. And each of them, Locklear realized, was
human.
In a kind of reverence he studied them all, careful
to avoid touching the metal
bases which, on Kzersatz, opened the cages and
released the specimens.
Narrowheaded and swarthy they were, no taller than
he, with heavy brow ridges
and high cheekbones. Noses like prizefighters;
forearms like blacksmiths; and
some had pendulous mammaries and a few
had-had-"Tits," he breathed. "There's a
difference! Thank you, God."
Men and women like these had first been studied in a
river valley near old
Düsseldorf, hardy folk who had preceded modern humans
on Earth and, in all
probability, had intermarried with them until forty
or fifty thousand years
before. Locklear, rubbing at the gooseflesh on his
arms, began to study each of
the stasized nudes with great care. He would need
every possible advantage
because they would be disoriented, perhaps even
furious, when they waked. And
the last thing Locklear needed was to start off on
the wrong foot with a
frenzied Neanderthaler.
Only an idiot would release a mob of Neanderthal
hunters into a tiny world
without taking steps to protect endangered game
animals. The killing of a dozen
deer might doom the rest of that species to slow
extinction here. On the other
hand, Locklear might have released all the animals
and waited for a season or
more. But certain of the young women in stasis were
not exactly repellent, and
he did not intend to wait a year before making their
acquaintance. Besides, his
notes on a Neanderthal community could make him
famous on a dozen worlds, and
Locklear was anxious to get on with it.
His second option was to wake the people and guide
them, by force if necessary,
outside to fruits and grains. But each of them would
see those stasized animals,
probably as meat on the hoof, and might not respond
to his demands. It was
beyond belief that any of them would speak a language
he knew. Then it struck
him that he already knew how to disassemble a stasis
cage, and that he had as
much time as he needed. With a longing glance
backward, Locklear retraced his
steps to the lifeboat and started looking for
something with wheels.
But kzin lifeboats do not carry cargo dollies, and
the sun of Newduvai had
dimmed before he found a way to remove the wheeled
carriage below the reactor's
heat exchanger unit. Evidently the unit needed
replacement often enough that
kzin engineers installed a carriage with it. That
being so, Locklear decided not
to use the lifeboat's reactor any more than he had to.
He worked until hunger and aching muscles drove him
to the cabin, where he cut
slices of bricklike kzin rations and ate plums for
dessert. But before he fell
asleep, Locklear made some decisions that might save
his hide. The lifeboat must
be hidden away from inquisitive savage fingers; he
would even camouflage the
stasis crypt so that those savages would not know
what lay inside; and it was
absolutely crucial that he present himself as a
shaman of great power. Without a
few tawdry magics, he might not be able to distance
himself as an observer;
might even be challenged to combat by some strong
male. And Locklear remembered
those hornlike fingernails and bulging muscles all
too well. He saw no sense in
shooting a man, even a Neanderthal, merely to prove a
point that could be made
in peaceable ways.
He spent over a week preparing his hardware. His
trials on Kzersatz had taught
him how, when all you've got is a hammer, the whole
world is a nail; and that
you must hammer out a few other tools as soon as
possible. He soon found the
lifeboat's military toolbox complete with wire,
pistol-grip arc welder, and
motorized drill.
He took time off to gather fruit and to let his
frustrations drain away. It was
hard not to throw rocks at the sky when he commanded
a state-of-the-art kzin
craft, yet could not cannibalize much of it for the
things he needed. "Maybe I
should release a dog from stasis so I could kick it,"
he told himself aloud,
while attaching an oak branch as a wagon tongue for
the wheeled carriage. But
lacking any other game, he figured, the dog would
probably attack before he did.
Then he used oak staves to lever a cage base up, with
flat stones as blocks, and
eased his makeshift wagon beneath. The doe inside was
heavy with young. Most
likely, she would retreat far from him before bearing
her fawns, and he knew
what to do with the tuneable grav polarizer below
that cage. Soon the clear
plastic container sat gleaming in the sun, and
Locklear poked hard at the base
before retreating to the cave mouth.
As on Kzersatz, the container levered up, the red doe
sank to the cage base, and
the base slid forward. A moment later the creature
moved, stood with lovely
slender limbs shaking, and then saw him waving an oak
stave. She reached grassy
turf in one graceful bound and sped off with leaps he
watched in admiration.
Then, feeling somehow more lonely as the doe
vanished, he sighed and
disconnected the plastic container, then set about
taking the entire cage to
pieces. Already experienced with these gadgets, he
would need at least two of
the grav polarizer units before he could move
stasized specimens outside with
ease.
Disconnected from the stasis unit, a polarizer toroid
with its power source and
wiring could be tuned to lift varied loads; for
example, a container housing a
school of fish. The main thing was to avoid tipping
it, which Locklear managed
by wiring the polarizer securely to the underside of
his wheeled carriage.
Another hour saw him tugging his burden to the air
lock, where he wrestled that
entire, still-functioning cageful of fish inside. The
fish, he saw, had sucking
mouths meant for bottom-feeding on vegetable trash.
They looked rather like carp
or tilapia. Raising the lifeboat with great care, he
eased toward the big lake
some miles distant. It was no great trick to dump the
squirming mass of life
from the air lock port into the lake from a height of
two meters, and then he
celebrated by landing near the first laden fig tree
he saw. Munching and lazing
in the sun, he decided that his fortunes were looking
up. But then, Locklear had
been wrong before . . .
***
He knew that his next steps must be planned
carefully. Before hiding the kzin
craft away he must duplicate the airboat he had built
on Kzersatz. After an
exhaustive search-meanwhile mapping Newduvai's major
features-he felled and
stripped slender pines, hauling them in the lifeboat
to his favorite spot near
the small mountain lake. By now he had found a
temporary spot in a barren cleft
near frostline to hide the lifeboat itself, and began
by stripping off its
medium-caliber beam weapons from extension struts.
The strut skins were attached
by long screws, which Locklear saved. The weapon
wiring came in handy, too, as
he began fitting the raftlike platform of his airboat
together. When he realized
that the lifeboat's slings and emergency seats could
be stripped for a fabric
sail, he began to feel a familiar excitement.
This airboat was larger than his first, with its
single sail and swiveling
double-pole keel for balance. With wires for rigging,
he could hunker down just
behind the mast and operate the gravity control
vernier through a slot in the
flat deck. He could carry over two hundred kilos of
ballast, the mass of a
stasis cage with a human specimen inside, far from
the crypt before setting that
specimen free. "I'll have to carry the cage back, of
course. Who knows what
trouble a savage might create, fiddling with a stasis
cage?" He snorted at
himself; he'd almost said "monkeying," and it was
dangerous to assume he was
smarter than these ancient people. But wasn't he,
really? If Neanderthalers had
died out on Earth, they must have been inferior in
some way. Well, he was sure
as hell going to find out.
If his new airboat was larger than the first, it was
also more unwieldy. He used
it to ferry logs to his cabin site at the small lake,
cursing his need to tack
in the light breezes, wishing he had a better
propulsion system, for over a week
before the solution hit him.
At the time he was debating the release of more
animals. The mammoths, he
promised himself, would come last. No wonder the
builders of Newduvai had left
them nearest the crypt entrance! Their cage tops
would each make a dandy
greenhouse and their grav polarizers would lift tons.
Or push tons.
"Some things don't change," he told himself, laughing
aloud. "I was dumb on
Kzersatz and I've been dumb here." So he released the
hares, gerbils, grouse and
some other species of bird with beaks meant for
crunching seeds. He promptly
installed their grav units around his airboat seat
for propulsion, removing the
mast and keel poles for reuse as cabin roof beams.
That was the day Locklear
nearly killed himself caroming off the lake's surface
at sixty miles an hour,
whooping like a fool. Now the homemade craft was no
longer a boat; it was a
scooter, and would scoot with an extra fifty kilos of
cargo.
It might have been elation with the sporty
performance of his scooter that made
him so optimistic, failing to remember that you have
to kill pessimists, but
optimists do it themselves. The log cabin, five
meters square with fireplace and
frond-thatched shed roof, needed only a pallet of
sling fabric and fragrant
boughs beneath. A big pallet, he decided. It had been
Kit who taught him that he
should have food and shelter ready before waking
strangers in strange lands. He
had figs and apricot slices drying, kzin rations for
the strong of tooth, and
kzin-sized drinking vessels from the lifeboat. He
moved a few more items,
including a clever kzin memory pad with electronic
stylus and screen, from
lifeboat to cabin, then attached a ten-meter cable
harness from the scooter to
the lifeboat's overhead weapon pylon.
It was only necessary then to set the scooter's
bottom grav unit to slight
buoyancy, and to pilot the kzin lifeboat very slowly,
towing the scooter.
The cleft where he landed had become a soggy meadow
from icemelt near the
frostline high on Newduvai's perimeter, protected on
one side by the towering
force wall and on the other by jagged basalt. The
lifeboat could not be seen
from below, and if his first aerial visitors were
kzinti, they'd have to fly
dangerously near that force wall before they saw it.
He sealed the lifeboat and
then hauled the scooter down hand over hand, puffing
with exertion, letting the
scooter bounce harmlessly off the lifeboat's hull as
he clambered aboard. Then
he cast off and twiddled with those grav unit
verniers until the wind whistled
in his ears en route to the stasis crypt. He was
already expert at modifying
stasis units, and he would have lots of them to play
with. If he had to protect
himself from a wild woman, he could hardly wish for
anything better.
He trundled the crystal cage into sunlight still
wondering if he'd chosen the
right-specimen? Subject? "Woman, dammit; woman!" He
was trying to wear too many
hats, he knew, with the one labeled "lecher" perched
on top. He landed the
scooter near his cabin, placed bowls of fruit and
water nearby, and pressed the
cage baseplate, retreating beyond his offerings.
She sank to the cage floor but only shifted position,
still asleep, the breeze
moving strands of chestnut hair at her cheeks. She
was small and muscular, her
breasts firm and immature, pubic hair sparse, limbs
slender and marked with
scratches; and yes, he realized as he moved nearer,
she had a
forty-thousand-year-old zit on her little chin.
Easily the best-looking choice
in the crypt, not yet fully developed into the
Neanderthal body shape, she
seemed capable of sleep in any position and was
snoring lightly to prove it.
A genuine teen-ager, he mused, grinning. Aloud he
said, "Okay, Lolita, up and at
'em." She stirred; a hand reached up as if tugging at
an invisible blanket.
"You'll miss the school shuttle," he said louder. It
had never failed back on
Earth with his sister.
It didn't fail here, either. She waked slowly,
blinking as she sat up in lithe,
nude, heartbreaking innocence. But her yawn snapped
in two as she focused on
him, and her pantomime of snatching a stone and
hurling it at Locklear was
convincing enough to make him duck. She leaped away
scrabbling for real stones,
and between her screams and her clods, all in
Locklear's direction, she seemed
to be trying to cover herself.
He retreated, but not far enough, and grabbed a chunk
of dirt only after taking
one clod on his thigh. He threatened a toss of his
own, whereupon she ducked
behind the cage, watching him warily.
Well, it wouldn't matter what he said, so long as he
said it calmly. His tone
and gestures would have to serve. "You're a real
little shit before breakfast,
Lolita," he said, smiling, tossing his clod gently
toward the bowls.
She saw the food then, frowning. His open hands and
strained smile invited her
to the food, and she moved toward it still holding
clods ready. Wolfing plums,
she paused to gape as he pulled a plum from a pocket
and began to eat. "Never
seen pockets, hm? Stick around, little girl, I'll
show you lots of interesting
things." The humor didn't work, even on himself; and
at his first step toward
her she ran like a deer.
Every time he pointed to himself and said his name,
she screamed something
brief. She moved around the area, checking out the
cabin, draping a vine over
her breasts, and after an hour Locklear gave up. He'd
made a latchcord for the
cabin door, so she couldn't do much harm. She watched
from fifty meters distance
with great wondering brown eyes as he waved, lifted
the scooter, and sped away
with her cage and a new idea.
An hour later he returned with a second cage, cursing
as he saw Lolita trying to
smash his cabin window with an oak stave. The clear
plastic, of cage material,
was tough stuff and he laughed as the scooter settled
nearby, pretending he
didn't itch to whack her rump. She began a litany of
stone-age curses, then, as
she saw the new cage and its occupant. Locklear
actually had to mount the
scooter and chase her off before she would quit
pelting him with anything she
could throw.
He made the same preparations as before, this time
with shreds of smelly kzin
rations as well, and stood leaning against the cage
for long moments, facing
Lolita, who lurked fifty meters away, to make his
point. The young woman
revolving slowly inside the cage was at his mercy.
Then he pressed the
baseplate, turned his back as the plastic levered
upward, and strode off a few
paces with a sigh. This one was a Neanderthal and no
mistake: curves a little
too broad to be exciting, massive forearms and
calves, pug nose, considerable
body hair. Nice tits, though. Stop it, fool!
The young woman stirred, sat up, looked around, then
let her big jaw drop
comically as she stared at Locklear, whose smile was
a very rickety
construction. She cocked her head at him, impassive,
an instant before he spoke.
"You're no beauty, lady, so maybe you won't throw
rocks at me. Too late for
breakfast," he continued in his sweetest tones and a
pointing finger. "How about
lunch?"
She saw the bowls. Slowly, with caution and
surprising grace, she stepped from
the scooter's deck still eyeing him without smile or
frown. Then she squatted to
inspect the food, knees apart, facing him, and
Locklear grew faint at the sight.
He looked away quickly, flushing, aware that she
continued to stare at him while
sampling human and kzin rations with big strong teeth
and wrinklings of her nose
that made her oddly attractive. More attractive. Why
the hell doesn't she cover
up or something?
He pulled another plum from a pocket, and this magic
drew a smile from her as
they ate. He realized she was through eating when she
wiped sticky fingers in
her straight black hair, and stepped back by reflex
as she stepped toward him.
She stopped, with a puzzled inclination of her head,
and smiled at him. That was
when he stood his ground and let her approach. He had
hoped for something like
this, so the watching Lolita could see that he meant
no harm.
When the woman stood within arm's length of him she
stopped. He put a hand on
his breast. "Me Locklear, you Jane," he said.
"(Something,)" she said. Maybe Kh-roofeh.
He was going to try saying it himself when she
startled him into a wave of
actual physical weakness. With eyes half-closed, she
cupped her full breasts in
both hands and smiled. He looked at her erect
nipples, feeling the rush of blood
to his face, and showed her his hands in a broad
helpless shrug. Whereupon, she
took his hands and placed them on her breasts, and
now her big black eyes were
not those of a savage Neanderthal but a sultry
smiling Levantine woman who knew
how to make a point. Two points.
Three points, as he felt a rising response and knew
her hands were seeking that
rise, hands that had never known velcrolok closures
yet seemed to have an
intelligence of their own. His whole body was
tingling now as he caressed her,
and when her hands found that fabric closure, she
shared a fresh smile with him,
and tried to pull him down on the ground with her.
So he took her hands in his and walked her to the
cabin. She "hmm"ed when he
pulled the latchcord loop to open the door, and
"ahh"ed when she saw the big
pallet, and then offered those swarthy full breasts
again and put her face
against the hollow of his throat, and toyed inside
his velcrolok closure until
he astonished her by pulling his entire flight suit
off, and offered her body in
ways simple and sophisticated, and Locklear accepted
all the offers he could,
and made a few of his own, all of which she accepted
expertly.
He had his first sensation of something eerie,
something just below his
awareness, as he lay inert on his back bathed in
honest sweat, his partner lying
facedown more or less across him like one stick
abandoned across another stick
after both had been rubbed to kindle a blaze. He saw
a movement at his window
and knew it was Lolita, peering silently in. He
sighed.
His partner sighed too, and turned toward the window
with a quick, vexed burst
of some command. The face disappeared.
He chuckled, "Did you hear the little devil, or smell
her?" Actually, his
partner had more of the eau de sweatsock perfume than
Lolita did; now more
pronounced than ever. He didn't care. If the past
half-hour had been any omen,
he might never care again.
She stretched then, and sat up, dragging a heel that
was rough as a rasp across
his calf. Her heavy ragged nails had scratched him,
and he was oily from God
knew what mixture of greases in her long hair. He
didn't give a damn about that
either, reflecting that a man should allow a few
squeaks in the hinges of the
pearly gates.
She said something then, softly, with that tilt of
her head that suggested
inquiry. "Locklear," he replied, tapping his chest
again.
Her look was somehow pitying then, as she repeated
her phrase, placing one hand
on her head, the other on his.
"Oh yeah, you're my girl and I'm your guy," he said,
nodding, placing his hands
on hers.
She sat quite still for a moment, her eyes sad on
his. Then, delighting him, she
placed one hand on his breast and managed a passable,
"Loch-leah."
He grinned and nodded, then cocked his head and
placed a hand between her
(wonderful!) breasts. No homecoming queen, but
dynamite in deep shadows . . .
He paid more attention as she said, approximately,
"Ch'roof'h," and when he
repeated it she laughed, closing her eyes with
downcast chin. A big chin, a
really whopping big one to be honest about it, and
then he caught her gaze, not
angry but perhaps reproachful, and again he felt the
passage of something like a
cold breeze through his awareness.
She rubbed his gooseflesh down for him, responding to
his "ahh"s, and presently
she astonished him again by beginning to query him on
the names of things.
Locklear knew that he could thoroughly confuse her if
he insisted on perfectly
grammatical tenses, cases, and syntax. He tried to
keep it simple, and soon
learned that "head down, eyes shut" was the same as a
negative headshake. "Chin
elevated, smiling" was the same as a nod-and now he
realized he'd seen her
giving him yesses that way from the first moment she
awoke. A smile or a frown
was the same for her as for him-but that heads-up
smile was a definite gesture.
She drew him outside again presently, studying the
terrain with lively
curiosity, miming actions and listening as he
provided words, responding with
words of her own.
The name he gave her was, in part, because it was
faintly like the one she'd
offered; and in part because she seemed willing to
learn his ways while
revealing ancient ways of her own. He named her
"Ruth." Locklear felt
crestfallen when, by midafternoon, he realized Ruth
was learning his language
much faster than he was learning hers. And then, as
he glanced over her shoulder
to see little Lolita creeping nearer, he began to
understand why.
Ruth turned quickly, with a shouted command and
warning gestures, and Lolita
dropped the sharpened stick she'd been carrying.
Locklear knew beyond doubt that
Lolita had made no sound in her approach. There was
only one explanation that
would fit all his data: Ruth unafraid of him from the
first; offering herself as
if she knew his desires; keeping track of Lolita
without looking; and her
uncanny speed in learning his language.
And that moment when she'd placed her hand on his
head, with an inquiry that was
somehow pitying. Now he copied her gesture with one
hand on his own head, the
other on hers, and lowered his head, eyes shut. "No,"
he said. "Locklear, no
telepath. Ruth, yes?"
"Ruth, yes." She pointed to Lolita then. "No-telpat."
She needed another ten minutes of pantomime,
attending to his words and
obviously to his thoughts as he spoke them, to get
her point across. Ruth was a
"gentle," but like Locklear himself, Lolita was a
"new."
***
When darkness came to Newduvai, Lolita got chummier
in a hurry, complaining
until Ruth let her into the cabin. Despite that, Ruth
didn't seem to like the
girl much and accepted Locklear's name for her,
shortening it to "Loli." Ruth
spoke to her in their common tongue, not so much
guttural as throaty, and
Locklear had a strong impression that they were old
acquaintances. Either of
them could tend a fire expertly, and both were wary
of the light from his kzin
memory screen until they found that it would not
singe a curious finger.
Locklear was bothered on two counts by Loli's
insistence on taking pieces of
kzin plastic film to make a bikini suit: first
because Ruth plainly thought it
silly, and second because the kid was more appealing
with it than she was when
stark naked. At least the job kept Loli silently
occupied, listening and
watching as Locklear got on with the business of
talking with Ruth.
Their major breakthrough for the evening came when
Locklear got the ideas of
past and future, "before" and "soon," across to Ruth.
Her telepathy was
evidently the key to her quick grasp of his language;
yet it seemed to work
better with emotional states than with abstract
ideas, and she grew upset when
Loli became angry with her own first clumsy efforts
at making her panties fit.
Clearly, Ruth was a lady who liked her harmony.
For Ruth was, despite her rude looks, a lady-when she
wasn't in the sack. Even
so, when at last Ruth had seen to Loli's comfort with
spare fabric and Locklear
snapped off the light, he felt inviting hands on him
again. "No thanks," he
said, chuckling, patting her shoulder, even though he
wanted her again. And Ruth
knew he did, judging from her sly insistence.
"No. Loli here," he said finally, and felt Ruth shrug
as if to say it didn't
matter. Maybe it didn't matter to Neanderthals,
but-"Soon," he promised, and
shared a hug with Ruth before they fell asleep.
During the ensuing week, he learned much. For one
thing, he learned that Loli
was a chronic pain in the backside. She ate like a
kzin warrior. She liked to
see if things would break. She liked to spy. She
interfered with Locklear's pace
during his afternoon "naps" with Ruth by whacking on
the door with sticks and
stones, until he swore he would " . . . hit Loli
soon."
But Ruth would not hear of that. "Hit Loli, same hit
Ruth head. Locklear like
hit Ruth head?"
But one afternoon, when she saw Locklear studying her
with friendly intensity,
Ruth spoke to Loli at some length. The girl picked up
her short spear and,
crooning her happiness, loped off into the forest.
Ruth turned to Locklear
smiling. "Loli find fruitwater, soon Ruth make
fruitfood." A few minutes of
miming showed that she had promised to make some kind
of dessert, if Loli could
find a beehive for honey.
Locklear had seen beehives in stasis, but explained
that there were very few
animals loose on Newduvai, and no hurtbugs.
"No hurtbugs? Loli no find, long time. Good," Ruth
replied firmly, and led him
by the hand into their cabin, and "good" was the
operative word.
On his next trip to the crypt, Locklear needed all
day for his solitary work. He
might put it off forever, but it was clear by now
that he must populate Newduvai
with game before he released their most fearsome
predators. The little horses
needed only to see daylight before galloping off.
Camels were quicker still, and
the deer bounded off like golf balls down a freeway.
The predators would simply
have to wait until the herds were larger, and the day
was over before he could
rig grav polarizers to trundle mammoths to the mouth
of the crypt. His last job
of the day was his most troublesome, releasing small
cages of bees near groves
of fruit trees and wildflowers.
Locklear and Ruth managed to convey a lot with only a
few hundred words, though
some of those words had to do multiple duty while
Ruth expanded her vocabulary.
When she said "new," for example, it often carried a
stigma. Neanderthals, he
decided, were very conservative folk, and they sensed
a lie before you told it.
If Ruth was any measure, they also had little
aptitude for math. She understood
one and two and many. She understood "none," but not
as a number. If there
wasn't any, she conveyed to him, why try to count it?
She had him there.
Eventually, between food-gathering forays, he used
pebbles and sketches to tell
Ruth of the many, many other animals and people he
could bring to the scene. She
was no sketch artist; in fact, she insisted, women
were not supposed to draw
things-especially huntthings. Ah, he said, magics
were only for men? Yes, she
said, then mystified him with pantomimes of sleep and
pain. That was for men,
too, and food-gathering was for women.
He pursued the mystery, sketching with the kzin memo
screen. At last, when she
pretended to cut her throat with his wtsai knife, he
understood, and added the
word "kill" to her vocabulary. Men hunted and killed.
Dry-mouthed, he asked, "Man like kill Locklear?"
Now it was her turn to be mystified. "No kill. Why
kill magic man?"
Because, he replied, "Locklear like Ruth, one-two
other man like Ruth. Kill
Locklear for Ruth?"
He had never seen her laugh aloud, but he saw it now,
the big teeth gleaming,
breasts shaking with merriment. "Locklear like Ruth,
good. Many man like Ruth,
good."
He was silent for a long time, fighting the
temptation to tell her that many men
liking Ruth was not good. Then: "Ruth like many man?"
She had learned to nod by now, and did it happily.
The next five minutes were troubled ones for
Locklear. Ruth did not seem to
understand monogamy in any form. Apparently,
everybody took potluck in the sex
department and was free to accept or reject. Some
people were simply more
popular than others. "Many man like Ruth," she said.
"Many, many, many . . ."
"Okay, for Christ's sake, I get the idea," he
exploded, and again he saw that
look of sadness-or perhaps pain. "Locklear see, Ruth
popular with man."
It seemed to be their first quarrel. Tentatively, she
said, "Locklear popular
with woman."
"No. Little popular with woman."
"Much popular with Ruth," she said, and began to rub
his shoulders. That was the
day she asked him about her appearance, and he
responded the best way he could.
She thought it silly to trim her strong, useful
nails; sillier to wash her hair.
Still, she did it, and he claimed she was pretty, and
she knew he lied.
When it occurred to him to ask how he could look nice
for her, Ruth said,
"Locklear pretty now." But he never thought to wonder
if she might be lying.
***
Whatever Ruth said about women and hunting, it did
not seem to apply to Loli.
While aloft in the scooter one day to study
distribution of the animals,
Locklear saw the girl chasing a hare across a meadow.
She was no slouch with a
short spear and nailed the hare on her second toss,
dispatching it with a stone
after a brief struggle. He lowered the scooter very,
very slowly, watching her
tear at the animal, disgusted when he realized she
was eating it raw.
She saw his shadow when the scooter was hovering very
near, and sat there
blushing, looking at him with the innards of the hare
across her lap.
She understood few of his words-or seemed to, at the
cabin-but his tone was
clear enough. "You couldn't share it, you little
bastard. No, you sneak out here
and stuff yourself." She began to suck her thumb,
pouting. Then perhaps Loli
realized the boss must be placated; she tried a smile
on her blood-streaked face
and held her grisly trophy out.
"No. Ruth. Give to Ruth," he scowled, pointing toward
the cabin. She elevated
her chin and smiled, and he flew off grumbling. He
couldn't much blame the kid;
kzin rations and fruit were getting pretty tiresome,
and the gruel Ruth made
from grain wasn't all that exciting without bits of
meat. It was going to be
rougher on the animals when he woke the men.
And why wake them at all? You've got it good here, he
reminded himself in
Sequence Umpteen of his private dialogue. You have
your own little world and a
harem of one, and you know when her period comes so
you know when not to play.
And one of these days, Loli will be a knockout, 1
suspect. A much niftier dish
than poor Ruth, who doesn't know what a skag she'd be
in modern society, thank
God.
Moments like this made him squirm. Setting Ruth's
looks aside, he had no
complaint, not even about the country itself. Not
much seasonal change, no
dangerous animals unless you want to release them,
certainly none of the most
dangerous animal of all. Except for kzinti, of
course. One on one, they were
meaner predators than men-even Neanderthal savages.
"That's why I have to release 'em," he said to the
wind. "If a fully-manned kzin
ship comes, I'll need an army." He no longer kidded
himself about scholarship
and the sociology of homo neanderthalensis, which was
strictly a secondary item.
It was sobering to look yourself over and see
self-interest riding you like a
hunchback. So he flew directly to the crypt and spent
the balance of the day
releasing the whoppers: aurochs and bison, which
didn't make him sweat much, and
a half-dozen mammoths, which did.
A mammoth, he found, was a flighty beast not given to
confrontations. He could
set one shambling off with a shout, its trunk high
like a periscope tasting the
breeze. Every one of them turned into the wind and
disappeared toward the
frostline, and now the crypt held only its most
dangerous creatures.
He returned to the cabin perilously late, the sun of
Newduvai dying while he was
still a hundred meters from the wisp of smoke rising
from the cabin. He landed
blind near the cabin, very slowly but with a jolt,
and saw the faint gleam of
the kzin light leap from the cabin window. Ruth might
not have a head for
figures, but she'd seen him snap that light on fifty
times. And she must've
sensed my panic. I wonder how far off she can do
that. . . .
Ruth already had succulent broiled haunches of Loli's
hare, keeping them warm
over coals, and it wrenched his heart as he saw she
was drooling as she waited
for him. He wiped the corner of her mouth, kissed her
anyhow, and sat at the
rough pole table while she brought his supper. Loli
had obviously eaten, and
watched him as if fearful that he would order her
outside.
Hauling mammoths, even with a grav polarizer, is
exhausting work. After
finishing off a leg of hare, and falling asleep at
the table, Locklear was only
half-aware when Ruth picked him up and carried him to
their pallet as easily as
she would have carried a child.
The next day, he had Ruth convey to Loli that she was
not to hunt without
permission. Then, with less difficulty than he'd
expected, he sketched and
quizzed her about the food of a Neanderthal tribe.
Yes, they hunted everything:
bugs to mammoths, it was all protein; but chiefly
they gathered roots, grains,
and fruits.
That made sense. Why risk getting killed hunting when
tubers didn't fight back?
He posed his big question then. If he brought a tribe
to Newduvai (this brought
a smile of anticipation to her broad face), and
forbade them to hunt without his
permission, would they obey?
Gentles might, she said. New people, such as Loli,
were less obedient. She tried
to explain why, conveying something about telepathy
and hunting, until he waved
the question aside. If he showed her sleeping
gentles, would she tell him which
ones were good? Oh yes, she said, adding a phrase she
knew he liked: "No
problem."
But it took him an hour to get Ruth on the scooter.
That stuff was all very well
for great magic men, she implied, but women's magics
were more prosaic. After a
few minutes idling just above the turf, he sped up,
and she liked that fine.
Then he slowed and lifted the scooter a bit. By noon,
he was cruising fast as
they surveyed groups of aurochs, solitary gazelles,
and skittish horses from
high above. It was she, sampling the wind with her
nose, who directed him higher
and then pointed out a mammoth, a huge specimen using
its tusks to find roots.
He watched the huge animal briefly, estimating how
many square miles a mammoth
needed to feed, and then made a decision that
saddened him. Earth had kept right
on turning when the last mammoths disappeared.
Newduvai could not afford many of
them, ripping up foliage by the roots. Perhaps the
Outsiders didn't care about
that, but Locklear did. If you had to start sawing
off links in your food chain,
best if you started at the top. And he didn't want to
pursue that thought by
himself. At the very top was man. And kzin. It was
the kind of thing he'd like
to discuss with Scarface, but he'd made two trips to
the lifeboat without a peep
from its all-band comm set.
Finally, he flew to the crypt and set his little
craft down nearby, reassuring
Ruth as they walked inside. She paused for flight
when she saw the rest of the
mammoths, slowly tumbling inside their cages. "Much,
much, much magic," she
said, and patted him with great confidence.
But it was the sight of forty Neanderthals in stasis
that really affected Ruth.
Her face twisted with remorse, she turned from the
nearest cage and faced
Locklear with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Locklear kill?"
"No, no! Sleep," he insisted, miming it.
She was not convinced. "No sleeptalk," she protested,
placing a hand on her head
and pointing toward the rugged male nearby. And
doubtless she was right; in
stasis you didn't even dream.
"Before, Locklear take Ruth from little house," he
said, tapping the cage, and
then she remembered, and wanted to take the man out
then and there. Instead, he
got her help in moving the cage onto his improvised
dolly and outside to the
scooter.
They were halfway to the cabin and a thousand feet up
on the heavily-laden
scooter when Ruth somehow struck the cage base with
her foot. Locklear saw the
transparent plastic begin to rise, shouted, and
nearly turned the scooter on its
side as he leaped to slam the plastic down.
"Good God! You nearly let a wild man loose on a
goddamn raft, a thousand feet in
the air," he raged, and saw her cringe, holding her
head in both hands. "Okay,
Ruth. Okay, no problem," he continued more slowly,
and pointed at the cage base.
"Ruth no hit little house more. Locklear hit, soon."
They remained silent until they landed, and Locklear
had time to review
Newduvai's first in-flight airline emergency. Ruth
had not feared a beating. No,
it was his own panic that had punished her. That
figured: a kzin telepath
sometimes suffered when someone nearby was suffering.
He brought food and water from the cabin, placed it
near the scooter, then
paused before pressing the cage base. "Ruth: gentle
man talk in head same Ruth
talk in head?"
"Yes, all gentles talk in head." She saw what he was
getting at. "Ruth talk to
man, say Locklear much, much good magic man."
He pointed again at the man, a muscular young
specimen who, without so much body
hair, might have excited little comment at a
collegiate wrestling match. "Ruth
friend of man?"
She blushed as she replied: "Yes. Friend long time."
"That's what I was afraid of," he muttered with a
heavy sigh, pressed the
baseplate, and then stepped back several paces,
nearly bumping into the curious
Loli.
The man's eyes flicked open. Locklear could see the
heavy muscles tense, yet the
man moved only his eyes, looking from him to Ruth,
then to him again. When he
did move, it was as though he'd been playing possum
for forty thousand years,
and his movements were as oddly graceful as Ruth's.
He held up both hands,
smiling, and it was obvious that some silent message
had passed between them.
Locklear advanced with the same posture. A flat touch
of hands, and then the man
turned to Ruth with a burst of throaty speech. He was
no taller than Locklear,
but immensely more heavily boned and muscled. He
stood as erect as any man,
unconcerned in his nakedness, and after a double
handclasp with Ruth he made a
smiling motion toward her breasts.
Again, Locklear saw the deeper color of flushing over
her face and, after a
head-down gesture of negation, she said something
while staring at the young
man's face. Puzzled, he glanced at Locklear with a
comical half-smile, and
Locklear tried to avoid looking at the man's budding
erection. He told the man
his name, and got a reply, but as usual Locklear gave
him a name that seemed
appropriate. He called him "Minuteman."
After a quick meal of fruit and water, Ruth did the
translating. From the first,
Minuteman accepted the fact that Locklear was one of
the "new" people. After
Locklear's demonstrations with the kzin memo screen
and a levitation of the
scooter, Minuteman gave him more physical space,
perhaps a sign of deference. Or
perhaps wariness; time would tell.
Though Loli showed no fear of Minuteman, she spoke
little to him and kept her
distance-with an egg-sized stone in her little fist
at all times. Minuteman
treated Loli as a guest might treat an unwelcome pet.
Oh yes, thought Locklear,
he knows her, all righty. . . .
The hunt, Locklear claimed, was a celebration to
welcome Minuteman, but he had
an ulterior motive. He made his point to Ruth, who
chattered and gestured and,
no doubt, silently communed with Minuteman for long
moments. It would be
necessary for Minuteman to accompany Locklear on the
scooter, but without Ruth
if they were to lug any sizeable game back to the
cabin.
When Ruth stopped, Minuteman said something more.
"Yes, no problem," Ruth said
then.
Minuteman, his facial scars writhing as he grinned,
managed, "Yef, no pobbem,"
and laughed when Locklear did. Amazing how fast these
people adapt, Locklear
thought. He wakes up on a strange planet, and an hour
later he's right at home.
A wonderful trusting kind of innocence; even
childlike. Then Locklear decided to
see just how far that trust went, and gestured for
Minuteman to sit down on the
scooter after he wrestled the empty stasis cage to
the ground.
Soon they were scudding along just above the trees at
a pace guaranteed to scare
the hell out of any sensible Neanderthal, Minuteman
desperately trying to make a
show of confidence in the leadership of this suicidal
shaman, and Locklear was
satisfied on two counts, with one count yet to come.
First, the scooter's pace
near trees was enough to make Minuteman hold on for
dear life. Second, the young
Neanderthal would view Locklear's easy mastery of the
scooter as perhaps the
very greatest of magics-and maybe Minuteman would
pass that datum on, when the
time came.
The third item was a shame, really, but it had to be
done. A shaman without the
power of ultimate punishment might be seen as
expendable, and Locklear had to
show that power. He showed it after passing over
specimens of aurochs and horse,
both noted with delight by Minuteman.
The goat had been grazing not far from three does
until he saw the scooter swoop
near. He was an old codger, probably driven off by
the younger buck nearby, and
Locklear recalled that the gestation period for goats
was only five months-and
besides, he told himself the Outsiders could be
pretty dumb in some matters. You
didn't need twenty bucks for twenty does.
All of the animals bounded toward a rocky slope, and
Minuteman watched them as
Locklear maneuvered, forcing the old buck to turn
back time and again. When at
last the buck turned to face them, Locklear brought
the scooter down, moving
straight toward the hapless old fellow. Minuteman did
not turn toward Locklear
until he heard the report of the kzin sidearm which
Locklear held in both hands,
and by that time the scooter was only a man's height
above the rocks.
At the report, the buck slammed backward, stumbling,
shot in the breast.
Minuteman ducked away from the sound of the shot,
seeing Locklear with the
sidearm, and then began to shout. Locklear let the
scooter settle but Minuteman
did not wait, leaping down, rushing at the old buck,
which still kicked in its
death agony.
By the time Locklear had the scooter resting on the
slope, Minuteman was tearing
at the buck's throat with his teeth, trying to dodge
flinty hooves, the powerful
arms locked around his prey. In thirty seconds the
buck's eyes were glazing and
its movements grew more feeble by the moment.
Locklear put away the sidearm,
feeling his stomach churn. Minuteman was drinking the
animal's blood; sucking
it, in fact, in a kind of frenzy.
When at last he sat up, Minuteman began to massage
his temples with bloody
fingers-perhaps a ritual, Locklear decided. The young
Neanderthal's gaze at
Locklear was not pleasant, though he was suitably
impressed by the invisible
spear that had noisily smashed a man-sized goat off
its feet leaving nothing
more than a tiny hole in the animal's breast.
Locklear went through a pantomime
of shooting, and Minuteman gestured his "yes."
Together, they placed the heavy
carcass on the scooter and returned to the cabin.
Minuteman seemed oddly subdued
for a hunter who had just chewed a victim's throat
open.
Locklear guffawed at what he saw at the cabin: in the
cage so recently vacated
by Minuteman was Loli, revolving in the slow dance of
stasis. Ruth explained,
"Loli like little house, like sleep. Ruth like for
Loli sleep. Many like for
Loli sleep long time," she added darkly.
It was Ruth who butchered the animal with the wtsai,
while talking with
Minuteman. Locklear watched smugly, noting the
absence of flies. Damned if he
was going to release those from their cages, nor the
mosquitoes, locusts and
other pests which lay with the predators in the
crypt. Why would any god worth
his salt pester a planet with flies, anyhow? The
butterflies might be worth the
trouble.
He was still ruminating on these matters when Ruth
handed him the wtsai and
entered the cabin silently. She seemed preoccupied,
and Minuteman had wandered
off toward the oaks so, just to be sociable, he said,
"Minuteman see Locklear
kill with magic. Minuteman like?"
She built a smoky fire, stretching skewers of stringy
meat above the smoke,
before answering. "No good, talk bad to magic man."
"It's okay, Ruth. Talk true to Locklear."
She propped the cabin door open to adjust the draft,
then sat down beside him.
"Minuteman feel bad. Locklear no kill meat fast, meat
hurt long time. Meat feel
much, much bad, so Minuteman feel much bad before
kill meat. Locklear new
person, no feel bad. Loli no feel bad. Minuteman no
want hunt with Locklear."
As she attended to the barbecue and Locklear
continued to ferret out more of
this mystery, he grew more chastened. Neanderthal
boys, learning to kill for
food, began with animals that did not have a highly
developed nervous system.
Because when the animal felt pain, all the gentles
nearby felt some of it too,
especially women and girls. Neanderthal hunt teams
were all-male affairs, and
they learned every trick of stealth and quick kills
because a clumsy kill meant
a slow one. Minuteman had known that, lacking a club,
he himself would feel the
least pain if the goat bled to death quickly.
And large animals? You dug pit traps and visited them
from a distance, or drove
your prey off a distant cliff if you could.
Neanderthal telepathy did not work
much beyond twenty meters. The hunter who approached
a wounded animal to pierce
its throat with a spear was very brave, or very
hungry. Or he was one of the new
people, perfectly capable of irritating or even
fighting a gentle without
feeling the slightest psychic pain. The gentle
Neanderthal, of course, was not
protected against the new person's reflected pain. No
wonder Ruth took care of
Loli without liking her much!
He asked if Loli was the first "new" Ruth had seen.
No, she said, but the only
one they had allowed in the tribe. A hunt team had
found her wandering alone,
terrified and hungry, when she was only as high as a
man's leg. Why hadn't the
hunters run away? They had, Ruth said, but even then
Loli had been quick on her
feet. Rather than feel her gnawing fear and hunger on
the perimeter of their
camp, they had taken her in. And had regretted it
ever since, " . . . long time.
Long, long, long time!"
Locklear knew that he had gained a crucial insight; a
Neanderthal behaved gently
because it was in his own best interests. It was, at
least, until modern
Cro-Magnon man appeared without the blessing, and the
curse, of telepathy.
Ruth's first telepathic greeting to the waking
Minuteman had warned that he was
in the presence of a great shaman, a "new" but
nonetheless a good man. Minuteman
had been so glad to see Ruth that he had proposed a
brief roll in the grass,
which involved great pleasure to participants-and it
was expected that the
audience could share their joy by telepathy. But Ruth
knew better than that,
reminding her friend that Locklear was not
telepathic. Besides, she had the
strongest kind of intuition that Locklear did not
want to see her enjoying any
other man. Peculiar, even bizarre; but new people
were hard to figure. . . .
It was clear now, why Ruth's word "new" seemed to
have an unpleasant side. New
people were savage people. So much for labels,
Locklear told himself. Modern man
is the real savage!
Ruth took Loli out of stasis for supper, perhaps to
share in the girl's pleasure
at such a feast. Through Ruth, Locklear explained to
Minuteman that he regretted
giving pain to his guest. He would be happy to let
gentles do the hunting, but
all animals belonged to Locklear. No animals must be
hunted without prior
permission. Minuteman was agreeable, especially with
a mouthful of succulent
goat rib in his big lantern jaws. Tonight, Minuteman
could share the cabin.
Tomorrow he must choose a site for a camp, for
Locklear would soon bring many,
many more gentles.
Locklear fell asleep slowly, no thanks to the ache in
his jaws. The others had
wolfed down that barbecued goat as if it had been
well-aged porterhouse, but he
had been able to choke only a little of it down after
endless chewing because,
savory taste or not, that old goat had been tough as
a kzin's knuckles.
He wondered how Kit and Scarface were getting along,
on the other side of those
force walls. He really ought to fire up the lifeboat
and visit them soon. Just
as soon as he got things going here. With his
mind-bending discovery of the
truly gentle nature of Neanderthals, he was feeling
very optimistic about the
future. And modestly hungry. And very, very sleepy.
***
Minuteman spent two days quartering the vast circular
expanse of Newduvai while
Locklear piloted the Scooter. In the process, he
picked up a smatter of modern
words though it was Ruth, in the evenings, who
straightened out
misunderstandings. Minuteman's clear choice for a
major encampment was beside
Newduvai's big lake, near the point where a stream
joined the "big water." The
site was a day's walk from the cabin, and Minuteman
stressed that his choice
might not be the choice of tribal elders. Besides,
gentles tended to wander from
season to season.
Though tempted by his power to command, Locklear
decided against using it unless
absolutely necessary. He would release them all and
let them sort out their
world, with the exception of excess hunting or tribal
warfare. That didn't seem
likely, but: "Ruth," he asked after the second day of
recon, "see all people in
little houses in cave?"
"Yes," she said firmly. "Many many in tribe of
Minuteman and Ruth. Many many in
other tribe."
But "many many" could mean a dozen or less. "Ruth see
all in other tribe
before?"
"Many times," she assured him. "Others give
killstones, Ruth tribe give food."
"You trade with them," he said. After she had studied
his face a moment, she
agreed. He persisted: "Bad trades? Problem?"
"No problem," she said. "Trade one, two man or woman
sometime, before big fire."
He asked about that, of course, and got an answer to
a question he hadn't
thought to ask. Ruth's last memory before waking on
Newduvai-and Minuteman's
too-was of the great fire that had driven several
tribes to the base of a cliff.
There, with trees bursting into flame nearby, the men
had gathered around their
women and children, beginning their song to welcome
death. It was at that moment
when the Outsiders must have put them in stasis and
whisked them off to the rim
of Known Space.
Almost an ethical decision, Locklear admitted.
Almost. "No little gentles in
cave," he reminded Ruth. "Locklear much sorry."
"No good, think of little gentles," she said glumly.
And with that, they passed
to matters of tribal leadership. The old men
generally led, though an old woman
might have followers. It seemed a loose kind of
democracy and, when some faction
disagreed, they could simply move out-perhaps no
farther than a short walk away.
Locklear soon learned why the gentles tended to stay
close: "Big, bad animals
eat gentles," Ruth said. "New people take food, kill
gentles," she added. Lions,
wolves, bears-and modern man-were their reasons for
safety in numbers.
Ruth and Minuteman had both seen much of Newduvai
from the air by now. To check
his own conclusions, Locklear said, "Plenty food for
many people. Plenty for
many, many, many people?"
"Plenty," said Ruth, "for all people in little
houses; no problem." Locklear
ended the session on that note and Minuteman, perhaps
with some silent urging
from Ruth, chose to sleep outside.
Again, Locklear had a trouble getting to sleep, even
after a half-hour of
delightful tussle with the willing, homely, gentle
Ruth. He could hardly wait
for morning and his great social experiment.
***
His work would have gone much faster with Minuteman's
muscular help, but
Locklear wanted to share the crypt's secrets with as
few as possible. The lake
site was only fifteen minutes from the crypt by
scooter, and there were no
predators to attack a stasis cage, so Locklear
transported the gentles by twos
and left them in their cages, cursing his rotten
time-management. It soon was
obvious that the job would take two days and he'd set
his heart on results now,
now, now!
He was setting the scooter down near his cabin when
Minuteman shot from the
doorway, began to lope off, and then turned,
approaching Locklear with the
biggest, ugliest smile he could manage. He chattered
away with all the innocence
of a ferret in a birdhouse, his maleness in repose
but rather large for that
innocence. And wet.
Ruth waved from the cabin doorway.
"Right," Locklear snarled, too exhausted to let his
anger kindle to white-hot
fury. "Minuteman, I named you well. Your pants would
be down, if you had any.
Ahh, the hell with it."
Loli was asleep in her cage, and Minuteman found
employment elsewhere as
Locklear ate chopped goat, grapes, and gruel. He did
not look at Ruth, even when
she sat near him as he chewed.
Finally he walked to the pallet, looking from it to
Ruth, shook his head and
then lay down.
Ruth cocked her head in that way she had. "Like Ruth
stay at fire?"
"I don't give a good shit. Yes, Ruth stay at fire.
Good." Some perversity made
him want her, but it was not as strong as his need
for sleep. And rejecting her
might be a kind of punishment, he thought sleepily. .
..
Late the next afternoon, Locklear completed his
airlift and returned to the
cabin. He could see Minuteman sitting disconsolate,
chin in hands, at the edge
of the clearing. Apparently, no one had seen fit to
take Loli from stasis. He
couldn't blame them much. Actually, he thought as he
entered the cabin, he had
no logical reason to blame them for anything. They
enjoyed each other according
to their own tradition, and he was out of step with
it. Damn right, and I don't
know if I could ever get in step.
He called Minuteman in. "Many, many gentles at big
water," he said. "No big bad
meat hurt gentles. Like see gentles now?" Minuteman
wanted to very much. So did
Ruth. He urged them onto the scooter and handed Ruth
her woven basket full of
dried apricots, giving both hindquarters of the goat
to Minuteman without
comment. Soon they were flitting above conifers and
poplars, and then Ruth saw
the dozens of cages glistening beside the lake.
"Gentles, gentles," she exclaimed, and began to weep.
Locklear found himself
angry at her pleasure, the anger of a wronged spouse,
and set the scooter down
abruptly some distance from the stasis cages.
Minuteman was off and running instantly. Ruth
disembarked, turned, held a hand
out. "Locklear like wake gentles? Ruth tell gentles,
Locklear good, much good
magics."
"Tell 'em anything you like," he barked, "after you
screw 'em all!"
In the distance, Minuteman was capering around the
cages, shouting in glee.
After a moment, Ruth said, "Ruth like go back with
Locklear."
"The hell you will! No, Ruth like push-push with many
gentles. Locklear no
like." And he twisted a vernier hard, the scooter
lifting quickly.
Plaintively, growing faint on the breeze: "Ruth hurt
in head. Like Locklear much
. . ." And whatever else she said was lost.
He returned to the hidden kzin lifeboat, hating the
idea of the silent cabin,
and monitored the comm set for hours. It availed him
nothing, but its boring
repetitions eventually put him to sleep.
***
For the next week, Locklear worked like a man
demented. He used a stasis cage,
as he had on Kzersatz, to store his remaining few
hunks of smoked goat. He flew
surveillance over the new encampment, so high that no
one would spot him, which
meant that he could see little of interest, beyond
the fact that they were
building huts of bundled grass and some dark
substance, perhaps mud. The stasis
cages lay in disarray; he must retrieve them soon.
It was pure luck that he spotted a half-dozen deer
one morning, a half-day's
walk from the encampment, running as though from a
predator. Presently, hovering
beyond big chestnut trees, he saw them: men,
patiently herding their prey toward
an arroyo. He grinned to himself and waited until a
rise of ground would cover
his maneuver. Then he swooped low behind the deer,
swerving from side to side to
group them, yelping and growling until he was hoarse.
By that time, the deer had
put a mile between themselves and their real pursuers.
No better time than now to get a few things straight.
Locklear swept the scooter
toward the encampment at a stately pace, circling
twice, hearing thin shouts as
the Neanderthals noted his approach. He watched them
carefully, one hand
checking his kzin sidearm. They might be gentle but a
few already carried spears
and they were, after all, experts at the quick kill.
He let the scooter hover at
knee height, a constant reminder of his great magics,
and noted the stir he made
as the scooter glided silently to a stop at the edge
of the camp.
He saw Ruth and Minuteman emerge from one of the
dozen beehive-shaped,
grass-and-wattle huts. No, it wasn't Ruth; he
admitted with chagrin that they
all looked very much alike. The women paused first,
and then he did spot Ruth,
waving at him, a few steps nearer. The men moved
nearer, falling silent now,
laying their new spears and stone axes down as if by
prearrangement. They
stopped a few paces ahead of the women.
An older male, almost covered in curly gray hair,
continued to advance using a
spear-no, it was only a long walking staff-to aid
him. He too stopped, with a
glance over his shoulder, and then Locklear saw a
bald old fellow with a
withered leg hobbling past the younger men. Both of
the oldsters advanced
together then, full of years and dignity without a
stitch of clothes. The gray
man might have been sixty, with a little potbelly and
knobby joints suggesting
arthritis. The cripple was perhaps ten years younger
but stringy and meatless,
and his right thigh had been hideously smashed a long
time before. His right leg
was inches too short, and his left hip seemed
disfigured from years of walking
to compensate.
Locklear knew he needed Ruth now, but feared to risk
violating some taboo so
soon. "Locklear," he said, showing empty hands, then
tapping his breast.
The two old men cocked their heads in a parody of
Ruth's familiar gesture, then
the curly one began to speak. Of course it was all
gibberish, but the walking
staff lay on the ground now and their hands were
empty.
Wondering how much they would understand
telepathically, Locklear spoke with
enough volume for Ruth to hear. "Gentles hunt meat in
hills," he said. "Locklear
no like." He was not smiling.
The old men used brief phrases to each other, and
then the crippled one turned
toward the huts. Ruth began to walk forward, smiling
wistfully at Locklear as
she stopped next to the cripple.
She waited to hear a few words from each man, and
then faced Locklear. "All one
tribe now, two leaders," she said. "Skywater and
Shortleg happy to see great
shaman who save all from big fire. Ruth happy see
Locklear too," she added
softly.
He told her about the men hunting deer, and that it
must stop; they must make do
without meat for awhile. She translated. The old men
conferred, and their
gesture for "no" was the same as Ruth's. They replied
through Ruth that young
men had always hunted, and always would.
He told them that the animals were his, and they must
not take what belonged to
another. The old men said they could see that he felt
in his head the animals
were his, but no one owned the great mother land, and
no one could own her
children. They felt much bad for him. He was a very,
very great shaman, but not
so good at telling gentles how to live.
With great care, having chosen the names Cloud and
Gimp for the old fellows, he
explained that if many animals were killed, soon
there would be no more. One day
when many little animals were born, he would let them
hunt the older ones.
The gist of their reply was this: Locklear obviously
thought he was right, but
they were older and therefore wiser. And because they
had never run out of game
no matter how much they killed, they never could run
out of game. If it hadn't
already happened, it wouldn't ever happen.
Abruptly, Locklear motioned to Cloud and had Ruth
translate: he could prove the
scarcity of game if Cloud would ride the scooter as
Ruth and Minuteman had
ridden it.
Much silent discussion and some out loud. Then old
Cloud climbed aboard and in a
moment, the scooter was above the trees.
From a mile up, they could identify most of the game
animals, especially herd
beasts in open plains. There weren't many to see. "No
babies at all," Locklear
said, trying to make gestures for "small." "Cloud,
gentles must wait until
babies are born." The old fellow seemed to understand
Locklear's thoughts well
enough, and spoke a bit of gibberish, but his head
gesture was a Neanderthal
"no."
Locklear, furious now, used the verniers with
abandon. The scooter fled across
parched arroyo and broken hill, closer to the ground
and now so fast that
Locklear himself began to feel nervous. Old Cloud
sensed his unease, grasping
handholds with gnarled knuckles and hunkering down,
and Locklear knew a savage
elation. Serve the old bastard right if I splattered
him all over Newduvai. And
then he saw the old man staring at his eyes, and knew
that the thought had been
received.
"No, I won't do it," he said. But a part of him had
wanted to; still wanted to
out of sheer frustration. Cloud's face was a rigid
mask of fear, big teeth
showing, and Locklear slowed the scooter as he
approached the encampment again.
Cloud did not wait for the vehicle to settle, but
debarked as fast as painful
old joints would permit and stood facing his
followers without a sound.
After a moment, with dozens of Neanderthals staring
in stunned silence, they all
turned their backs, a wave of moans rising from every
throat.
Ruth hesitated, but she too faced away from Locklear.
"Ruth! No hurt Cloud. Locklear no like hurt gentles."
The moans continued as Cloud strode away. "Locklear
need to talk to Ruth!" And
then as the entire tribe began to walk away, he
raised his voice: "No hurt
gentles, Ruth!"
She stopped, but would not look at him as she
replied. "Cloud say new people
hurt gentles and not know. Locklear hurt Cloud
before, want kill Cloud. Locklear
go soon soon," she finished in a sob. Suddenly, then,
she was running to catch
the others.
Some of the men were groping for spears now. Locklear
did not wait to see what
they might do with them. A half-hour later he was
using the dolly in the crypt,
ranking cage upon cage just inside the obscuring
film. With several lion cages
stacked like bricks at the entrance, no sensible
Neanderthal would go a step
further. Later, he could use disassembled stasis
units as booby traps as he had
done on Kzersatz. But it was nearly dark when he
finished, and Locklear was
hurrying. Now, for the first time ever on Newduvai,
he felt gooseflesh when he
thought of camping in the open.
***
For days, he considered a return to Kzersatz in the
lifeboat, meanwhile
improving the cabin with Loli's help. He got that
help very simply, by refusing
to let her sleep in her stasis cage unless she did
help. Loli was very bright,
and learned his language quickly because she could
not rely on telepathy.
Operating on the sour-grape theory, he told himself
that Ruth had been mud-fence
ugly; he hadn't felt any real affection for a
Neanderthal bimbo. Not really . .
.
He managed to ignore Loli's budding charms by
reminding himself that she was no
more than twelve or so, and gradually she began to
trust him. He wondered how
much that trust would suffer if she found he was
taking her from stasis only on
the days he needed help.
As the days faded into weeks, the cabin became a
two-room affair with a
connecting passage for firewood and storage. Loli,
after endless scraping and
soaking of the stiff goathide in acorn water,
fashioned herself a one-piece
garment. She taught Locklear how repeated boiling
turned acorns into edible
nuts, and wove mats of plaited grass for the cabin.
He let her roam in search of small game once a week
until the day she returned
empty-handed. He was cutting hinge material of
stainless steel from a stasis
cage with Kzin shears at the time, and smiled. "Don't
feel bad, Loli. There's
plenty of meat in storage." The more he used complete
sentences, the more she
seemed to be picking up the lingo.
She shrugged, picking at a scab on one of her hard
little feet. "Loli not hunt.
Gentles hunt Loli." She read his stare correctly.
"Gentles not try to hurt Loli;
this many follow and hide," she said, holding up four
fingers and making a
comical pantomime of a stealthy hunter.
He held up four fingers. "Four," he reminded her.
"Did they follow you here?"
"Maybe want to follow Loli here," she said, grinning.
"Loli think much. Loli go
far far-"
"Very far," he corrected.
"Very far to dry place, gentles no follow feet there.
Loli hide, run very far
where gentles not see. Come back to Locklear."
Yes, they'd have trouble tracking her through those
desert patches, he realized,
and she could've doubled back unseen in the arroyos.
Or she might have been
followed after all. "Loli is smart," he said, patting
her shoulder, "but gentles
are smart too. Gentles maybe want to hurt Locklear."
"Gentles cover big holes, spears in holes, come back,
maybe find kill animal.
Maybe kill Locklear."
Yeah, they'd do it that way. Or maybe set a fire to
burn him out of the cabin.
"Loli, would you feel bad if the gentles killed me?"
In her vast innocence, Loli thought about it before
answering. "Little while,
yes. Loli don't like to live alone. Gentles alltime
like to play," she said,
with a bump-and-grind routine so outrageous that he
burst out laughing.
"Locklear don't trade food for play," she added,
making it obvious that
Neanderthal men did.
"Not until Loli is older," he said with brutal
honesty.
"Loli is a woman," she said, pouting as though he had
slandered her.
To shift away from this dangerous topic he said,
"Yes, and you can help me make
this place safe from gentles." That was the day he
began teaching the girl how
to disassemble cages for their most potent parts, the
grav polarizers and stasis
units.
They burned off the surrounding ground cover bit by
bit during the nights to
avoid telltale smoke, and Loli assured him that
Neanderthals never ventured from
camp on nights as dark as Newduvai's. Sooner or
later, he knew, they were bound
to discover his little homestead and he intended to
make it a place of
terrifying magics.
As luck would have it, he had over two months to
prepare before a far more
potent new magic thundered across the sky of Newduvai.
***
Locklear swallowed hard the day he heard that long
roll of synthetic thunder,
recognizing it for what it was. He had told Loli
about the kzinti, and now he
warned her that they might be near, and saw her
coltish legs flash into the
forest as he sent the scooter scudding close to the
ground toward the heights
where his lifeboat was hidden. He would need only one
close look to identify a
kzin ship.
Dismounting near the lifeboat, peering past an
outcrop and shivering because he
was so near the cold force walls, he saw a
foreshortened dot hovering near
Newduvai's big lake. Winks of light streaked downward
from it; he counted five
shots before the ship ceased firing, and knew that
its target had to be the big
encampment of gentles.
"If only I had those beam cannons I took apart," he
growled, unconsciously
taking the side of the Neanderthals as tendrils of
smoke fingered the sky. But
he had removed the weapon pylon mounts long before.
He released a long-held
breath as the ship dwindled to a dot in the sky,
hunching his shoulders,
wondering how he could have been so naive as to
forswear war altogether. Killing
was a bitter draught, yet not half so bitter as dying.
The ship disappeared. Ten minutes later he saw it
again, making the kind of
circular sweep used for cartography, and this time it
passed only a mile
distant, and he gasped-for it was not a kzin ship.
The little cruiser escort
bore Interworld Commission markings.
"The goddamn tabbies must have taken one of ours," he
muttered to himself, and
cursed as he saw the ship break off its sweep. No
question about it: they were
hovering very near his cabin.
Locklear could not fight from the lifeboat, but at
least he had plenty of spare
magazines for his kzin sidearm in the lifeboat's
lockers. He crammed his pockets
with spares, expecting to see smoke roiling from his
homestead as he began to
skulk his scooter low toward home. His little vehicle
would not bulk large on
radar. And the tabbies might not realize how soon it
grew dark on Newduvai.
Maybe he could even the odds a little by landing near
enough to snipe by the
light of his burning cabin. He sneaked the last two
hundred meters afoot,
already steeling himself for the sight of a burning
cabin.
But the cabin was not burning. And the kzinti were
not pillaging because, he saw
with utter disbelief, the armed crew surrounding his
cabin was human. He had
already stood erect when it occurred to him that
humans had been known to defect
in previous wars-and he was carrying a kzin weapon.
He placed the sidearm and
spare magazines beneath a stone overhang. Then
Locklear strode out of the forest
rubber-legged, too weak with relief to be angry at
the firing on the village.
The first man to see him was a rawboned, ruddy
private with the height of a
belter. He brought his assault rifle to bear on
Locklear, then snapped it to
"port arms." Three others spun as the big belter
shouted, "Gomulka! We've got
one!"
A big fireplug of a man, wearing sergeant's stripes,
whirled and moved away from
a cabin window, motioning a smaller man beneath the
other window to stay put.
Striding toward the belter, he used the heavy bellow
of command. "Parker, escort
him in! Schmidt, watch the perimeter."
The belter trotted toward Locklear while an athletic
specimen with a yellow crew
cut moved out to watch the forest where Locklear had
emerged. Locklear took the
belter's free hand and shook it repeatedly. They
walked to the cabin together,
and the rest of the group relaxed visibly to see
Locklear all but capering in
his delight. Two other armed figures appeared from
across the clearing, one with
curves too lush to be male, and Locklear invited them
all in with, "There are no
kzinti on this piece of the planet; welcome to
Newduvai."
Leaning, sitting, they all found their ease in
Locklear's room, and their gazes
were as curious as Locklear's own. He noted the
varied shoulder patches: We Made
It, Jinx, Wunderland. The woman, wearing the bars of
a lieutenant, was evidently
a Flatlander like himself. Commander Curt Stockton
wore a Canyon patch, standing
wiry and erect beside the woman, with pale gray eyes
that missed nothing.
"I was captured by a kzin ship," Locklear explained,
"and marooned. But I
suppose that's all in the records; I call the planet
'Zoo' because I think the
Outsiders designed it with that in mind."
"We had these coordinates, and something vague about
prison compounds, from
translations of kzin records," Stockton replied. "You
must know a lot about this
Zoo place by now."
"A fair amount. Listen, I saw you firing on a village
near the big lake an hour
ago. You mustn't do it again, Commander. Those people
are real Earth
Neanderthals, probably the only ones in the entire
galaxy."
The blocky sergeant, David Gomulka, slid his gaze to
lock on Stockton's and
shrugged big sloping shoulders. The woman, a
close-cropped brunette whose
cinched belt advertised her charms, gave Locklear a
brilliant smile and sat down
on his pallet. "I'm Grace Agostinho; Lieutenant,
Manaus Intelligence Corps,
Earth. Forgive our manners, Mr. Locklear, we've been
in heavy fighting along the
Rim and this isn't exactly what we expected to find."
"Me neither," Locklear smiled, then turned serious.
"I hope you didn't destroy
that village."
"Sorry about that," Stockton said. "We may have
caused a few casualties when we
opened fire on those huts. I ordered the firing
stopped as soon as I saw they
weren't kzinti. But don't look so glum, Locklear;
it's not as if they were
human."
"Damn right they are," Locklear insisted. "As you'll
soon find out, if we can
get their trust again. I've even taught a few of 'em
some of our language. And
that's not all. But hey, I'm dying of curiosity
without any news from outside.
Is the war over?"
Commander Stockton coughed lightly for attention and
the others seemed as
attentive as Locklear. "It looks good around the core
worlds, but in the Rim
sectors it's still anybody's war." He jerked a thumb
toward the two-hundred-ton
craft, twice the length of a kzin lifeboat, that
rested on its repulsor jacks at
the edge of the clearing with its own small pinnace
clinging to its back. "The
Anthony Wayne is the kind of cruiser escort they
don't mind turning over to
small combat teams like mine. The big brass gave us
this mission after we
captured some kzinti files from a tabby dreadnought.
Not as good as R & R back
home, but we're glad of the break." Stockton's grin
was infectious.
"I haven't had time to set up a distillery," Locklear
said, "or I'd offer you
drinks on the house."
"A man could get parched here," said a swarthy little
private.
"Good idea, Gazho. You're detailed to get some
medicinal brandy from the med
stores," said Stockton.
As the private hurried out, Locklear said, "You could
probably let the rest of
the crew out to stretch their legs, you know. Not
much to guard against on
Newduvai."
"What you see is all there is," said a compact
private with high cheekbones and
a Crashlander medic patch. Locklear had not heard him
speak before. Softly
accented, laconic; almost a scholar's diction. But
that's what you might expect
of a military medic.
Stockton's quick gaze riveted the man as if to say,
"that's enough." To Locklear
he nodded. "Meet Soichiro Lee; an intern before the
war. Has a tendency to act
as if a combat team is a democratic outfit but," his
glance toward Lee was
amused now, "he's a good sawbones. Anyhow, the Wayne
can take care of herself.
We've set her auto defenses for voice recognition
when the hatch is closed, so
don't go wandering closer than ten meters without one
of us. And if one of those
hairy apes throws a rock at her, she might just burn
him for his troubles."
Locklear nodded. "A crew of seven; that's pretty
thin."
Stockton, carefully: "You want to expand on that?"
Locklear: "I mean, you've got your crew pretty thinly
spread. The tabbies have
the same problem, though. The bunch that marooned me
here had only four
members."
Sergeant Gomulka exhaled heavily, catching Stockton's
glance. "Commander, with
your permission: Locklear here might have some ideas
about those tabby records."
"Umm. Yeah, I suppose," with some reluctance.
"Locklear, apparently the kzinti
felt there was some valuable secret, a weapon maybe,
here on Zoo. They intended
to return for it. Any idea what it was?"
Locklear laughed aloud. "Probably it was me. It ought
to be the whole bleeding
planet," he said. "If you stand near the force wall
and look hard, you can see
what looks like a piece of the Kzin homeworld close
to this one. You can't
imagine the secrets the other compounds might have.
For starters, the life forms
I found in stasis had been here forty thousand years,
near as I can tell, before
I released 'em."
"You released them?"
"Maybe I shouldn't have, but-" He glanced shyly
toward Lieutenant Agostinho. "I
got pretty lonesome."
"Anyone would," she said, and her smile was more than
understanding.
Gomulka rumbled in evident disgust, "Why would a lot
of walking fossils be
important to the tabby war effort?"
"They probably wouldn't," Locklear admitted. "And
anyhow, I didn't find the
specimens until after the kzinti left." He could not
say exactly why, but this
did not seem the time to regale them with his
adventures on Kzersatz. Something
just beyond the tip of his awareness was flashing
like a caution signal.
Now Gomulka looked at his commander. "So that's not
what we're looking for," he
said. "Maybe it's not on this Newduvai dump. Maybe
next door?"
"Maybe. We'll take it one dump at a time," said
Stockton, and turned as the
swarthy private popped into the cabin. "Ah. I trust
the Armagnac didn't insult
your palate on the way, Nathan," he said.
Nathan Gazho looked at the bottle's broken seal, then
began to distribute nested
plastic cups, his breath already laced with his quick
nip of the brandy. "You
don't miss much," he grumbled.
But I'm missing something, Locklear thought as he
touched his half-filled cup to
that of the sloe-eyed, languorous lieutenant. Slack
discipline? But combat
troops probably ignore the spit and polish. Except
for this hotsy who keeps
looking at me as if we shared a secret, they've all
got the hand calluses and
haircuts of shock troops. No, it's something else . .
.
He told himself it was reluctance to make himself a
hero; and next he told
himself they wouldn't believe him anyway. And then he
admitted that he wasn't
sure exactly why, but he would tell them nothing
about his victory on Kzersatz
unless they asked. Maybe because I suspect they'd
round up poor Scarface, maybe
hunt him down and shoot him like a mad dog no matter
what I said. Yeah, that's
reason enough. But something else, too.
Night fell, with its almost audible thump, while they
emptied the Armagnac.
Locklear explained his scholarly fear that the
gentles were likely to kill off
animals that no other ethologist had ever studied on
the hoof; mentioned Ruth
and Minuteman as well; and decided to say nothing
about Loli to these hardbitten
troops. Anse Parker, the gangling belter, kept
bringing the topic back to the
tantalizingly vague secret mentioned in kzin files.
Parker, Locklear decided,
thought himself subtle but managed only to be
transparently cunning.
Austin Schmidt, the wide-shouldered blond, had little
capacity for Armagnac and
kept toasting the day when " . . . all this crap is
history and I'm a man of
means," singing that refrain from an old barracks
ballad in a surprisingly sweet
tenor. Locklear could not warm up to Nathan Gazho,
whose gaze took inventory of
every item in the cabin. The man's expensive
wristcomp and pinky ring mismatched
him like earrings on a weasel.
David Gomulka was all noncom, though, with a
veteran's gift for controlling men
and a sure hand in measuring booze. If the two
officers felt any unease when he
called them "Curt" and "Grace," they managed to avoid
showing it. Gomulka spun
out the tale of his first hand-to-hand engagement
against a kzin penetration
team with details that proved he knew how the tabbies
fought. Locklear wanted to
say, "That's right; that's how it is," but only
nodded.
It was late in the evening when the commander cut
short their speculations on
Zoo, stood up, snapped the belt flash from its ring
and flicked it
experimentally. "We could all use some sleep," he
decided, with the smile of a
young father at his men, some of whom were older than
he. "Mr. Locklear, we have
more than enough room. Please be our guest in the
Anthony Wayne tonight."
Locklear, thinking that Loli might steal back to the
cabin if she were somewhere
nearby, said, "I appreciate it, Commander, but I'm
right at home here. Really."
A nod, and a reflective gnawing of Stockton's lower
lip. "I'm responsible for
you now, Locklear. God knows what those Neanderthals
might do, now that we've
set fire to their nests."
"But-" The men were stretching out their kinks,
paying silent but close
attention to the interchange.
"I must insist. I don't want to put it in terms of
command, but I am the local
sheriff here now, so to speak." The engaging grin
again. "Come on, Locklear,
think of it as repaying your hospitality. Nothing's
certain in this place, and-"
his last phrase bringing soft chuckles from Gomulka,
"they'd throw me in the
brig if I let anything happen to you now."
***
The taciturn Parker led the way, and Locklear smiled
in the darkness thinking
how Loli might wonder at the intensely bright,
intensely magical beams that
bobbed toward the ship. After Parker called out his
name and a long number, the
ship's hatch steps dropped at their feet and Locklear
knew the reassurance of
climbing into an Interworld ship with its familiar
smells, whines and beeps.
Parker and Schmidt were loudly in favor of a
nightcap, but Stockton's, "Not a
good idea, David," to the sergeant was met with a nod
and barked commands by
Gomulka. Grace Agostinho made a similar offer to
Locklear.
"Thanks anyway. You know what I'd really like?"
"Probably," she said, with a pursed-lipped smile.
He was blushing as he said, "Ham sandwiches. Beer. A
slice of thrillcake," and
nodded quickly when she hauled a frozen shrimp
teriyaki from their food lockers.
When it popped from the radioven, he sat near the
ship's bridge to eat it, idly
noting a few dark foodstains on the bridge linolamat
and listening to Grace tell
of small news from home. The Amazon dam, a new
"mustsee" holo musical, a
controversial cure for the common cold; the kind of
tremendous trifles that
cemented friendships.
She left him briefly while he chased scraps on his
plate, and by the time she
returned most of the crew had secured their pneumatic
cubicle doors. "It's
always satisfying to feed a man with an appetite,"
said Grace, smiling at his
clean plate as she slid it into the galley scrubber.
"I'll see you're fed well
on the Wayne." With hands on her hips, she said,
"Well: Private Schmidt has
sentry duty. He'll show you to your quarters."
He took her hand, thanked her, and nodded to the
slightly wavering Schmidt, who
led the way back toward the ship's engine room. He
did not look back but, from
the sound of it, Grace entered a cubicle where two
men were arguing in subdued
tones.
Schmidt showed him to the rearmost cubicle but not
the rearmost dozen bunks.
Those, he saw, were ranked inside a cage of duralloy
with no privacy whatever.
Dark crusted stains spotted the floor inside and
outside the cage. A fax sheet
lay in the passageway. When Locklear glanced toward
it, the private saw it,
tried to hide a startled response, and then essayed a
drunken grin.
"Gotta have a tight ship," said Schmidt, banging his
head on the duralloy as he
retrieved the fax and balled it up with one hand. He
tossed the wadded fax into
a flush-mounted waste receptacle, slid the cubicle
door open for Locklear, and
managed a passable salute. "Have a good one, pal. You
know how to adjust your
rubberlady?"
Locklear saw that the mattresses of the two bunks
were standard models with
adjustable inflation and webbing. "No problem," he
replied, and slid the door
closed. He washed up at the tiny inset sink, used the
urinal slot below it, and
surveyed his clothes after removing them. They'd all
seen better days. Maybe he
could wangle some new ones. He was sleepier than he'd
thought, and adjusted his
rubberlady for a soft setting, and was asleep within
moments.
He did not know how long it was before he found
himself sitting bolt-upright in
darkness. He knew what was wrong, now: everything. It
might be possible for a
little escort ship to plunder records from a derelict
mile-long kzin battleship.
It was barely possible that the same craft would be
sent to check on some big
kzin secret-but not without at least a cruiser, if
the kzinti might be heading
for Zoo.
He rubbed a trickle of sweat as it counted his ribs.
He didn't have to be a
military buff to know that ordinary privates do not
have access to medical
lockers, and the commander had told Gazho to get that
brandy from med stores.
Right; and all those motley shoulder patches didn't
add up to a picked combat
crew, either. And one more thing: even in his
half-blotted condition, Schmidt
had snatched that fax sheet up as though it was
evidence against him. Maybe it
was . . .
He waved the overhead lamp on, grabbed his ratty
flight suit, and slid his
cubicle door open. If anyone asked, he was looking
for a cleaner unit for his
togs.
A low thrum of the ship's sleeping hydraulics; a
slightly louder buzz of someone
sleeping, most likely Schmidt while on sentry duty.
Not much discipline at all.
I wonder just how much commanding Stockton really
does. Locklear stepped into
the passageway, moved several paces, and eased his
free hand into the waste
receptacle slot. Then he thrust the fax wad into his
dirty flight suit and
padded silently back, cursing the sigh of his door. A
moment later he was colder
than before.
The fax was labeled, "PRISONER RIGHTS AND
PRIVILEGES," and had been signed by
some Provost Marshal-or a doctor, to judge from its
illegibility. He'd bet
anything that fax had fallen, or had been torn, from
those duralloy bars.
Rust-colored crusty stains on the floor; a similar
stain near the ship's bridge;
but no obvious damage to the ship from kzin weapons.
It took all his courage to go into the passageway
again, flight suit in hand,
and replace the wadded fax sheet where he'd found it.
And the door seemed much
louder this time, almost a sob instead of a sigh.
Locklear felt like sobbing too. He lay on his
rubberlady in the dark, thinking
about it. A hundred scenarios might explain some of
the facts, but only one
matched them all: the Anthony Wayne had been a
prisoner ship, but now the
prisoners were calling themselves "commander" and
"sergeant," and the real crew
of the Anthony Wayne had made those stains inside the
ship with their blood.
He wanted to shout it, but demanded it silently: So
why would a handful of
deserters fly to Zoo? Before he fell at last into a
troubled sleep, he had asked
it again and again, and the answer was always the
same: somehow, one of them had
learned of the kzin records and hoped to find Zoo's
secret before either side
did.
These people would be deadly to anyone who knew their
secret. And almost
certainly, they'd never buy the truth, that Locklear
himself was the secret
because the kzinti had been so sure he was an
Interworld agent.
***
Locklear awoke with a sensation of dread, then a
brief upsurge of joy at
sleeping in modern accommodations, and then he
remembered his conclusions in the
middle of the night, and his optimism fell off and
broke.
To mend it, he decided to smile with the innocence of
a Candide and plan his
tactics. If he could get to the kzin lifeboat, he
might steer it like a slow
battering ram and disable the Anthony Wayne. Or they
might blow him to flinders
in midair-and what if his fears were wrong, and
despite all evidence this combat
team was genuine? In any case, disabling the ship
meant marooning the whole lot
of them together. It wasn't a plan calculated to
lengthen his life expectancy;
maybe he would think of another.
The crew was already bustling around with breakfasts
when he emerged, and yes,
he could use the ship's cleaning unit for his
clothes. When he asked for spare
clothing, Soichiro Lee was first to deny it to him.
"Our spares are
still-contaminated from a previous engagement," he
explained, with a meaningful
look toward Gomulka.
I bet they are, with blood, Locklear told himself as
he scooped his synthesized
eggs and bacon. Their uniforms all seemed to fit
well. Probably their own, he
decided. The stylized winged gun on Gomulka's patch
said he could fly gunships.
Lee might be a medic, and the sensuous Grace might be
a real intelligence
officer-and all could be renegades.
Stockton watched him eat, friendly as ever, arms
folded and relaxed. "Gomulka
and Gazho did a recon in our pinnace at dawn," he
said, sucking a tooth. "Seems
your apemen are already rebuilding at another site; a
terrace at this end of the
lake. A lot closer to us."
"I wish you could think of them as people," Locklear
said. "They're not terribly
bright, but they don't swing on vines."
Chuckling: "Bright enough to be nuisances, perhaps
try and burn us out if they
find the ship here," Stockton said. "Maybe bright
enough to know what it is the
tabbies found here. You said they can talk a little.
Well, you can help us
interrogate 'em."
"They aren't too happy with me," Locklear admitted as
Gomulka sat down with
steaming coffee. "But I'll try on one condition."
Gomulka's voice carried a rumble of barely hidden
threat. "Conditions? You're
talking to your commander, Locklear."
"It's a very simple one," Locklear said softly. "No
more killing or threatening
these people. They call themselves 'gentles,' and
they are. The New Smithson, or
half the Interworld University branches, would give a
year's budget to study
them alive."
Grace Agostinho had been working at a map terminal,
but evidently with an ear
open to their negotiations. As Stockton and Gomulka
gazed at each other in
silent surmise, she took the few steps to sit beside
Locklear, her hip warm
against his. "You're an ethologist. Tell me, what
could the kzinti do with these
gentles?"
Locklear nodded, sipped coffee, and finally said,
"I'm not sure. Study them
hoping for insights into the underlying psychology of
modern humans, maybe."
Stockton said, "But you said the tabbies don't know
about them."
"True; at least I don't see how they could. But you
asked. I can't believe the
gentles would know what you're after, but if you have
to ask them, of course
I'll help."
Stockton said it was necessary, and appointed Lee
acting corporal at the cabin
as he filled most of the pinnace's jumpseats with
himself, Locklear, Agostinho,
Gomulka, and the lank Parker. The little craft sat on
downsloping delta wings
that ordinarily nested against the Wayne's hull, and
had intakes for gas-reactor
jets. "Newest piece of hardware we have," Stockton
said, patting the pilot's
console. It was Gomulka, however, who took the
controls.
Locklear suggested that they approach very slowly,
with hands visibly up and
empty, as they settled the pinnace near the
beginnings of a new gentles
campsite. The gentles, including their women, all
rushed for primitive lances
but did not flee, and Anse Parker was the only one
carrying an obvious weapon as
the pinnace's canopy swung back. Locklear stepped
forward, talking and smiling,
with Parker at their backs. He saw Ruth waiting for
old Gimp, and said he was
much happy to see her, which was an understatement.
Minuteman, too, had survived
the firing on their village.
Cloud had not. Ruth told him so immediately.
"Locklear make many deaths to
gentles," she accused. Behind her, some of the
gentles stared with faces that
were anything but gentle. "Gentles not like talk to
Locklear, he says. Go now.
Please," she added, one of the last words he'd taught
her, and she said it with
urgency. Her glance toward Grace Agostinho was
interested, not hostile but
perhaps pitying.
Locklear moved away from the others, farther from the
glaring Gimp. "More new
people come," he called from a distance, pleading.
"Think gentles big, bad
animals. Stop when they see gentles; much much sorry.
Locklear say not hurt
gentles more."
With her head cocked sideways, Ruth seemed to be
testing his mind for lies. She
spoke with Gimp, whose face registered a deep sadness
and, perhaps, some
confusion as well. Locklear could hear a buzz of low
conversation between
Stockton nearby and Gomulka, who still sat at the
pinnace controls.
"Locklear think good, but bad things happen," Ruth
said at last. "Kill Cloud,
many more. Gentles not like fight. Locklear know
this," she said, almost crying
now. "Please go!"
Gomulka came out of the pinnace with his sidearm
drawn, and Locklear turned
toward him, aghast. "No shooting! You promised," he
reminded Stockton.
But: "We'll have to bring the ape-woman with the old
man," Stockton said grimly,
not liking it but determined. Gomulka stood quietly,
the big sloping shoulders
hunched.
Stockton said, "This is an explosive situation,
Locklear. We must take those two
for interrogation. Have the woman tell them we won't
hurt them unless their
people try to hunt us."
Then, as Locklear froze in horrified anger, Gomulka
bellowed, "Tell 'em!"
Locklear did it and Ruth began to call in their
language to the assembled
throng. Then, at Gomulka's command, Parker ran
forward to grasp the pathetic old
Gimp by the arm, standing more than a head taller
than the Neanderthal. That was
the moment when Minuteman, who must have understood
only a little of their
parley, leaped weaponless at the big belter.
Parker swept a contemptuous arm at the little
fellow's reach, but let out a howl
as Minuteman, with those blacksmith arms of his,
wrenched that arm as one would
wave a stick.
The report was shattering, with echoes slapping off
the lake, and Locklear
whirled to see Gomulka's two-handed aim with the
projectile sidearm. "No!
Goddammit, these are human beings," he screamed,
rushing toward the fallen
Minuteman, falling on his knees, placing one hand
over the little fellow's
breast as if to stop the blood that was pumping from
it. The gentles panicked at
the thunder from Gomulka's weapon, and began to run.
Minuteman's throat pulse still throbbed, but he was
in deep shock from the heavy
projectile and his pulse died as Locklear watched
helpless. Parker was already
clubbing old Gimp with his rifle-butt and Gomulka,
his sidearm out of sight,
grabbed Ruth as she tried to interfere. The big man
might as well have walked
into a train wreck while the train was still moving.
Grace Agostinho seemed to know she was no fighter,
retreating into the pinnace.
Stockton, whipping the ornamental braid from his
epaulets, began to fashion
nooses as he moved to help Parker, whose left arm was
half-useless. Locklear
came to his feet, saw Gomulka's big fist smash at
Ruth's temple, and dived into
the fray with one arm locked around Gomulka's bull
neck, trying to haul him
off-balance. Both of Ruth's hands grappled with
Gomulka's now, and Locklear saw
that she was slowly overpowering him while her big
teeth sought his throat, only
the whites of her eyes showing. It was the last thing
Locklear would see for
awhile, as someone raced up behind him.
***
He awoke to a gentle touch and the chill of
antiseptic spray behind his right
ear, and focused on the real concern mirrored on
Stockton's face. He lay in the
room he had built for Loli, Soichiro Lee kneeling
beside him, while Ruth and
Gimp huddled as far as they could get into a corner.
Stockton held a standard
issue parabellum, arms folded, not pointing the
weapon but keeping it in
evidence. "Only a mild concussion," Lee murmured to
the commander.
"You with us again, Locklear?" Stockton got a nod in
response, motioned for Lee
to leave, and sighed. "I'm truly sorry about all
this, but you were interfering
with a military operation. Gomulka is-he has a lot of
experience, and a good
commander would be stupid to ignore his suggestions."
Locklear was barely wise enough to avoid saying that
Gomulka did more commanding
than Stockton did. Pushing himself up, blinking from
the headache that split his
skull like an axe, he said, "I need some air."
"You'll have to get it right here," Stockton said,
"because I can't-won't let
you out. Consider yourself under arrest. Behave
yourself and that could change."
With that, he shouldered the woven mat aside and his
slow footsteps echoed down
the connecting corridor to the other room.
Without a door directly to the outside, he would have
to run down that corridor
where armed yahoos waited. Digging out would make
noise and might take hours.
Locklear slid down against the cabin wall, head in
hands. When he opened them
again he saw that poor old Gimp seemed comatose, but
Ruth was looking at him
intently. "I wanted to be friend of all gentles," he
sighed.
"Yes. Gentles know," she replied softly. "New people
with gentles not good.
Stok-Tun not want hurt, but others not care about
gentles. Ruth hear in head,"
she added, with a palm against the top of her head.
"Ruth must not tell," Locklear insisted. "New people
maybe kill if they know
gentles hear that way."
She gave him a very modern nod, and even in that
hopelessly homely face, her shy
smile held a certain beauty. "Locklear help Ruth
fight. Ruth like Locklear much,
much; even if Locklear is-new."
"Ruth, 'new' means 'ugly,' doesn't it? New, new," he
repeated, screwing his face
into a hideous caricature, making claws of his hands,
snarling in exaggerated
mimicry.
He heard voices raised in muffled excitement in the
other room, and Ruth's head
was cocked again momentarily. "Ugly?" She made faces,
too. "Part yes. New means
not same as before but also ugly, maybe bad."
"All the gentles considered me the ugly man. Yes?"
"Yes," she replied sadly. "Ruth not care. Like ugly
man if good man, too."
"And you knew I thought you were, uh . . ."
"Ugly? Yes. Ruth try and fix before."
"I know," he said, miserable. "Locklear like Ruth for
that and many, many more
things."
Quickly, as boots stamped in the corridor, she said,
"Big problem. New people
not think Locklear tell truth. New woman-"
Schmidt's rifle barrel moved the mat aside and he let
it do his gesturing to
Locklear. "On your feet, buddy, you've got some
explaining to do."
Locklear got up carefully so his head would not roll
off his shoulders.
Stumbling toward the doorway he said to Ruth: "What
about new woman?"
"Much, much new in head. Ruth feel sorry," she called
as Locklear moved toward
the other room.
***
They were all crowded in, and seven pairs of eyes
were intent on Locklear.
Grace's gaze held a liquid warmth but he saw nothing
warmer than icicles in any
other face. Gomulka and Stockton sat on the benches
facing him across his crude
table like judges at a trial. Locklear did not have
to be told to stand before
them.
Gomulka reached down at his own feet and grunted with
effort, and the toolbox
crashed down on the table. His voice was not its
usual command timbre, but
menacingly soft. "Gazho noticed this was all tabby
stuff," he said.
"Part of an honorable trade," Locklear said,
dry-mouthed. "I could have killed a
kzin and didn't."
"They trade you a fucking LIFEBOAT, too?"
Those goddamn pinnace sorties of his! The light of
righteous fury snapped in the
big man's face, but Locklear stared back. "Matter of
fact, yes. The kzin is a
cat of his word, sergeant."
"Enough of your bullshit, I want the truth!"
Now Locklear shifted his gaze to Stockton. "I'm
telling it. Enough of your
bullshit, too. How did your bunch of bozos get out of
the brig, Stockton?"
Parker blurted, "How the hell did-" before Gomulka
spun on his bench with a
silent glare. Parker blushed and swallowed.
"We're asking the questions, Locklear. The tabbies
must've left you a
girlfriend, too," Stockton said quietly. "Lee and
Schmidt both saw some little
hotsy queen of the jungle out near the perimeter
while we were gone. Make no
mistake, they'll hunt her down and there's nothing I
can say to stop them."
"Why not, if you're a commander?"
Stockton flushed angrily, with a glance at Gomulka
that was not kind. "That's my
problem, not yours. Look, you want some straight
talk, and here it is: Agostinho
has seen the goddamned translations from a tabby
dreadnought, and there is
something on this godforsaken place they think is
important, and we were in this
Rim sector when-when we got into some problems, and
she told me. I'm an officer,
I really am, believe what you like. But we have to
find whatever the hell there
is on Zoo."
"So you can plea-bargain after your mutiny?"
"That's ENOUGH," Gomulka bellowed. "You're a little
too cute for your own good,
Locklear. But if you're ever gonna get off this ball
of dirt, it'll be after you
help us find what the tabbies are after."
"It's me," Locklear said simply. "I've already told
you."
Silent consternation, followed by disbelief. "And
what the fuck are you,"
Gomulka spat.
"Not much, I admit. But as I told you, they captured
me and got the idea I knew
more about the Rim sectors than I do."
"How much kzinshit do you think I'll swallow?"
Gomulka was standing, now,
advancing around the table toward his captive. Curt
Stockton shut his eyes and
sighed his helplessness.
Locklear was wondering if he could grab anything from
the toolbox when a voice
of sweet reason stopped Gomulka. "Brutality hasn't
solved anything here yet,"
said Grace Agostinho. "I'd like to talk to Locklear
alone." Gomulka stopped,
glared at her, then back at Locklear. "I can't do any
worse than you have,
David," she added to the fuming sergeant.
Beckoning, she walked to the doorway and Gazho made
sure his rifle muzzle grated
on Locklear's ribs as the ethologist followed her
outside. She said, "Do I have
your honorable parole? Bear in mind that even if you
try to run, they'll soon
have you and the girl who's running loose, too.
They've already destroyed some
kind of flying raft; yours, I take it," she smiled.
Damn, hell, shit, and blast! "Mine. I won't run,
Grace. Besides, you've got a
parabellum."
"Remember that," she said, and began to stroll toward
the trees while the cabin
erupted with argument. Locklear vented more silent
damns and hells; she wasn't
leading him anywhere near his hidden kzin sidearm.
Grace Agostinho, surprisingly, first asked about
Loli. She seemed amused to
learn he had waked the girl first, and that he'd
regretted it at his leisure.
Gradually, her questions segued to answers.
"Discipline on a warship can be
vicious," she mused as if to herself. "Curt Stockton
was-is a career officer,
but it's his view that there must be limits to
discipline. His own commander was
a hard man, and-"
"Jesus Christ; you're saying he mutinied like
Fletcher Christian?"
"That's not entirely wrong," she said, now very
feminine as they moved into a
glade, out of sight of the cabin. "David Gomulka is a
rougher sort, a man of
some limited ideas but more of action. I'm afraid
Curt filled David with ideas
that, ah, . . ."
"Stockton started a boulder downhill and can't stop
it," Locklear said. "Not the
first time a man of ideas has started something he
can't control. How'd you get
into this mess?"
"An affair of the heart; I'd rather not talk about it
. . . When I'm drawn to a
man, . . . well, I tend to show it," she said, and
preened her hair for him as
she leaned against a fallen tree. "You must tell them
what they want to know, my
dear. These are desperate men, in desperate trouble."
Locklear saw the promise in those huge dark eyes and
gazed into them. "I swear
to you, the kzinti thought I was some kind of
Interworld agent, but they dropped
me on Zoo for safekeeping."
"And were you?" Softly, softly, catchee monkey . . .
"Good God, no! I'm an-"
"Ethologist. I heard it. But the kzin suspicion does
seem reasonable, doesn't
it?"
"I guess, if you're paranoid." God, but this is one
seductive lieutenant.
"Which means that David and Curt could sell you to
the kzinti for safe passage,
if I let them," she said, moving toward him, her
hands pulling apart the
closures on his flight suit. "But I don't think
that's the secret, and I don't
think you think so. You're a fascinating man, and I
don't know when I've been so
attracted to anyone. Is this so awful of me?"
He knew damned well how powerfully persuasive a woman
like Grace could be with
that voluptuous willowy sexuality of hers. And he
remembered Ruth's warning, and
believed it. But he would rather drown in honey than
in vinegar, and when she
turned her face upward, he found her mouth with his,
and willingly let her lust
kindle his own.
Presently, lying on forest humus and watching Grace
comb her hair clean with her
fingers, Locklear's breathing slowed. He inventoried
her charms as she shrugged
into her flight suit again; returned her impudent
smile; began to readjust his
togs. "If this be torture," he declaimed like an
actor, "make the most of it."
"Up to the standards of your local ladies?"
"Oh yes," he said fervently, knowing it was only a
small lie. "But I'm not sure
I understand why you offered."
She squatted becomingly on her knees, brushing at his
clothing. "You're very
attractive," she said. "And mysterious. And if you'll
help us, Locklear, I
promise to plumb your mysteries as much as you
like-and vice versa."
"An offer I can't refuse, Grace. But I don't know how
I can do more than I have
already."
Her frown held little anger; more of perplexity. "But
I've told you, my dear: we
must have that kzin secret."
"And you didn't believe what I said."
Her secret smile again, teasing: "Really, darling,
you must give me some credit.
I am in the intelligence corps."
He did see a flash of irritation cross her face this
time as he laughed. "Grace,
this is crazy," he said, still grinning. "It may be
absurd that the kzinti
thought I was an agent, but it's true. I think the
planet itself is a
mind-boggling discovery, and I said so first thing
off. Other than that, what
can I say?"
"I'm sorry you're going to be this way about it," she
said with the pout of a
nubile teenager, then hitched up the sidearm on her
belt as if to remind him of
it.
She's sure something, he thought as they strode back
to his clearing. If I had
any secret to hide, could she get it out of me with
this kind of attention?
Maybe-but she's all technique and no real passion.
Exactly the girl you want to
bring home to your friendly regimental combat team.
Grace motioned him into the cabin without a word and,
as Schmidt sent him into
the room with Ruth and the old man, he saw both
Gomulka and Stockton leave the
cabin with Grace. I don't think she has affairs of
the heart, he reflected with
a wry smile. Affairs of the glands beyond counting,
but maybe no heart to lose.
Or no character?
He sat down near Ruth, who was sitting with Gimp's
head in her lap, and sighed.
"Ruth much smart about new woman. Locklear see now,"
he said and, gently, kissed
the homely face.
***
The crew had a late lunch but brought none for their
captives, and Locklear was
taken to his judges in the afternoon. He saw hammocks
slung in his room,
evidence that the crew intended to stay awhile.
Stockton, as usual, began as
pleasantly as he could. "Locklear, since you're not
on Agostinho's list of known
intelligence assets in the Rim sectors, then maybe
we've been peering at the
wrong side of the coin."
"That's what I told the tabbies," Locklear said.
"Now we're getting somewhere. Actually, you're a kzin
agent; right?"
Locklear stared, then tried not to laugh. "Oh, Jesus,
Stockton! Why would they
drop me here, in that case?"
Evidently, Stockton's pleasant side was loosely
attached under trying
circumstances. He flushed angrily. "You tell us."
"You can find out damned fast by turning me over to
Interworld authorities,"
Locklear reminded him.
"And if you turn out to be a plugged nickel," Gomulka
snarled, "you're home free
and we're in deep shit. No, I don't think we will,
little man. We'll do anything
we have to do to get the facts out of you. If it
takes shooting hostages, we
will."
Locklear switched his gaze to the bedeviled Stockton
and saw no help there. At
this point, a few lies might help the gentles. "A
real officer, are you? Shoot
these poor savages? Go ahead, actually you might be
doing me a favor. You can
see they hate my guts! The only reason they didn't
kill me today is that they
think I'm one of you, and they're scared to. Every
one you knock off, or chase
off, is just one less who's out to tan my hide."
Gomulka, slyly: "So how'd you say you got that tabby
ship?"
Locklear: "On Kzersatz. Call it grand theft, I don't
give a damn." Knowing they
would explore Kzersatz sooner or later, he said, "The
tabbies probably thought I
hightailed it for the Interworld fleet but I could
barely fly the thing. I was
lucky to get down here in one piece."
Stockton's chin jerked up. "Do you mean there's a
kzin force right across those
force walls?"
"There was; I took care of them myself."
Gomulka stood up now. "Sure you did. I never heard
such jizm in twenty years of
barracks brags. Grace, you never did like a lot of
hollering and blood. Go to
the ship." Without a word, and with the same liquid
gaze she would turn on
Locklear-and perhaps on anyone else-she nodded and
walked out.
As Gomulka reached for his captive, Locklear grabbed
for the heavy toolbox. That
little hand welder would ruin a man's entire
afternoon. Gomulka nodded, and
suddenly Locklear felt his arms gripped from behind
by Schmidt's big hands. He
brought both feet up, kicked hard against the table,
and as the table flew into
the faces of Stockton and Gomulka, Schmidt found
himself propelled backward
against the cabin wall.
Shouting, cursing, they overpowered Locklear at last,
hauling the top of his
flight suit down so that its arms could be tied into
a sort of straitjacket.
Breathing hard, Gomulka issued his final backhand
slap toward Locklear's mouth.
Locklear ducked, then spat into the big man's face.
Wiping spittle away with his sleeve, Gomulka
muttered, "Curt, we gotta soften
this guy up."
Stockton pointed to the scars on Locklear's upper
body. "You know, I don't think
he softens very well, David. Ask yourself whether you
think it's useful, or
whether you just want to do it."
It was another of those ideas Gomulka seemed to value
greatly because he had so
few of his own. "Well goddammit, what would you do?"
"Coercion may work, but not this kind." Studying the
silent Locklear in the grip
of three men, he came near smiling. "Maybe give him a
comm set and drop him
among the Neanderthals. When he's good and ready to
talk, we rescue him."
A murmur among the men, and a snicker from Gazho. To
prove he did have
occasional ideas, Gomulka replied, "Maybe. Or better,
maybe drop him next door
on Kzinkatz or whatever the fuck he calls it." His
eyes slid slowly to Locklear.
To Locklear, who was licking a trickle of blood from
his upper lip, the
suggestion did not register for a count of two beats.
When it did, he needed a
third beat to make the right response. Eyes wide, he
screamed.
"Yeah," said Nathan Gazho.
"Yeah, right," came the chorus.
Locklear struggled, but not too hard. "My God!
They'll-They EAT people,
Stockton!"
"Well, it looks like a voice vote, Curt," Gomulka
drawled, very pleased with his
idea, then turned to Locklear. "But that's democracy
for you. You'll have a nice
comm set and you can call us when you're ready. Just
don't forget the story
about the boy who cried 'wolf'. But when you call,
Locklear-" the big sergeant's
voice was low and almost pleasant "-be ready to deal."
***
Locklear felt a wild impulse, as Gomulka shoved him
into the pinnace, to beg,
"Please, Br'er Fox, don't throw me in the briar
patch!" He thrashed a bit and
let his eyes roll convincingly until Parker, with a
choke hold, pacified him
half-unconscious.
If he had any doubts that the pinnace was
orbit-rated, Locklear lost them as he
watched Gomulka at work. Parker sat with the captive
though Lee, beside Gomulka,
faced a console. The three pirates negotiated a
three-way bet on how much time
would pass before Locklear begged to be picked up.
His comm set, roughly shoved
into his ear with its button switch, had fresh
batteries but Lee reminded him
again that they would be returning only once to bail
him out. The pinnace, a
lovely little craft, arced up to orbital height and,
with only its transparent
canopy between him and hard vac, Locklear found real
fear added to his pretense.
After pitchover, tiny bursts of light at the wingtips
steadied the pinnace as it
began its reentry over the saffron jungles of
Kzersatz.
Because of its different schedule, the tiny
programmed sunlet of Kzersatz was
only an hour into its morning. "Keep one eye on your
sweep screen," Gomulka said
as the roar of deceleration died away.
"I am," Lee replied grimly. "Locklear, if we get
jumped by a tabby ship I'll put
a burst right into your guts, first thing."
As Locklear made a show of moaning and straining at
his bonds, Gomulka banked
the pinnace for its mapping sweep. Presently, Lee's
infrared scanners flashed an
overlay on his screen and Gomulka nodded, but
finished the sweep. Then, by
manual control, he slowed the little craft and
brought it at a leisurely pace to
the IR blips, a mile or so above the alien veldt. Lee
brought the screen's video
to high magnification.
Anse Parker saw what Locklear saw. "Only a few
tabbies, huh? And you took care
of 'em, huh? You son of a bitch!" He glared at the
scene, where a dozen kzinti
moved unaware amid half-buried huts and cooking
fires, and swatted Locklear
across the back of his head with an open hand. "Looks
like they've gone native,"
Parker went on. "Hey, Gomulka: they'll be candy for
us."
"I noticed," Gomulka replied. "You know what? If we
bag 'em now, we're helping
this little shit. We can come back any time we like,
maybe have ourselves a
tabby-hunt."
"Yeah; show 'em what it's like," Lee snickered,
"after they've had their
manhunt."
Locklear groaned for effect. A village ready-made in
only a few months! Scarface
didn't waste any time getting his own primitives out
of stasis. I hope to God he
doesn't show up looking glad to see me. To avoid that
possibility he pleaded,
"Aren't you going to give me a running chance?"
"Sure we are," Gomulka laughed. "Tabbies will pick up
your scent anyway. Be on
you like flies on a turd." The pinnace flew on,
unseen from far below, Lee
bringing up the video now and then. Once he said,
"Can't figure out what they're
hunting in that field. If I didn't know kzinti were
strict carnivores I'd say
they were farming."
Locklear knew that primitive kzinti ate vegetables as
well, and so did their
meat animals; but he kept his silence. It hadn't even
occurred to these
piratical deserters that the kzinti below might be as
prehistoric as
Neanderthalers. Good; let them think they understood
the kzinti! But nobody
knows 'em like 1 do, he thought. It was an arrogance
he would recall with
bitterness very, very soon.
Gomulka set the pinnace down with practiced ease
behind a stone escarpment and
Parker, his gaze nervously sweeping the jungle, used
his gun barrel to urge
Locklear out of the craft.
Soichiro Lee's gentle smile did not match his final
words: "If you manage to
hide out here, just remember we'll pick up your
little girlfriend before long.
Probably a better piece of snatch than the Manaus
machine," he went on, despite
a sudden glare from Gomulka. "How long do you want us
to use her, asshole? Think
about it," he winked, and the canopy's "thunk"
muffled the guffaws of Anse
Parker.
Locklear raced away as the pinnace lifted, making it
look good. They had tossed
Br'er Rabbit into his personal briar patch, never
suspecting he might have
friends here.
He was thankful that the village lay downhill as he
began his one athletic
specialty, long-distance jogging, because he could
once again feel the synthetic
gravity of Kzersatz tugging at his body. He judged
that he was a two-hour trot
from the village and paced himself carefully, walking
and resting now and then.
And planning.
As soon as Scarface learned the facts, they could set
a trap for the returning
pinnace. And then, with captives of his own, Locklear
could negotiate with
Stockton. It was clear by now that Curt Stockton
considered himself a leader of
virtue-because he was a man of ideas. David Gomulka
was a man of action without
many important ideas, the perfect model of a
playground bully long after
graduation.
And Stockton? He would've been the kind of clever kid
who decided early that
violence was an inferior way to do things, because he
wasn't very good at it
himself. Instead, he'd enlist a Gomulka to stand
nearby while the clever kid
tried to beat you up with words; debate you to death.
And if that finally
failed, he could always sigh, and walk away leaving
the bully to do his dirty
work, and imagine that his own hands were clean.
But Kzersatz was a whole 'nother playground, with
different rules. Locklear
smiled at the thought and jogged on.
An hour later he heard the beast crashing in panic
through orange ferns before
he saw it, and realized that it was pursued only when
he spied a young male
flashing with sinuous efficiency behind.
No one ever made friends with a kzin by interrupting
its hunt, so Locklear stood
motionless among palmferns and watched. The prey
reminded him of a pygmy
tyrannosaur, almost the height of a man but with
teeth meant for grazing on
foliage. The kzin bounded nearer, disdaining the
wtsai knife at his belt, and
screamed only as he leaped for the kill.
The prey's armored hide and thrashing tail made the
struggle interesting, but
the issue was never in doubt. A kzin warrior was
trained to hunt, to kill, and
to eat that kill, from kittenhood. The roars of the
lizard dwindled to a hissing
gurgle; the tail and the powerful legs stilled. Only
after the kzin vented his
victory scream and ripped into his prey did Locklear
step into the clearing made
by flattened ferns.
Hands up and empty, Locklear called in Kzin, "The
kzin is a mighty hunter!" To
speak in Kzin, one needed a good falsetto and plenty
of spit. Locklear's command
was fair, but the young kzin reacted as though the
man had spouted fire and
brimstone. He paused only long enough to snatch up
his kill, a good hundred
kilos, before bounding off at top speed.
Crestfallen, Locklear trotted toward the village
again. He wondered now if
Scarface and Kit, the mate Locklear had freed for
him, had failed to speak of
mankind to the ancient kzin tribe. In any case, they
would surely respond to his
use of their language until he could get Scarface's
help. Perhaps the young male
had simply raced away to bring the good news.
And perhaps, he decided a half-hour later, he himself
was the biggest fool in
Known Space or beyond it. They had ringed him before
he knew it, padding
silently through foliage the same mottled yellows and
oranges as their fur.
Then, almost simultaneously, he saw several great
tigerish shapes disengage from
their camouflage ahead of him, and heard the scream
as one leapt upon him from
behind.
Bowled over by the rush, feeling hot breath and fangs
at his throat, Locklear
moved only his eyes. His attacker might have been the
same one he surprised
while hunting, and he felt needle-tipped claws
through his flight suit.
Then Locklear did the only things he could: kept his
temper, swallowed his
terror, and repeated his first greeting: "The kzin is
a mighty hunter."
He saw, striding forward, an old kzin with ornate
bandolier straps. The oldster
called to the others, "It is true, the beast speaks
the Hero's Tongue! It is as
I prophesied." Then, to the young attacker, "Stand
away at the ready," and
Locklear felt like breathing again.
"I am Locklear, who first waked members of your clan
from age-long sleep," he
said in that ancient dialect he'd learned from Kit.
"I come in friendship. May I
rise?"
A contemptuous gesture and, as Locklear stood up, a
worse remark. "Then you are
the beast that lay with a palace prret, a courtesan.
We have heard. You will win
no friends here."
A cold tendril marched down Locklear's spine. "May I
speak with my friends? The
kzinti have things to fear, but I am not among them."
More laughter. "The Rockear beast thinks it is
fearsome," said the young male,
his ear-umbrellas twitching in merriment.
"I come to ask help, and to offer it," Locklear said
evenly.
"The priesthood knows enough of your help. Come,"
said the older one. And that
is how Locklear was marched into a village of
prehistoric kzinti, ringed by
hostile predators twice his size.
***
His reception party was all-male, its members staring
at him in frank curiosity
while prodding him to the village. They finally left
him in an open area
surrounded by huts with his hands tied, a leather
collar around his neck, the
collar linked by a short braided rope to a hefty
stake. When he squatted on the
turf, he noticed the soil was torn by hooves here and
there. Dark stains and an
abattoir odor said the place was used for butchering
animals. The curious gazes
of passing females said he was only a strange animal
to them. The disappearance
of the males into the largest of the semi-submerged
huts suggested that he had
furnished the village with something worth a town
meeting.
At last the meeting broke up, kzin males striding
from the hut toward him, a
half-dozen of the oldest emerging last, each with a
four-fingered paw tucked
into his bandolier belt. Prominent scars across the
breasts of these few were
all exactly similar; some kind of self-torture
ritual, Locklear guessed. Last of
all with the ritual scars was the old one he'd spoken
with, and this one had
both paws tucked into his belt. Got it; the higher
your status, the less you
need to keep your hands ready, or to hurry.
The old devil was enjoying all this ceremony, and so
were the other big shots.
Standing in clearly-separated rings behind them were
the other males with a few
females, then the other females, evidently the entire
tribe. Locklear spotted a
few kzinti whose expressions and ear-umbrellas said
they were either sick or
unhappy, but all played their obedient parts.
Standing before him, the oldster reached out and
raked Locklear's face with what
seemed to be only a ceremonial insult. It brought
welts to his cheek anyway. The
oldster spoke for all to hear. "You began the tribe's
awakening, and for that we
promise a quick kill."
"I waked several kzinti, who promised me honor,"
Locklear managed to say.
"Traitors? They have no friends here. So you-have no
friends here," said the old
kzin with pompous dignity. "This the priesthood has
decided."
"You are the leader?"
"First among equals," said the high priest with a
smirk that said he believed in
no equals.
"While this tribe slept," Locklear said loudly,
hoping to gain some support, "a
mighty kzin warrior came here. I call him Scarface. I
return in peace to see
him, and to warn you that others who look like me may
soon return. They wish you
harm, but I do not. Would you take me to Scarface?"
He could not decipher the murmurs, but he knew
amusement when he saw it. The
high priest stepped forward, untied the rope, handed
it to the nearest of the
husky males who stood behind the priests. "He would
see the mighty hunter who
had new ideas," he said. "Take him to see that hero,
so that he will fully
appreciate the situation. Then bring him back to the
ceremony post."
With that, the high priest turned his back and
followed by the other priests,
walked away. The dozens of other kzinti hurried off,
carefully avoiding any
backward glances. Locklear said, to the huge specimen
tugging on his neck rope,
"I cannot walk quickly with hands behind my back."
"Then you must learn," rumbled the big kzin, and
lashed out with a foot that
propelled Locklear forward. I think he pulled that
punch, Locklear thought. Kept
his claws retracted, at least. The kzin led him
silently from the village and
along a path until hidden by foliage. Then, "You are
the Rockear," he said,
slowing. "I am (something as unpronounceable as most
kzin names)," he added,
neither friendly nor unfriendly. He began untying
Locklear's hands with, "I must
kill you if you run, and I will. But I am no priest,"
he said, as if that
explained his willingness to ease a captive's walking.
"You are a stalwart," Locklear said. "May I call you
that?"
"As long as you can," the big kzin said, leading the
way again. "I voted to my
priest to let you live, and teach us. So did most
heroes of my group."
Uh-huh; they have priests instead of senators. But
this smells like the old
American system before direct elections. "Your priest
is not bound to vote as
you say?" A derisive snort was his answer, and he
persisted. "Do you vote your
priests in?"
"Yes. For life," said Stalwart, explaining everything.
"So they pretend to listen, but they do as they
like," Locklear said.
A grunt, perhaps of admission or of scorn. "It was
always thus," said Stalwart,
and found that Locklear could trot, now. Another
half-hour found them moving
across a broad veldt, and Locklear saw the scars of a
grass fire before he
realized he was in familiar surroundings. Stalwart
led the way to a rise and
then stopped, pointing toward the jungle. "There," he
said, "is your scarfaced
friend."
Locklear looked in vain, then back at Stalwart. "He
must be blending in with the
ferns. You people do that very-"
"The highest tree. What remains of him is there."
And then Locklear saw the flying creatures he had
called "batowls," tiny mites
at a distance of two hundred meters, picking at
tatters of something that hung
in a net from the highest tree in the region. "Oh, my
God! Won't he die there?"
"He is dead already. He underwent the long ceremony,"
said Stalwart, "many days
past, with wounds that killed slowly."
Locklear's glare was incriminating: "I suppose you
voted against that, too?"
"That, and the sacrifice of the palace prret in days
past," said the kzin.
Blinking away tears, for Scarface had truly been a
cat of his word, Locklear
said, "Those prret. One of them was Scarface's mate
when I left. Is she-up
there, too?"
For what it was worth, the big kzin could not meet
his gaze. "Drowning is the
dishonorable punishment for females," he said,
pointing back toward Kzersatz's
long shallow lake. "The priesthood never avoids
tradition, and she lies beneath
the water. Another prret with kittens was permitted
to rejoin the tribe. She
chose to be shunned instead. Now and then, we see
her. It is treason to speak
against the priesthood, and I will not."
Locklear squeezed his eyes shut; blinked; turned away
from the hideous sight
hanging from that distant tree as scavengers picked
at its bones. "And I hoped
to help your tribe! A pox on all your houses," he
said to no one in particular.
He did not speak to the kzin again, but they did not
hurry as Stalwart led the
way back to the village.
The only speaking Locklear did was to the comm set in
his ear, shoving its
pushbutton switch. The kzin looked back at him in
curiosity once or twice, but
now he was speaking Interworld, and perhaps Stalwart
thought he was singing a
death song.
In a way, it was true-though not a song of his own
death, if he could help it.
"Locklear calling the Anthony Wayne," he said, and
paused.
He heard the voice of Grace Agostinho reply,
"Recording."
"They've caught me already, and they intend to kill
me. I don't much like you
bastards, but at least you're human. I don't care how
many of the male tabbies
you bag; when they start torturing me I won't be any
further use to you."
Again, Grace's voice replied in his ear: "Recording."
Now with a terrible suspicion, Locklear said, "Is
anybody there? If you're
monitoring me live, say 'monitoring.' "
His comm set, in Grace's voice, only said,
"Recording."
Locklear flicked off the switch and began to walk
even more slowly, until
Stalwart tugged hard on the leash. Any kzin who cared
to look, as they reentered
the village, would have seen a little man bereft of
hope. He did not complain
when Stalwart retied his hands, nor even when another
kzin marched him away and
fairly flung him into a tiny hut near the edge of the
village. Eventually they
flung a bloody hunk of some recent kill into his hut,
but it was raw and, with
his hands tied behind him, he could not have held it
to his mouth.
Nor could he toggle his comm set, assuming it would
carry past the roof thatch.
He had not said he would be in the village, and they
would very likely kill him
along with everybody else in the village when they
came. If they came.
He felt as though he would drown in cold waves of
despair. A vicious priesthood
had killed his friends and, even if he escaped for a
time, he would be hunted
down by the galaxy's most pitiless hunters. And if
his own kind rescued him,
they might cheerfully beat him to death trying to
learn a secret he had already
divulged. And even the gentle Neanderthalers hated
him, now.
Why not just give up? I don't know why, he admitted
to himself, and began to
search for something to help him fray the thongs at
his wrists. He finally chose
a rough-barked post, sitting down in front of it and
staring toward the kzin
male whose lower legs he could see beneath the door
matting.
He rubbed until his wrists were as raw as that meat
lying in the dust before
him. Then he rubbed until his muscles refused to
continue, his arms cramping
horribly. By that time it was dark, and he kept
falling into an exhausted,
fitful sleep, starting to scratch at his bonds every
time a cramp woke him. The
fifth time he awoke, it was to the sounds of
scratching again. And a soft,
distant call outside, which his guard answered just
as softly. It took Locklear
a moment to realize that those scratching noises were
not being made by him.
***
The scratching became louder, filling him with a
dread of the unknown in the
utter blackness of the Kzersatz night. Then he heard
a scrabble of clods
tumbling to the earthen floor. Low, urgent, in the
fitz-rowr of a female kzin:
"Rockear, quickly! Help widen this hole!"
He wanted to shout, remembering Boots, the new mother
of two who had scorned her
tribe; but he whispered hoarsely: "Boots?"
An even more familiar voice than that of Boots. "She
is entertaining your guard.
Hurry!"
"Kit! I can't, my hands are tied," he groaned. "Kit,
they said you were
drowned."
"Idiots," said the familiar voice, panting as she
worked. A very faint glow
preceded the indomitable Kit, who had a modern kzin
beltpac and used its
glowlamp for brief moments. Without slowing her
frantic pace, she said softly,
"They built a walkway into the lake and-dropped me
from it. But my mate, your
friend Scarface, knew what they intended. He told me
to breathe-many times just
before I fell. With all the stones-weighting me down,
I simply walked on the
bottom, between the pilings-and untied the stones
beneath the planks near shore.
Idiots," she said again, grunting as her fearsome
claws ripped away another
chunk of Kzersatz soil. Then, "Poor Rockear," she
said, seeing him writhe toward
her.
In another minute, with the glowlamp doused, Locklear
heard the growling curses
of Kit's passage into the hut. She'd said females
were good tunnelers, but not
until now had he realized just how good. The nearest
cover must be a good ten
meters away . . . "Jesus, don't bite my hand, Kit,"
he begged, feeling her fangs
and the heat of her breath against his savaged
wrists. A moment later he felt a
flash of white-hot pain through his shoulders as his
hands came free. He'd been
cramped up so long it hurt to move freely. "Well, by
God it'll just have to
hurt," he said aloud to himself, and flexed his arms,
groaning.
"I suppose you must hold to my tail," she said. He
felt the long, wondrously
luxuriant tail whisk across his chest and because it
was totally dark, did as
she told him. Nothing short of true and abiding
friendship, he knew, would
provoke her into such manhandling of her glorious,
her sensual, her fundamental
tail.
They scrambled past mounds of soft dirt until
Locklear felt cool night air on
his face. "You may quit insulting my tail now," Kit
growled. "We must wait
inside this tunnel awhile. You take this: I do not
use it well."
He felt the cold competence of the object in his hand
and exulted as he
recognized it as a modem kzin sidearm. Crawling near
with his face at her
shoulder, he said, "How'd you know exactly where I
was?"
"Your little long-talker, of course. We could hear
you moaning and panting in
there, and the magic tools of my mate located you."
But I didn't have it turned on. Ohhh-no; I didn't
KNOW it was turned on! The
goddamned thing is transmitting all the time . . . He
decided to score one for
Stockton's people, and dug the comm set from his ear.
Still in the tunnel, it
wouldn't transmit well until he moved outside. Crush
it? Bury it? Instead, he
snapped the magazine from the sidearm and, after
removing its ammunition, found
that the tiny comm set would fit inside. Completely
enclosed by metal, the comm
set would transmit no more until he chose.
He got all but three of the rounds back in the
magazine, cursing every sound he
made, and then moved next to Kit again. "They showed
me what they did to
Scarface. I can't tell you how sorry I am, Kit. He
was my friend, and they will
pay for it."
"Oh, yes, they will pay," she hissed softly. "Make no
mistake, he is still your
friend."
A thrill of energy raced from the base of his skull
down his arms and legs.
"You're telling me he's alive?"
As if to save her the trouble of a reply, a male kzin
called softly from no more
than three paces away: "Milady; do we have him?"
"Yes," Kit replied.
"Scarface! Thank God you're-"
"Not now," said the one-time warship commander.
"Follow quietly."
Having slept near Kit for many weeks, Locklear
recognized her steam-kettle hiss
as a sufferer's sigh. "I know your nose is hopeless
at following a spoor,
Rockear. But try not to pull me completely apart this
time." Again he felt that
long bushy tail pass across his breast, but this time
he tried to grip it more
gently as they sped off into the night.
***
Sitting deep in a cave with rough furniture and
booby-trapped tunnels, Locklear
wolfed stew under the light of a kzin glowlamp. He
had slightly scandalized Kit
with a hug, then did the same to Boots as the young
mother entered the cave
without her kittens. The guard would never be trusted
to guard anything again,
said the towering Scarface, but that rescue tunnel
was proof that a kzin had
helped. Now they'd be looking for Boots, thinking she
had done more than lure a
guard thirty meters away.
Locklear told his tale of success, failure, and
capture by human pirates as he
finished eating, then asked for an update of the
Kzersatz problem. Kit, it
turned out, had warned Scarface against taking the
priests from stasis but one
of the devout and not entirely bright males they woke
had done the deed anyway.
Scarface, with his small hidden cache of modern
equipment, had expected to lead;
had he not been Tzak-Commander, once upon a time? The
priests had seemed to
agree-long enough to make sure they could coerce
enough followers. It seemed,
said Scarface, that ancient kzin priests hadn't the
slightest compunctions about
lying, unlike modern kzinti. He had tried repeatedly
to call Locklear with his
all-band comm set, without success. Depending on long
custom, demanding that
tradition take precedence over new ways, the priests
had engineered the capture
of Scarface and Kit in a hook-net, the kind of cruel
device that tore at the
victim's flesh at the slightest movement.
Villagers had spent days in building that walkway out
over a shallowly sloping
lake, a labor of loathing for kzinti, who hated to
soak in water. Once it was
extended to the point where the water was four meters
deep, the rough-hewn dock
made an obvious reminder of ceremonial murder to any
female who might try, as
Kit and Boots had done ages before, to liberate
herself from the ritual
prostitution of yore.
And then, as additional mental torture, they told
their bound captives what to
expect, and made Scarface watch as Kit was thrown
into the lake. Boots, watching
in horror from afar, had then watched the torture and
disposal of Scarface. She
was amazed when Kit appeared at her birthing bower,
having seen her disappear
with great stones into deep water. The next day, Kit
had killed a big ruminant,
climbing that tree at night to recover her mate and
placing half of her kill in
the net.
"My medkit did the rest," Scarface said, pointing to
ugly scar tissue at several
places on his big torso. "These scum have never seen
anyone recover from deep
body punctures. Antibiotics can be magic, if you
stretch a point."
Locklear mused silently on their predicament for long
minutes. Then: "Boots, you
can't afford to hang around near the village anymore.
You'll have to hide your
kittens and-"
"They have my kittens," said Boots, with a glitter of
pure hate in her eyes.
"They will be cared for as long as I do not disturb
the villagers."
"Who told you that?"
"The high priest," she said, mewling pitifully as she
saw the glance of doubt
pass between Locklear and Scarface. The priests were
accomplished liars.
"We'd best get them back soon," Locklear suggested.
"Are you sure this cave is
secure?"
Scarface took him halfway out one tunnel and, using
the glowlamp, showed him a
trap of horrifying simplicity. It was a grav
polarizer unit from one of the
biggest cages, buried just beneath the tunnel floor
with a switch hidden to one
side. If you reached to the side carefully and turned
the switch off, that
hidden grav unit wouldn't hurl you against the roof
of the tunnel as you walked
over it. If you didn't, it did. Simple. Terrible. "I
like it," Locklear smiled.
"Any more tricks I'd better know before I plaster
myself over your ceiling?"
There were, and Scarface showed them to him. "But the
least energy expended, the
least noise and alarm to do the job, the best.
Instead of polarizers, we might
bury some stasis units outside, perhaps at the
entrance to their meeting hut.
Then we catch those kshat priests, and use the lying
scum for target practice."
"Good idea, and we may be able to improve on it. How
many units here in the
cave?"
That was the problem; two stasis units taken from
cages were not enough. They
needed more from the crypt, said Locklear.
"They destroyed that little airboat you left me, but
I built a better one,"
Scarface said with a flicker of humor from his ears.
"So did I. Put a bunch of polarizers on it to push
yourself around and ignored
the sail, didn't you?" He saw Scarface's assent and
winked.
"Two units might work if we trap the priests one by
one," Scarface hazarded.
"But they've been meddling in the crypt. We might
have to fight our way in. And
you . . ." he hesitated.
"And I have fought better kzinti before, and here I
stand," Locklear said
simply.
"That you do." They gripped hands, and then went back
to set up their raid on
the crypt. The night was almost done.
***
When surrendering, Scarface had told Locklear nothing
of his equipment cache.
With two sidearms he could have made life interesting
for a man; interesting and
short. But his word had been his bond, and now
Locklear was damned glad to have
the stuff.
They left the females to guard the cave. Flitting low
across the veldt toward
the stasis crypt with Scarface at his scooter
controls, they planned their
tactics. "I wonder why you didn't start shooting
those priests the minute you
were back on your feet," Locklear said over the
whistle of breeze in their
faces.
"The kittens," Scarface explained. "I might kill one
or two priests before the
cowards hid and sent innocent fools to be shot, but
they are perfectly capable
of hanging a kitten in the village until I gave
myself up. And I did not dare
raid the crypt for stasis units without a warrior to
back me up."
"And I'll have to do." Locklear grinned.
"You will." Scarface grinned back; a typical kzin
grin, all business, no
pleasure.
They settled the scooter near the ice-rimmed force
wall and moved according to
plan, making haste slowly to avoid the slightest
sound, the huge kzin's head
swathed in a bandage of leaves that suggested a wound
while-with luck-hiding his
identity for a few crucial seconds.
Watching the kzin warrior's muscular body slide among
weeds and rocks, Locklear
realized that Scarface was still not fully recovered
from his ordeal. He made
his move before he was ready because of me, and I'm
not even a kzin. Wish I
thought I could match that kind of commitment,
Locklear mused as he took his
place in front of Scarface at the crypt entrance. His
sidearm was in his hand.
Scarface had sworn the priests had no idea what the
weapon was and, with this
kind of ploy, Locklear prayed he was right. Scarface
gripped Locklear by the
neck then, but gently, and they marched in together
expecting to meet a guard
just inside the entrance.
No guard. No sound at all-and then a distant hollow
slam, as of a great box
closing. They split up then, moving down each side
corridor, returning to the
main shaft silently, exploring side corridors again.
After four of these forays,
they knew that no one would be at their backs.
Locklear was peering into the fifth when, glancing
back, he saw Scarface's
gesture of caution. Scuffing steps down the side
passage, a mumble in Kzin, then
silence. Then Scarface resumed his hold on his
friend's neck and, after one
mutual glance of worry, shoved Locklear into the side
passage.
"Ho, see the beast I captured," Scarface called, his
voice booming in the wide
passage, prompting exclamations from two surprised
kzin males.
Stasis cages lay in disarray, some open, some with
transparent tops ripped off.
One kzin, with the breast scars and bandoliers of a
priest, hopped off the cage
he used as a seat, and placed a hand on the butt of
his sharp wtsai. The other
bore scabs on his breast and wore no bandolier. He
had been tinkering with the
innards of a small stasis cage, but whirled, jaw
agape.
"It must have escaped after we left, yesterday," said
the priest, looking at the
"captive," then with fresh curiosity at Scarface.
"And who are-"
At that instant, Locklear saw what levitated,
spinning, inside one of the
medium-sized cages; spinning almost too fast to
identify. But Locklear knew what
it had to be, and while the priest was staring hard
at Scarface, the little man
lost control.
His cry was in Interworld, not Kzin: "You filthy
bastard!" Before the priest
could react, a roundhouse right with the massive
barrel of a kzin pistol took
away both upper and lower incisors from the left side
of his mouth. Caught this
suddenly, even a two-hundred-kilo kzin could be sent
reeling from the blow, and
as the priest reeled to his right, Locklear kicked
hard at his backside.
Scarface clubbed at the second kzin, the corridor
ringing with snarls and zaps
of warrior rage. Locklear did not even notice,
leaping on the back of the fallen
priest, hacking with his gun barrel until the wtsai
flew from a smashed hand,
kicking down with all his might against the back of
the priest's head. The
priest, at least twice Locklear's bulk, had lived a
life much too soft, for far
too long. He rolled over, eyes wide not in fear but
in anger at this outrage
from a puny beast. It is barely possible that fear
might have worked.
The priest caught Locklear's boot in a mouthful of
broken teeth, not seeing the
sidearm as it swung at his temple. The thump was like
an iron bar against a
melon, the priest falling limp as suddenly as if some
switch had been thrown.
Sobbing, Locklear dropped the pistol, grabbed
handfuls of ear on each side, and
pounded the priest's head against cruel obsidian
until he felt a heavy grip on
his shoulder.
"He is dead, Locklear. Save your strength," Scarface
advised. As Locklear
recovered his weapon and stumbled to his feet, he was
shaking uncontrollably.
"You must hate our kind more than I thought,"
Scarface added, studying Locklear
oddly.
"He wasn't your kind. I would kill a man for the same
crime," Locklear said in
fury, glaring at the second kzin who squatted,
bloody-faced, in a corner holding
a forearm with an extra elbow in it. Then Locklear
rushed to open the cage the
priest had been watching.
The top levered back, and its occupant sank to the
cage floor without moving.
Scarface screamed his rage, turning toward the
injured captive. "You experiment
on tiny kittens? Shall we do the same to you now?"
Locklear, his tears flowing freely, lifted the tiny
kzin kitten-a male-in hands
that were tender, holding it to his breast. "It's
breathing," he said. "A
miracle, after getting the centrifuge treatment in a
cage meant for something
far bigger."
"Before I kill you, do something honorable," Scarface
said to the wounded one.
"Tell me where the other kitten is."
The captive pointed toward the end of the passage. "I
am only an acolyte," he
muttered. "I did not enjoy following orders."
Locklear sped along the cages and, at last, found
Boot's female kitten revolving
slowly in a cage of the proper size. He realized from
the prominence of the tiny
ribs that the kitten would cry for milk when it
waked. If it waked. "Is she
still alive?"
"Yes," the acolyte called back. "I am glad this
happened. I can die with a
less-troubled conscience."
After a hurried agreement and some rough questioning,
they gave the acolyte a
choice. He climbed into a cage hidden behind others
at the end of another
corridor and was soon revolving in stasis. The
kittens went into one small cage.
Working feverishly against the time when another
enemy might walk into the
crypt, they disassembled several more stasis cages
and toted the working parts
to the scooter, then added the kitten cage and,
barely, levitated the scooter
with its heavy load.
An hour later, Scarface bore the precious cage into
the cave and Locklear,
following with an armload of parts, heard the anguish
of Boots. "They'll hear
you from a hundred meters," he cautioned as Boots
gathered the mewing, emaciated
kittens in her arms.
They feared at first that her milk would no longer
flow but presently, from
where Boots had crept into the darkness, Kit
returned. "They are suckling. Do
not expect her to be much help from now on," Kit said.
Scarface checked the magazine of his sidearm. "One
priest has paid. There is no
reason why I cannot extract full payment from the
others now," he said.
"Yes, there is," Locklear replied, his fingers flying
with hand tools from the
cache. "Before you can get 'em all, they'll send
devout fools to be killed while
they escape. You said so yourself. Scarface, I don't
want innocent kzin blood on
my hands! But after my old promise to Boots, I saw
what that maniac was doing
and-let's just say my honor was at stake." He knew
that any modern kzin
commander would understand that. Setting down the
wiring tool, he shuddered and
waited until he could speak without a tremor in his
voice. "If you'll help me
get the wiring rigged for these stasis units, we can
hide them in the right spot
and take the entire bloody priesthood in one pile."
"All at once? I should like to know how," said Kit,
counting the few units that
lay around them.
"Well, I'll tell you how," said Locklear, his eyes
bright with fervor. They
heard him out, and then their faces glowed with the
same zeal.
***
When their traps lay ready for emplacement, they
slept while Kit kept watch.
Long after dark, as Boots lay nearby cradling her
kittens, Kit waked the others
and served a cold broth. "You take a terrible chance,
flying in the dark," she
reminded them.
"We will move slowly," Scarface promised, "and the
village fires shed enough
light for me to land. Too bad about the senses of
inferior species," he said,
his ear umbrellas rising with his joke.
"How would you like a nice cold bath, tabby?"
Locklear's question was mild, but
it held an edge.
"Only monkeys need to bathe," said the kzin, still
amused. Together they carried
their hardware outside and, by the light of a
glowlamp, loaded the scooter while
Kit watched for any telltale glow of eyes in the
distance.
After a hurried nuzzle from Kit, Scarface brought the
scooter up swiftly,
switching the glowlamp to its pinpoint setting and
using it as seldom as
possible. Their forward motion was so slow that, on
the two occasions when they
blundered into the tops of towering fernpalms, they
jettisoned nothing more than
soft curses. An hour later, Scarface maneuvered them
over a light yellow strip
that became a heavily trodden path and began to
follow that path by brief
glowlamp flashes. The village, they knew, would
eventually come into view.
It was Locklear who said, "Off to your right."
"The village fires? I saw them minutes ago."
"Oh shut up, supercat," Locklear grumped. "So where's
our drop zone?"
"Near," was the reply, and Locklear felt their little
craft swing to the side.
At the pace of a weed seed, the scooter wafted down
until Scarface, with one leg
hanging through the viewslot of his craft, spat a
short, nasty phrase. One quick
flash of the lamp guided him to a level landing spot
and then, with admirable
panache, Scarface let the scooter settle without a
creak.
If they were surprised now, only Scarface could pilot
his scooter with any hope
of getting them both away. Locklear grabbed one of
the devices they had prepared
and, feeling his way with only his feet, walked until
he felt a rise of turf.
Then he retraced his steps, vented a heavy sigh, and
began the emplacement.
Ten minutes later he felt his way back to the
scooter, tapping twice on one of
its planks to avoid getting his head bitten off by an
all-too-ready Scarface.
"So far, so good," Locklear judged.
"This had better work," Scarface muttered.
"Tell me about it," said the retreating Locklear,
grunting with a pair of stasis
toroids. After the stasis units were all in place,
Locklear rested at the
scooter before creeping off again, this time with the
glowlamp and a very sloppy
wiring harness.
When he returned for the last time, he virtually fell
onto the scooter. "It's
all there," he said, exhausted, rubbing wrists still
raw from his brief
captivity. Scarface found his bearings again, but it
was another hour before he
floated up an arroyo and then used the lamp for a
landing light.
He bore the sleeping Locklear into the cave as a man
might carry a child. Soon
they both were snoring, and Locklear did not hear the
sound that terrified the
distant villagers in late morning.
***
Locklear's first hint that his plans were in shreds
came with rough shaking by
Scarface. "Wake up! The monkeys have declared war,"
were the first words he
understood.
As they lay at the main cave entrance, they could see
sweeps of the pinnace as
it moved over the kzin village. Small energy beams
lanced down several times, at
targets too widely spaced to be the huts. "They're
targeting whatever moves,"
Locklear ranted, pounding a fist on hard turf. "And
I'll bet the priests are
hiding!"
Scarface brought up his all-band set and let it scan.
In moments, the voice of
David Gomulka grated from the speaker. " . . . Kill
'em all. Tell 'em, Locklear!
And when they do let you go, you'd better be ready to
talk; over."
"I can talk to 'em any time I like, you know,"
Locklear said to his friend. "The
set they gave me may have a coded carrier wave."
"We must stop this terror raid," Scarface replied,
"before they kill us all!"
Locklear stripped his sidearm magazine of its rounds
and fingered the tiny ear
set from its metal cage, screwing it into his ear.
"Got me tied up," he said,
trying to ignore the disgusted look from Scarface at
this unseemly lie. "Are you
receiving . . ."
"We'll home in on your signal," Gomulka cut in.
Locklear quickly shoved the tiny set back into the
butt of his sidearm. "No, you
won't," he muttered to himself. Turning to Scarface:
"We've got to transmit from
another place, or they'll triangulate on me."
Racing to the scooter, they fled to the arroyo and
skimmed the veldt to another
spot. Then, still moving, Locklear used the tiny set
again. "Gomulka, they're
moving me."
The sergeant, furiously: "Where the fuck-?"
Locklear: "If you're shooting, let the naked savages
alone. The real tabbies are
the ones with bandoliers, got it? Bag 'em if you can
but the naked ones aren't
combatants."
He put his little set away again but Scarface's unit,
on "receive only," picked
up the reply. "Your goddamn signal is shooting all
over hell, Locklear. And
whaddaya mean, not combatants? I've never had a
chance to hunt tabbies like
this. No little civilian shit is gonna tell us we
can't teach 'em what it's like
to be hunted! You got that, Locklear?"
They continued to monitor Gomulka, skating back near
the cave until the scooter
lay beneath spreading ferns. Fleeing into the safety
of the cave, they agreed on
a terrible necessity. "They intend to take ears and
tails as trophies, or so
they say," Locklear admitted. "You must find the most
peaceable of your tribe,
Boots, and bring them to the cave. They'll be cut
down like so many vermin if
you don't."
"No priests, and no acolytes," Scarface snarled. "Say
nothing about us but you
may warn them that no priest will leave this cave
alive! That much, my honor
requires."
"I understand," said Boots, whirling down one of the
tunnels.
"And you and I," Scarface said to Locklear, "must
lure that damned monkeyship
away from this area. We cannot let them see kzinti
streaming in here."
In early afternoon, the scooter slid along rocky
highlands before settling
beneath a stone overhang. "The best cover for snipers
on Kzersatz, Locklear. I
kept my cache here, and I know every cranny and
clearing. We just may trap that
monkeyship, if I am clever enough at primitive
skills."
"You want to trap them here? Nothing simpler," said
Locklear, bringing out his
tiny comm set.
But it was not to be so simple.
***
Locklear, lying in the open on his back with one hand
under saffron vines,
watched the pinnace thrum overhead. The clearing,
ringed by tall fernpalms, was
big enough for the Anthony Wayne, almost capacious
for a pinnace. Locklear
raised one hand in greeting as he counted four heads
inside the canopy: Gomulka,
Lee, Gazho, and Schmidt. Then he let his head fall
back in pretended exhaustion,
and waited.
In vain. The pinnace settled ten meters away, its
engines still above idle, and
the canopy levered up; but the deserter crew had beam
rifles trained on the
surrounding foliage and did not accept the bait.
"They may be back soon,"
Locklear shouted in Interworld. He could hear the
faint savage ripping at
vegetation nearby, and wondered if they heard it,
too. "Hurry!"
"Tell us now, asshole," Gomulka boomed, his voice
coming both from the earpiece
and the pinnace. "The secret, now, or we leave you
for the tabbies!"
Locklear licked his lips, buying seconds. "It's- It's
some kind of drive. The
Outsiders built it here," he groaned, wondering
feverishly what the devil his
tongue was leading him into. He noted that Gazho and
Lee had turned toward him
now, their eyes blazing with greed. Schmidt, however,
was studying the tallest
fernpalm, and suddenly fired a thin line of fire
slashing into its top, which
was already shuddering.
"Not good enough, Locklear," Gomulka called. "We've
got great drives already.
Tell us where it is."
"In a cavern. Other side of-valley," Locklear said,
taking his time. "Nobody has
an-instantaneous drive but Outsiders," he finished.
A whoop of delight, then, from Gomulka, one second
before that fernpalm began to
topple. Schmidt was already watching it, and screamed
a warning in time for the
pilot to see the slender forest giant begin its
agonizingly slow fall. Gomulka
hit the panic button.
Too late. The pinnace, darting forward with its
canopy still up, rose to meet
the spreading top of the tree Scarface had cut using
claws and fangs alone. As
the pinnace was borne to the ground, its canopy
twisting off its hinges, the
swish of foliage and squeal of metal filled the air.
Locklear leaped aside,
rolling away.
Among the yells of consternation, Gomulka's was
loudest. "Schmidt, you dumb
fuck!"
"It was him," Schmidt yelled, coming upright again to
train his rifle on
Locklear-who fired first. If that slug had hit
squarely, Schmidt would have been
dead meat, but its passage along Schmidt's forearm
left only a deep bloody
crease.
Gomulka, every inch a warrior, let fly with his own
sidearm though his nose was
bleeding from the impact. But Locklear, now protected
by another tree, returned
the fire and saw a hole appear in the canopy next to
the wide-staring eyes of
Nathan Gazho.
When Scarface cut loose from thirty meters away,
Gomulka made the right
decision. Yelling commands, laying down a cover of
fire first toward Locklear,
then toward Scarface, he drove his team out of the
immobile pinnace by sheer
voice command while he peered past the armored lip of
the cockpit.
Scarface's call, in Kzin, probably could not be
understood by the others, but
Locklear could not have agreed more. "Fight, run,
fight again," came the
snarling cry.
Five minutes later after racing downhill, Locklear
dropped behind one end of a
fallen log and grinned at Scarface, who lay at its
other end. "Nice aim with
that tree."
"I despise chewing vegetable matter," was the reply.
"Do you think they can get
that pinnace in operation again?"
"With safety interlocks? It won't move at more than a
crawl until somebody
repairs the-" but Locklear fell silent at a sudden
gesture.
From uphill, a stealthy movement as Gomulka scuttled
behind a hillock. Then to
their right, another brief rush by Schmidt, who held
his rifle one-handed now.
This advance, basic to any team using projectile
weapons, would soon overrun
their quarry. The big blond was in the act of
dropping behind a fern when
Scarface's round caught him squarely in the breast,
the rifle flying away, and
Locklear saw answering fire send tendrils of smoke
from his log. He was only a
flicker behind Scarface, firing blindly to force
enemy heads down, as they
bolted downhill again in good cover.
Twice more, during the next hour, they opened up at
long range to slow Gomulka's
team. At that range they had no success. Later,
drawing nearer to the village,
they lay behind stones at the lip of an arroyo. "With
only three," Scarface said
with satisfaction. "They are advancing more slowly."
"And we're wasting ammo," Locklear replied. "I have,
uh, two eights and four
rounds left. You?"
"Eight and seven. Not enough against beam rifles."
The big kzin twisted, then,
ear umbrellas cocked toward the village. He studied
the sun's position, then
came to some internal decision and handed over ten of
his precious remaining
rounds. "The brush in the arroyo's throat looks
flimsy, Locklear, but I could
crawl under its tops, so I know you can. Hold them up
here, then retreat under
the brushtops in the arroyo and wait at its mouth.
With any luck I will reach
you there."
The kzin warrior was already leaping toward the
village. Locklear cried softly.
"Where are you going?"
The reply was almost lost in the arroyo: "For
reinforcements."
***
The sun had crept far across the sky of Kzersatz
before Locklear saw movement
again, and when he did it was nearly too late. A
stone descended the arroyo,
whacking another stone with the crack of bowling
balls; Locklear realized that
someone had already crossed the arroyo. Then he saw
Soichiro Lee ease his rifle
into sight. Lee simply had not spotted him.
Locklear took two-handed aim very slowly and fired
three rounds, full-auto. The
first impact puffed dirt into Lee's face so that
Locklear did not see the others
clearly. It was enough that Lee's head blossomed,
snapping up and back so hard
it jerked his torso, and the rifle clattered into the
arroyo.
The call of alarm from Gazho was so near it spooked
Locklear into firing
blindly. Then he was bounding into the arroyo's
throat, sliding into chest-high
brush with spreading tops.
Late shadows were his friends as he waited, hoping
one of the men would go for
the beam rifle in plain sight. Now and then he sat up
and lobbed a stone into
brush not far from Lee's body. Twice, rifles scorched
that brush. Locklear knew
better than to fire back without a sure target while
pinned in that ravine.
When they began sending heavy fire into the throat of
the arroyo, Locklear hoped
they would exhaust their plenums, but saw a shimmer
of heat and knew his cover
could burn. He wriggled away downslope, past a
trickle of water, careful to
avoid shaking the brush. It was then that he heard
the heavy reports of a kzin
sidearm toward the village.
He nearly shot the rope-muscled kzin that sprang into
the ravine before
recognizing Scarface, but within a minute they had
worked their way together.
"Those kshat priests," Scarface panted, "have
harangued a dozen others into
chasing me. I killed one priest; the others are
staying safely behind."
"So where are our reinforcements?"
"The dark will transform them."
"But we'll be caught between enemies," Locklear
pointed out.
"Who will engage each other in darkness, a dozen
fools against three monkeys."
"Two," Locklear corrected. But he saw the logic now,
and when the sunlight
winked out a few minutes later he was watching the
stealthy movement of kzin
acolytes along both lips of the arroyo.
Mouth close to Locklear's ear, Scarface said, "They
will send someone up this
watercourse. Move aside; my wtsai will deal with them
quietly."
But when a military flare lit the upper reaches of
the arroyo a few minutes
later, they heard battle screams and suddenly,
comically, two kzin warriors came
bounding directly between Locklear and Scarface.
Erect, heads above the
brushtops, they leapt toward the action and were gone
in a moment.
Following with one hand on a furry arm, Locklear
stumbled blindly to the arroyo
lip and sat down to watch. Spears and torches hurtled
from one side of the upper
ravine while thin energy bursts lanced out from the
other. Blazing brush lent a
flickering light as well, and at least three great
kzin bodies surged across the
arroyo toward their enemies.
"At times," Scarface said quietly as if to himself,
"I think my species more
valiant than stupid. But they do not even know their
enemy, nor care."
"Same for those deserters," Locklear muttered,
fascinated at the firefight his
friend had provoked. "So how do we get back to the
cave?"
"This way," Scarface said, tapping his nose, and set
off with Locklear stumbling
at his heels.
***
The cave seemed much smaller when crowded with a
score of worried kzinti, but
not for long. The moment they realized that Kit was
missing, Scarface demanded
to know why.
"Two acolytes entered," explained one male, and
Locklear recognized him as the
mild-tempered Stalwart. "They argued three idiots
into helping take her back to
the village before dark."
Locklear, in quiet fury: "No one stopped them?"
Stalwart pointed to bloody welts on his arms and
neck, then at a female lying
curled on a grassy pallet. "I had no help but her.
She tried to offer herself
instead."
And then Scarface saw that it was Boots who was hurt
but nursing her kittens in
silence, and no cave could have held his rage.
Screaming, snarling, claws raking
tails, he sent the entire pack of refugees pelting
into the night, to return
home as best they could. It was Locklear's idea to
let Stalwart remain; he had,
after all, shed his blood in their cause.
Scarface did not subside until he saw Locklear, with
the kzin medkit,
ministering to Boots. "A fine ally, but no expert in
kzin medicine," he scolded,
choosing different unguents.
Boots, shamed at having permitted acolytes in the
cave, pointed out that the
traps had been disarmed for the flow of refugees.
"The priesthood will surely be
back here soon," she added.
"Not before afternoon," Stalwart said. "They never
mount ceremonies during
darkness. If I am any judge, they will drown the
beauteous prret at high noon."
Locklear: "Don't they ever learn?"
Boots: "No. They are the priesthood," she said as if
explaining everything, and
Stalwart agreed.
"All the same," Scarface said, "they might do a
better job this time. You," he
said to Stalwart; "could you get to the village and
back here in darkness?"
"If I cannot, call me acolyte. You would learn what
they intend for your mate?"
"Of course he must," Locklear said, walking with him
toward the main entrance.
"But call before you enter again. We are setting
deadly traps for anyone who
tries to return, and you may as well spread the word."
Stalwart moved off into darkness, sniffing the
breeze, and Locklear went from
place to place, switching on traps while Scarface
tended Boots. This tender care
from a kzin warrior might be explained as gratitude;
even with her kittens,
Boots had tried to substitute herself for Kit. Still,
Locklear thought, there
was more to it than that. He wondered about it until
he fell asleep.
***
Twice during the night, they were roused by
tremendous thumps and, once, a brief
kzin snarl. Scarface returned each time licking blood
from his arms. The second
time he said to a bleary-eyed Locklear, "We can plug
the entrances with corpses
if these acolytes keep squashing themselves against
our ceilings." The grav
polarizer traps, it seemed, made excellent sentries.
Locklear did not know when Stalwart returned but,
when he awoke, the young kzin
was already speaking with Scarface. True to their
rigid code, the priests fully
intended to drown Kit again in a noon ceremony using
heavier stones and,
afterward, to lay siege to the cave.
"Let them; it will be empty," Scarface grunted.
"Locklear, you have seen me
pilot my little craft. I wonder . . ."
"Hardest part is getting around those deserters, if
any," Locklear said. "I can
cover a lot of ground when I'm fresh."
"Good. Can you navigate to where Boots had her
birthing bower before noon?"
"If I can't, call me acolyte," Locklear said,
smiling. He set off at a lope just
after dawn, achingly alert. Anyone he met, now, would
be a target.
After an hour, he was lost. He found his bearings
from a promontory, loping
longer, walking less, and was dizzy with fatigue when
he climbed a low cliff to
the overhang where Scarface had left his scooter.
Breathing hard, he was
lowering his rump to the scooter when the rifle butt
whistled just over his
head.
Nathan Gazho, who had located the scooter after
scouring the area near the
pinnace, felt fierce glee when he saw Locklear's
approach. But he had not
expected Locklear to drop so suddenly. He swung again
as Locklear, almost as
large as his opponent, darted in under the blow.
Locklear grunted with the
impact against his shoulder, caught the weapon by its
barrel, and used it like a
prybar with both hands though his left arm was
growing numb. The rifle spun out
of reach. As they struggled away from the ten-meter
precipice, Gazho cursed-the
first word by either man-and snatched his utility
knife from its belt clasp,
reeling back, his left forearm out. His crouch, the
shifting of the knife, its
extraordinary honed edge: marks of a man who had
fought with knives before.
Locklear reached for the kzin sidearm but he had
placed it in a left-hand pocket
and now that hand was numb. Gazho darted forward in a
swordsman's balestra,
flicking the knife in a short arc as he passed. By
that time Locklear had
snatched his own wtsai from its sheath with his right
hand. Gazho saw the long
blade but did not flinch, and Locklear knew he was
running out of time. Standing
four paces away, he pump-faked twice as if to throw
the knife. Gazho's
protecting forearm flashed to the vertical at the
same instant when Locklear
leaped forward, hurling the wtsai as he squatted to
grasp a stone of fist size.
Because Locklear was no knife-thrower, the weapon did
not hit point-first; but
the heavy handle caught Gazho squarely on the temple
and, as he stumbled back,
Locklear's stone splintered his jaw. Nathan Gazho's
legs buckled and inertia
carried him backward over the precipice, screaming.
Locklear heard the heavy thump as he was fumbling for
his sidearm. From above,
he could see the broken body twitching, and his
single round from the sidearm
was more kindness than revenge. Trembling, massaging
his left arm, he collected
his wtsai and the beam rifle before crawling onto the
scooter. Not until he
levitated the little craft and guided it ineptly down
the mountainside did he
notice the familiar fittings of the standard-issue
rifle. It had been fully
discharged during the firefight, thanks to Scarface's
tactic.
Many weeks before-it seemed a geologic age by
now-Locklear had found Boots'
private bower by accident. The little cave was hidden
behind a low waterfall
near the mouth of a shallow ravine, and once he had
located that ravine from the
air it was only a matter of following it, keeping low
enough to avoid being seen
from the kzin village. The sun was almost directly
overhead as Locklear
approached the rendezvous. If he'd cut it too close .
..
Scarface waved him down near the falls and sprang
onto the scooter before it
could settle. "Let me fly it," he snarled, shoving
Locklear aside in a way that
suggested a kzin on the edge of self-control. The
scooter lunged forward and, as
he hung on, Locklear told of Gazho's death.
"It will not matter," Scarface replied as he piloted
the scooter higher,
squinting toward the village, "if my mate dies this
day." Then his predator's
eyesight picked out the horrifying details, and he
began to gnash his teeth in
uncontrollable fury.
When they were within a kilometer of the village,
Locklear could see what had
pushed his friend beyond sanity. While most of the
villagers stood back as if to
distance themselves from this pomp and circumstance,
the remaining acolytes bore
a bound, struggling burden toward the lakeshore.
Behind them marched the
bandoliered priests, arms waving beribboned lances.
They were chanting, a
cacophony like metal chaff thrown into a power
transformer, and Locklear
shuddered.
Even at top speed, they would not arrive until that
procession reached the
walkway to deep water; and Kit, her limbs bound
together with great stones for
weights, would not be able to escape this time.
"We'll have to go in after her,"
Locklear called into the wind.
"I cannot swim," cried Scarface, his eyes slitted.
"I can," said Locklear, taking great breaths to hoard
oxygen. As he positioned
himself for the leap, his friend began to fire his
sidearm.
As the scooter swept lower and slower, one kzin
priest crumpled. The rest saw
the scooter and exhorted the acolytes forward. The
hapless Kit was flung without
further ceremony into deep water but, as he was
leaping feet-first off the
scooter, Locklear saw that she had spotted him. As he
slammed into deep water,
he could hear the full-automatic thunder of
Scarface's weapon.
Misjudging his leap, Locklear let inertia carry him
before striking out forward
and down. His left arm was only at half-strength but
the weight of his weapons
helped carry him to the sandy bottom. Eyes open, he
struggled to the one darker
mass looming ahead.
But it was only a small boulder. Feeling the prickles
of oxygen starvation
across his back and scalp, he swiveled, kicking
hard-and felt one foot strike
something like fur. He wheeled, ignoring the demands
of his lungs, wresting his
wtsai out with one hand as he felt for cordage with
the other. Three ferocious
slices, and those cords were severed. He dropped the
knife-the same weapon Kit
herself had once dulled, then resharpened for him-and
pushed off from the bottom
in desperation.
He broke the surface, gasped twice, and saw a
wide-eyed priest fling a lance in
his direction. By sheer dumb luck, it missed, and
after a last deep inhalation
Locklear kicked toward the bottom again.
The last thing a wise man would do is locate a
drowning tigress in deep water,
but that is what Locklear did. Kit, no swimmer,
literally climbed up his sodden
flightsuit, forcing him into an underwater
somersault, fine sand stinging his
eyes. The next moment he was struggling toward the
light again, disoriented and
panicky.
He broke the surface, swam to a piling at the end of
the walkway, and tried to
hyperventilate for another hopeless foray after Kit.
Then, between gasps, he
heard a spitting cough echo in the space between the
water's surface and the
underside of the walkway. "Kit!" He swam forward,
seeing her frightened gaze and
her formidable claws locked into those rough planks,
and patted her shoulder.
Above them, someone was raising kzin hell. "Stay
here," he commanded, and kicked
off toward the shallows.
He waded with his sidearm drawn. What he saw on the
walkway was abundant proof
that the priesthood truly did not seem to learn very
fast.
Five bodies sprawled where they had been shot,
bleeding on the planks near deep
water, but more of them lay curled on the planks
within a few paces of the
shore, piled atop one another. One last acolyte stood
on the walkway, staring
over the curled bodies. He was staring at Scarface,
who stood on dry land with
his own long wtsai held before him, snarling a
challenge with eyes that held the
light of madness. Then, despite what he had seen
happen a half-dozen times in
moments, the acolyte screamed and leaped.
Losing consciousness in midair, the acolyte fell
heavily across his fellows and
drew into a foetal crouch, as all the others had done
when crossing the last six
meters of planking toward shore. Those units Locklear
had placed beneath the
planks in darkness had kept three-ton herbivores in
stasis, and worked even
better on kzinti. They'd known damned well the
priesthood would be using the
walkway again sooner or later; but they'd had no idea
it would be this soon.
Scarface did not seem entirely sane again until he
saw Kit wading from the
water. Then he clasped his mate to him, ignoring the
wetness he so despised.
Asked how he managed to trip the gangswitch, Scarface
replied, "You had told me
it was on the inside of that piling, and those idiots
did not try to stop me
from wading to it."
"I noticed you were wet," said Locklear, smiling.
"Sorry about that."
"I shall be wetter with blood presently," Scarface
said with a grim look toward
the pile of inert sleepers.
Locklear, aghast, opened his mouth.
But Kit placed her hand over it. "Rockear, I know
you, and I know my mate. It is
not your way but this is Kzersatz. Did you see what
they did to the captive they
took last night?"
"Big man, short black hair? His name is Gomulka."
"His name is meat. What they left of him hangs from a
post yonder."
"Oh my God," Locklear mumbled, swallowing hard.
"But-look, just don't ask me to
help execute anyone in stasis."
"Indeed." Scarface stood, stretched, and walked
toward the piled bodies. "You
may want to take a brief walk, Locklear," he said,
picking up a discarded lance
twice his length. "This is kzin business, not monkey
business." But he did not
understand why, as Locklear strode away, the little
man was laughing ruefully at
the choice of words.
***
Locklear's arm was well enough, after two days, to
let him dive for his wtsai
while kzinti villagers watched in curiosity-and
perhaps in distaste. By that
time they had buried their dead in a common plot and,
with the help of Stalwart,
begun to repair the pinnace's canopy holes and
twisted hinges. The little
hand-welder would have sped the job greatly but,
Locklear promised, "We'll get
it back. If we don't hit first, there'll be a stolen
warship overhead with
enough clout to fry us all."
Scarface had to agree. As the warrior who had
overthrown the earlier regime, he
now held not only the rights, but also the
responsibilities of leading his
people. Lounging on grassy beds in the village's
meeting hut on the third night,
they slurped hot stew and made plans. "Only the two
of us can make that raid,
you know," said the big kzin.
"I was thinking of volunteers," said Locklear, who
knew very well that Scarface
would honor his wish if he made it a demand.
"If we had time to train them," Scarface replied.
"But that ship could be
searching for the pinnace at any moment. Only you and
I can pilot the pinnace
so, if we are lost in battle, those volunteers will
be stranded forever among
hostile monk-hostiles," he amended. "Nor can they use
modern weapons."
"Stalwart probably could, he's a natural mechanic. I
know Kit can use a
weapon-not that I want her along."
"For a better reason than you know," Scarface agreed,
his ears winking across
the fire at the somnolent Kit.
"He is trying to say I will soon bear his kittens,
Rockear," Kit said. "And
please do not take Boots' new mate away merely
because he can work magics with
his hands." She saw the surprise in Locklear's face.
"How could you miss that?
He fought those acolytes in the cave for Boots' sake."
"I, uh, guess I've been pretty busy," Locklear
admitted.
"We will be busier if that warship strikes before we
do," Scarface reminded him.
"I suggest we go as soon as it is light."
Locklear sat bolt upright. "Damn! If they hadn't
taken my wristcomp-I keep
forgetting. The schedules of those little suns aren't
in synch; it's probably
daylight there now, and we can find out by idling the
pinnace near the force
walls. You can damned well see whether it's light
there."
"I would rather go in darkness," Scarface complained,
"if we could master those
night-vision sensors in the pinnace."
"Maybe, in time. I flew the thing here to the
village, didn't I?"
"In daylight, after a fashion," Scarface said in a
friendly insult, and flicked
his sidearm from its holster to check its magazine.
"Would you like to fly it
again, right now?"
Kit saw the little man fill his hand as he checked
his own weapon, and marveled
at a creature with the courage to show such puny
teeth in such a feral grin. "I
know you must go," she said as they turned toward the
door, and nuzzled the
throat of her mate. "But what do we do if you fail?"
"You expect enemies with the biggest ship you ever
saw," Locklear said. "And you
know how those stasis traps work. Just remember,
those people have night sensors
and they can burn you from a distance."
Scarface patted her firm belly once. "Take great
care," he said, and strode into
darkness.
***
The pinnace's controls were simple, and Locklear's
only worry was the thin
chorus of whistles: air, escaping from a canopy that
was not quite perfectly
sealed. He briefed Scarface yet again as their craft
carried them over Newduvai,
and piloted the pinnace so that its reentry thunder
would roll gently, as far as
possible from the Anthony Wayne.
It was late morning on Newduvai, and they could see
the gleam of the Wayne's
hull from afar. Locklear slid the pinnace at a
furtive pace, brushing spiny
shrubs for the last few kilometers before landing in
a small desert wadi. They
pulled hinge pins from the canopy and hid them in the
pinnace to make its theft
tedious. Then, stuffing a roll of binder tape into
his pocket, Locklear began to
trot toward his clearing.
"I am a kitten again," Scarface rejoiced, fairly
floating along in the reduced
gravity of Newduvai. Then he slowed, nose twitching.
"Not far," he warned.
Locklear nodded, moved cautiously ahead, and then sat
behind a green thicket.
Ahead lay the clearing with the warship and cabin,
seeming little changed-but a
heavy limb held the door shut as if to keep things
in, not out. And Scarface
noticed two mansized craters just outside the cabin's
foundation logs. After ten
minutes without sound or movement from the clearing,
Scarface was ready to
employ what he called the monkey ruse; not quite a
lie, but certainly a
misdirection.
"Patience," Locklear counseled. "I thought you
tabbies were hunters."
"Hunters, yes; not skulkers."
"No wonder you lose wars," Locklear muttered. But
after another half-hour in
which they ghosted in deep cover around the clearing,
he too was ready to move.
The massive kzin sighed, slid his wtsai to the rear
and handed over his sidearm,
then dutifully held his big pawlike hands out.
Locklear wrapped the thin, bright
red binder tape around his friend's wrists many
times, then severed it with its
special stylus. Scarface was certain he could bite it
through until he tried.
Then he was happy to let Locklear draw the stylus,
with its chemical enabler,
across the tape where the slit could not be seen.
Then, hailing the clearing as
he went, the little man drew his own wtsai and
prodded his "prisoner" toward the
cabin.
His neck crawling with premonition, Locklear stood
five paces from the door and
called again:
"Hello, the cabin!"
From inside, several female voices and then only one,
which he knew very well:
"Locklear go soon soon!"
"Ruth says that many times," he replied, half amused,
though he knew somehow
that this time she feared for him. "New people keep
gentles inside?"
Scarface, standing uneasily, had his ear umbrellas
moving fore and aft. He
mumbled something as, from inside, Ruth said, "Ruth
teach new talk to gentles,
get food. No teach, no food," she explained with vast
economy.
"I'll see about that," he called and then, in Kzin,
"what was that, Scarface?"
Low but urgent: "Behind us, fool."
Locklear turned. Not twenty paces away, Anse Parker
was moving forward as
silently as he could and now the hatchway of the
Anthony Wayne yawned open.
Parker's rifle hung from its sling but his service
parabellum was leveled, and
he was smirking. "If this don't beat all: my prisoner
has a prisoner," he
drawled.
For a frozen instant, Locklear feared the deserter
had spied the wtsai hanging
above Scarface's backside-but the kzin's tail was
erect, hiding the weapon.
"Where are the others?" Locklear asked.
"Around. Pacifyin' the natives in that tabby
lifeboat," Parker replied. "I'll
ask you the same question, asshole."
The parabellum was not wavering. Locklear stepped
away from his friend, who
faced Parker so that the wrist tape was obvious.
"Gomulka's boys are in trouble.
Promised me amnesty if I'd come for help, and I
brought a hostage," Locklear
said.
Parker's movements were not fast, but so casual that
Locklear was taken by
surprise. The parabellum's short barrel whipped
across his face, splitting his
lip, bowling him over. Parker stood over him,
sneering. "Buncha shit. If that
happened, you'd hide out. You can tell a better one
than that."
Locklear privately realized that Parker was right.
And then Parker himself, who
had turned half away from Scarface, made a discovery
of his own. He discovered
that, without moving one step, a kzin could reach out
a long way to stick the
point of a wtsai against a man's throat. Parker froze.
"If you shoot me, you are deader than chivalry,"
Locklear said, propping himself
up on an elbow. "Toss the pistol away."
Parker, cursing, did so, looking at Scarface, finding
his chance as the kzin
glanced toward the weapon. Parker shied away with a
sidelong leap, snatching for
his slung rifle. And ignoring the leg of Locklear who
tripped him nicely.
As his rifle tumbled into grass, Parker rolled to his
feet and began sprinting
for the warship two hundred meters away. Scarface
outran him easily, then
stationed himself in front of the warship's hatch.
Locklear could not hear
Parker's words, but his gestures toward the wtsai
were clear: there ain't no
justice.
Scarface understood. With that kzin grin that so many
humans failed to
understand, he tossed the wtsai near Parker's feet in
pure contempt. Parker
grabbed the knife and saw his enemy's face, howled in
fear, then raced into the
forest, Scarface bounding lazily behind.
Locklear knocked the limb away from his cabin door
and found Ruth inside with
three others, all young females. He embraced the
homely Ruth with great joy. The
other young Neanderthalers disappeared from the
clearing in seconds but Ruth
walked off with Locklear. He had already seen the
spider grenades that lay with
sensors outspread just outside the cabin's walls. Two
gentles had already died
trying to dig their way out, she said.
He tried to prepare Ruth for his ally's appearance
but, when Scarface reappeared
with his wtsai, she needed time to adjust. "I don't
see any blood," was
Locklear's comment.
"The blood of cowards is distasteful," was the kzin's
wry response. "I believe
you have my sidearm, friend Locklear."
They should have counted, said Locklear, on Stockton
learning to fly the kzin
lifeboat. But lacking heavy weapons, it might not
complicate their capture
strategy too much. As it happened, the capture was
more absurd than complicated.
Stockton brought the lifeboat bumbling down in late
afternoon almost in the same
depressions the craft's jackpads had made previously,
within fifty paces of the
Anthony Wayne. He and the lissome Grace wore
holstered pistols, stretching out
their muscle kinks as they walked toward the bigger
craft, unaware that they
were being watched. "Anse; we're back," Stockton
shouted. "Any word from
Gomulka?"
Silence from the ship, though its hatch steps were
down. Grace shrugged, then
glanced at Locklear's cabin. "The door prop is down,
Curt. He's trying to hump
those animals again."
"Damn him," Stockton railed, and both turned toward
the cabin. To Grace he
complained, "If you were a better lay, he wouldn't
always be-good God!"
The source of his alarm was a long blood-chilling,
gut-wrenching scream. A kzin
scream, the kind featured in horror holovision
productions; and very, very near.
"Battle stations, red alert, up ship," Stockton
cried, bolting for the hatch.
Briefly, he had his pistol ready but had to grip it
in his teeth as he reached
for the hatch rails of the Anthony Wayne. For that
one moment he almost
resembled a piratical man of action, and that was the
moment when he stopped,
one foot on the top step, and Grace bumped her head
against his rump as she fled
up those steps.
"I don't think so," said Locklear softly. To Curt
Stockton, the muzzle of that
alien sidearm so near must have looked like a torpedo
launcher. His face drained
of color, the commander allowed Locklear to take the
pistol from his trembling
lips. "And Grace," Locklear went on, because he could
not see her past
Stockton's bulk, "I doubt if it's your style anyway,
but don't give your pistol
a second thought. That kzin you heard? Well, they're
out there behind you, but
they aren't in here. Toss your parabellum away and
I'll let you in."
***
Late the next afternoon they finished walling up the
crypt on Newduvai, with a
small work force of willing hands recruited by Ruth.
As the little group of
gentles filed away down the hillside, Scarface nodded
toward the rubble-choked
entrance. "I still believe we should have executed
those two, Locklear."
"I know you do. But they'll keep in stasis for as
long as the war lasts, and on
Newduvai-well, Ruth's people agree with me that
there's been enough killing."
Locklear turned his back on the crypt and Ruth moved
to his side, still wary of
the huge alien whose speech sounded like the sizzle
of fat on a skewer.
"Your ways are strange," said the kzin, as they
walked toward the nearby
pinnace. "I know something of Interworld beauty
standards. As long as you want
that female lieutenant alive, it seems to me you
would keep her, um, available."
"Grace Agostinho's beauty is all on the outside. And
there's a girl hiding
somewhere on Newduvai that those deserters never did
catch. In a few years
she'll be-well, you'll meet her someday." Locklear
put an arm around Ruth's
waist and grinned. "The truth is, Ruth thinks I'm
pretty funny-looking, but some
things you can learn to overlook."
At the clearing, Ruth hopped from the pinnace first.
"Ruth will fix place nice,
like before," she promised, and walked to the cabin.
"She's learning Interworld fast," Locklear said
proudly. "Her telepathy helps-in
a lot of ways. Scarface, do you realize that her
people may be the most
tremendous discovery of modern times? And the irony
of it! The empathy these
people share probably helped isolate them from the
modern humans that came from
their own gene pool. Yet their kind of empathy might
be the only viable future
for us." He sighed and stepped to the turf.
"Sometimes I wonder whether I want
to be found."
Standing beside the pinnace, they gazed at the
Anthony Wayne. Scarface said,
"With that warship, you could do the finding."
Locklear assessed the longing in the face of the big
kzin. "I know how you feel
about piloting, Scarface. But you must accept that I
can't let you have any
craft more advanced than your scooter back on
Kzersatz."
"But-surely, the pinnace or my own lifeboat?"
"You see that?" Locklear pointed toward the forest.
Scarface looked dutifully away, then back, and when
he saw the sidearm pointing
at his breast, a look of terrible loss crossed his
face. "I see that I will
never understand you," he growled, clasping his hands
behind his head. "And I
see that you still doubt my honor."
Locklear forced him to lean against the pinnace, arms
behind his back, and
secured his hands with binder tape. "Sorry, but I
have to do this," he said.
"Now get back in the pinnace. I'm taking you to
Kzersatz."
"But I would have-"
"Don't say it," Locklear demanded. "Don't tell me
what you want, and don't
remind me of your honor, goddammit! Look here, I know
you don't lie. And what if
the next ship here is another kzin ship? You won't
lie to them either, your
bloody honor won't let you. They'll find you sitting
pretty on Kzersatz, right?"
Teetering off-balance as he climbed into the pinnace
without using his arms,
Scarface still glowered. But after a moment he
admitted, "Correct."
"They won't court-martial you, Scarface. Because a
lying, sneaking monkey pulled
a gun on you, tied you up, and sent you back to
prison. I'm telling you here and
now, I see Kzersatz as a prison and every tabby on
this planet will be locked up
there for the duration of the war!" With that,
Locklear sealed the canopy and
made a quick check of the console readouts. He
reached across to adjust the
inertia-reel harness of his companion, then shrugged
into his own. "You have no
choice, and no tabby telepath can ever claim you did.
Now do you understand?"
The big kzin was looking below as the forest dropped
away, but Locklear could
see his ears forming the kzin equivalent of a smile.
"No wonder you win wars,"
said Scarface.

The Children's Hour
by Jerry Pournelle
     & S.M. Stirling
Prologue
The kzin floated motionless in the bubble of space.
The yacht Boundless-Ranger
was orbiting beyond the circle of Wunderland's moons,
and the planet obscured
the disk of Alpha Centauri; Beta was a brighter point
of light. All around him
the stars shone, glorious and chill, multihued. He
was utterly relaxed; the
points of his claws showed slightly, and the pink tip
of his tongue. Long ago he
had mastered the impulse to draw back from vertigo,
uncoupling the conscious
mind and accepting the endless falling, forever and
ever. . . .
A small chiming brought him gradually back to
selfhood. "Hrrrr," he muttered,
suddenly conscious of dry throat and nose. The bubble
was retracting into the
personal spacecraft; he oriented himself and landed
lightly as the chamber
switched to opaque and Kzin-normal gravity. Twice
that of Wunderland, about a
fifth more than that of Earth, home of the great
enemies.
"Arrrgg."
The dispenser opened and he took out a flat dish of
chilled cream, lapping
gratefully. A human observer would have found him
very catlike at that moment,
like some great orange-red tiger hunched over the
beautiful subtle curve of the
saucer. A closer examination would have shown endless
differences of detail, the
full-torso sheathing of flexible ribs, naked pink
tail, the eyes round-pupiled
and huge and golden. Most important of all, the
four-digit hands with a fully
opposable thumb, like a black leather glove; that and
the long braincase that
swept back from the heavy brow-ridges above the blunt
muzzle.
Claws scratched at the door; he recognized the mellow
but elderly scent.
"Enter," he said.
The kzin who stepped through was ancient, his face
seamed by a ridge of scar
that tracked through his right eye and left it
milky-white and blind.
"Recline, Conservor-of-the-Patriarchal-Past," he
said. "Will you take
refreshment?"
"I touch nose, honored Chuut-Riit," the familiar
gravelly voice said.
The younger kzin fetched a jug of heated milk and
bourbon from the dispenser,
and a fresh saucer. The two reclined in silence for
long minutes. As always,
Chuut-Riit felt the slightest prickling of unease,
despite their long
familiarity. Conservor had served his Sire before
him, and helped to tutor the
Riit siblings. Yet still there was an unkzin quality
to the ancient
priest-sage-counselor . . . a Hero strove all his
life to win a full Name, to
become a patriarch and sire a heroic Line. Here was
one who had attained that
and then renounced it of his own will, to follow
wisdom purely for the sake of
kzinkind. Rare and not quite canny; such a kzintosh
was dedicated. The word he
thought was from the Old Faith; sacrifices had been
dedicated, in the days when
kzinti fought with swords of wood and volcanic glass.
"What have you learned?" Conservor said at last.
"Hrrr. That which is difficult to express,"
Chuut-Riit muttered.
"Yet you seem calmer."
"Yes. There was risk in the course of study you set
me." Chuut-Riit's hardy soul
shuddered slightly. The human . . . fictions, that
was the term . . . had been
disturbing. Alien to the point of incomprehensibility
at one moment,
mind-wrackingly kzinlike the next. "I begin to
integrate the insights, though."
"Excellent. The soul of the true Conquest Hero is
strong through flexibility,
like the steel of a fine sword-not the rigidity of
stone, which shatters beneath
stress."
"Arreowg. Yes. Yet . . . my mind does not return to
all its accustomed
patterns." He brooded, twitching out his batwing
ears. "Contemplating the stars,
I am oppressed by their magnitude. Is the universe
not merely greater than we
imagine, but greater than we can imagine? We seek the
Infinite Hunt, to shape
all that is to the will of kzinkind. Yet is this a
delusion imposed by our
genes, our nature?" His pelt quivered as skin rippled
in a shudder.
"Such thoughts are the food of leadership," Conservor
said. "Only the lowly may
keep all sixteen claws dug firmly in the earth. Ever
since the outer universe
came to Homeworld, such as you have been driven to
feed on strange game and
follow unknown scents."
"Hrrrr." He flicked his tail-tip, bringing the
discussion back to more immediate
matters. "At least, I think that now my understanding
of the humans becomes more
intuitive. It would be valuable if others could
undertake this course of
meditation and knowledge-stalking as well.
Traat-Admiral, perhaps?"
Conservor flared his whiskers in agreement. "To a
limited extent. As much as his
spirit-a strong one-can bear. Too long has the
expansion of our hunting grounds
waited here, unable to encompass Sol, fettering the
spirit of kzin. Whatever is
necessary must be done."
"Rrrrr. Agreed. Yet . . . yet there are times, my
teacher, when I think that our
conquest of the humans may be as much a
lurker-by-water threat as their open
resistance."

Chapter 1
"We want you to kill a kzin," the general said.
Captain Jonah Matthieson blinked. Is this some sort
of flatlander idea of a
joke? he thought.
"Well . . . that's more or less what I've been
doing," the Sol-Belter said,
running a hand down the short-cropped black crest
that was his concession to
military dress codes. He was a tall man even for a
Belter, slim, with slanted
green eyes.
The general sighed and lit another cheroot. "Display.
A-7, schematic," he said.
The rear wall of the office lit with a display of
hashmarked columns; Jonah
studied it for a moment and decided it represented
the duration and intensity of
a kzin attack: number of ships, weapons, comparative
casualties.
"Time sequence, phased," the senior officer
continued. The computer obliged,
superimposing four separate mats.
"That," he said, "is the record of the four fleets
the kzin have sent since they
took Wunderland and the Alpha Centauri system,
forty-two years ago. Notice
anything?"
Jonah shrugged: "We're losing." The war with the
felinoid aliens had been going
on since before his birth, since humanity's first
contact with them, sixty years
before. Interstellar warfare at sublight speeds was a
game for the patient.
"Fucking brilliant, Captain!" General Early was a
short man, even for a Terran:
black, balding, carrying a weight of muscle that was
almost obscene to someone
raised in low gravity; he looked to be in early
middle age, which, depending on
how much he cared about appearances, might mean
anything up to a century and a
half these days. With a visible effort, he controlled
himself.
"Yeah, we're losing. Their fleets have been getting
bigger and their weapons are
getting better. We've made some improvements too, but
not as fast as they have."
Jonah nodded. There wasn't any need to say anything.
"What do you think I did before the war?" the general
demanded.
"I have no idea, sir."
"Sure you do. ARM bureaucrat, like all the other
generals," Early said. The ARM
was the UN's enforcement arm, and supervised-mainly
suppressed, before the kzin
had arrived-technology of all types. "Well, I was.
But I also taught military
history in the ARM academy. Damn near the only Terran
left who paid any
attention to the subject."
"Oh."
"Right. We weren't ready for wars, any of us. Terrans
didn't believe in them.
Belters didn't either; too damned independent. Well,
the goddam pussies do."
"Yes sir." Goddam, he thought. This joker is older
than I thought. It had been a
long time since many in the Sol system took a deity's
name in vain.
"Right. Everyone knows that. Now think about it.
We're facing a race of
carnivores with a unified interstellar government of
completely unknown size,
organized for war. They started ahead of us, and now
they've had Wunderland and
its belt for better than a generation. If nothing
else, at this rate they can
eventually swamp us with numbers. Just one set of
multimegatonners getting
through to Earth . . ."
He puffed on the cigar with short, vicious breaths.
Jonah shivered inside
himself at the thought: all those people, dependent
on a single life-support
system. . . . He wondered how flatlanders had ever
stood it. Why, a single
asteroid impact . . . The Belt was less vulnerable.
Too much delta vee required
to match the wildly varying vectors of its scores of
thousands of rocks, its
targets weaker individually but vastly more numerous
and scattered.
He forced his mind back to the man before him,
gagging slightly on the smell of
the tobacco. How does he get away with that on
shipboard? For that matter, the
habit had almost died out; it must have been revived
since the pussies came,
like so many archaic customs.
Like war and armies, the Belter thought sardonically.
The branch-of-service
flashes on the shoulder of the flatlander's coverall
were not ones he
recognized. Of course, there were 18 billion people
in the solar system, and
most of them seemed to be wearing some sort of
uniform these days; flatlanders
particularly, they loved playing dress-up. Comes of
having nothing useful to do
most of their lives, he thought. Except wear uniforms
and collect knickknacks.
There was a truly odd one on the flatlander's desk, a
weird-looking pyramid with
an eye in it, topped by a tiny cross.
"So every time it gets harder. First time was bad
enough, but they really
underestimated us. Did the next time, too, but not so
badly. They're getting
better all the time. This last one-that was bad."
General Early pointedly eyed
the ribbons on Jonah's chest. Two Comets, and the
unit citation his squadron of
Darts had earned when they destroyed a kzin
fighter-base ship.
"As you know. You saw some of that. What you didn't
see was the big
picture-because we censored it, even from our
military units. Captain, they
nearly broke us. Because we underestimated them. This
time they didn't just
'shriek and leap.' They came in tricky, fooled us
completely when they looked
like retreating . . . and we know why."
He spoke to the computer again, and the rear wall
turned to holo image. A woman
in lieutenant's stripes, but with the same
branch-badges as the general. Tall
and slender, paler-skinned than most, and muscular in
the fashion of low-gravity
types who exercise. When she spoke it was in Belter
dialect.
"The subject's name was Esteban Cheung Jagrannath,"
the woman said. The screen
split, and a battered-looking individual appeared
beside her; Jonah's eye picked
out the glisten of sealant over artificial skin, the
dying-rummy pattern of
burst blood vessels from explosive decompression, the
mangy look of someone
given accelerated marrow treatments for radiation
overdose. That is one
sorry-looking son of a bitch. "He claims to have been
born in Tiamat, in the
Serpent Swarm of Wunderland, twenty-five subjective
years ago."
Now I recognize the accent, Jonah thought. The
lieutenant's English had a
guttural overtone despite the crisp Belter vowels;
the Belters who migrated to
the asteroids of Alpha Centauri talked that way.
Wunderlander influence.
"Subject is a power-systems specialist, drafted into
the kzin service as a
crewman on a corvette tender"-the blue eyes looked
down to a readout below the
pickup's line of sight "-called-" Something followed
in the snarling hiss-spit
of the Hero's Tongue.
"Roughly translated, the Bounteous-Mother's-Teats.
Tits took a near-miss from a
radiation-pulse bomb right toward the end. The kzin
captain didn't have time to
self-destruct; the bridge took most of the blast. She
was a big mother"-the
general blinked, snorted-"so a few of the repair crew
survived, like this gonzo.
All humans, as were most of the technical staff. A
few nonhuman, nonkzin species
as well, but they were all killed. Pity."
Jonah and the flatlander both nodded in unconscious
union. The kzin empire was
big, hostile, not interested in negotiation, and
contained many subject species
and planets; and that was about the limit of human
knowledge. Not much
background information had been included in the
computers of the previous
fleets, and very little of that survived; vessels too
badly damaged for their
crews to self-destruct before capture usually held
little beyond wreckage.
The general spoke again: "Gracie, fast forward to the
main point." The
holo-recording blurred ahead. "Captain, you can
review at your leisure. It's all
important background, but for now-" He signed, and
the recording returned to
normal speed.
" . . . the new kzin commander arrived three years
before they left. His name's
Chuut-Riit, which indicates a close relation to the .
. . Patriarch, that's as
close as we've been able to get. Apparently, his
first command was to delay the
departure of the fleet." A thin smile. "Chuut-Riit's
not just related to their
panjandrum; he's an author, of sorts. Two works on
strategy: Logistical
Preparation as the Key to Victory in War and Conquest
Through the Defensive
Offensive."
Jonah shaped a soundless whistle. Not your typical
kzin. If we have any idea of
what a typical kzin is like. We've met their
warriors, coming our way behind
beams and bombs.
The lieutenant's image was agreeing with him. "The
pussies find him a little
eccentric, as well; according to the subject, gossip
had it that he fought a
whole series of duels, starting almost the moment he
arrived and held a staff
conference. The new directives included a pretty
massive increase in the support
infrastructure to go with the fleet. Meanwhile, he
ordered a complete changeover
in tactics, especially to ensure that accurate
reports of the fighting got back
to Wunderland."
The flatlander general cut off the scene with a wave.
"So." He folded his hands
and leaned forward, the yellowish whites of his eyes
glittering in lights that
must be kept deliberately low. "We are in trouble,
Captain. So far we've beaten
off the pussies because we're a lot closer to our
main sources of supply, and
because they're . . . predictable. Adequate
tacticians, but with little
strategic sense, even less than we had at first,
despite the Long Peace. The
analysts say that indicates they've never come across
much in the way of
significant opposition before. If they had they'd
have learned from it like they
are-damn it!-from us.
"In fact, what little intelligence information we've
got, a lot of it from
prisoners taken with the Fourth Fleet, backs that up;
the kzin just don't have
much experience of war."
Jonah blinked. "Not what you'd assume," he said
carefully.
A choppy nod. "Yep. Surprises you, eh? Me, too."
General Early puffed delicately on his cigar. "Oh,
they're aggressive enough.
Almost insanely so, barely gregarious enough to
maintain a civilization.
Ritualized conflict to the death is a central
institution of theirs. Some of the
xenologists swear they must have gotten their
technology from somebody else,
that this culture they've got could barely rise above
the hunter-gatherer stage
on its own.
"In any event; they're wedded to a style of attack
that's almost pitifully
straightforward." He looked thoughtfully at the wet
chewed end of his cigar and
selected another from the sealed humidor.
"And as far as we can tell, they have only one
society, one social system, one
religion, and one state. That fits in with some other
clues we've gotten. The
kzin species has been united for a long
time-millennia. They have a longer
continuous history than any human culture." Another
puff. "They're curiously
genetically uniform, too. We know more about their
biology than their beliefs,
more corpses than live prisoners. Less variation than
you'd expect; large
numbers of them seem to be siblings."
Jonah stirred. "Well, this is all very interesting,
General, but-"
"-what's it got to do with you?" The flatlander
leaned forward again, tapping
paired thumbs together. "This Chuut-Riit is a
first-class menace. You see, we're
losing those advantages I mentioned. The kzin have
been shipping additional
force into the Wunderland system in relays, not so
much weapons as knocked-down
industrial plants and personnel; furthermore, they've
got the locals well
organized. It's a fully industrialized economy, with
an Earth-type planet and an
asteroid belt richer than Sol's; the population's
much lower-hundreds of
millions instead of nearly twenty billion-but that
doesn't matter much."
Jonah nodded in his turn. With ample energy and raw
materials, the
geometric-increase potential of automated machinery
could build a war-making
capacity in a single generation, given the knowledge
and skills the kzin inner
sphere could supply. Faster than that, if a few
crucial administrators and
technicians were imported too. Earth's witless hordes
were of little help to
Sol's military effort, a drain on resources, and not
even useful as cannon
fodder in a conflict largely fought in space.
"So now they're in a position to outproduce us. We
have to keep our advantages
in operational efficiency."
"You play chess with good chessplayers, you get
good," the Belter said.
"No. It's academic whether the pussies are more or
less intelligent than we.
What's intelligence, anyway? But we've proven
experimentally that they're
culturally and genetically less flexible. Man, when
this war started we were
absolute pacifists, we hadn't had so much as a riot
in three centuries. We even
censored history so that the majority didn't know
there had ever been wars! That
was less than a century ago, less than a single
lifetime, and look at what we've
done since. The pussies are only just now starting to
smarten up about us."
"This Chuut-Riit sounds as if he's, oh shit. Sir."
A wide white grin. "Exactly. An exceptionally able
rat-cat, and they're less
prone to either genius or stupidity than we are. In a
position to knock sense
into their heads. He has to go."
The Earther stood and began striding back and forth
behind the desk, gesturing
with the cigar. Something more than the stink made
Jonah's stomach clench.
"Covert operations is another thing we've had to
reinvent, just lately. We need
somebody who's good with spacecraft . . . a Belter,
because the ones who settled
the Serpent Swarm belt of Wunderland have stayed
closer to the ancestral stock
than the Wunderlanders downside. A good combat man,
who's proved himself capable
of taking on kzin hand-to-hand. And someone who's
good with computer systems,
because our informants tell us that is the skill most
in demand by the kzin on
Wunderland itself."
The general halted and stabbed toward Jonah with the
hand that held the stub of
burning weeds. "Last but not least, someone with
contacts in the Alpha Centauri
system."
Jonah felt a wave of relief. A little relief, because
the general was still
grinning at him.
"Sir, I've never left-"
An upraised hand halted him. "Lieutenant Raines?" A
woman came in and saluted
smartly, first the general and then Jonah; he
recognized her from the holo
report. "I'd like you to meet Captain Matthieson."
***
"Hrrrr," the cub crooned, plastering itself to the
ground.
Chuut-Riit, Scion of the Patriarch, kzinti overlord
of the Wunderland system,
Grand Admiral of the Conquest Fleet; pulled on the
string.
The clump of feathers dragged through the long grass,
and the young kzin crept
after it on all fours, belly flat to the ground. The
grass was Terran, as alien
to Wunderland as the felinoids, and bright green; the
brown-spotted orange of
the cub's fur showed clearly as be snaked through the
meter-high stems. Eyes
flared wide, pupils swallowing amber-yellow iris, and
the young kzin screamed
and leaped.
"Huufff!" it exclaimed, as Chuut-Riit's hand made the
lure blur out from
underneath the pounce.
"Sire!" it mewled complainingly, sprawled on its
belly. The fur went flat as the
adult kzinti picked it up by the scruff of the neck;
reflex made the cub's limbs
splay out stiffly.
"You made a noise, youngling," Chuut-Riit said,
leaning forward to lick his
son's ears in affectionate admonishment "You'll never
catch your prey that way."
His nostrils flared, taking in the pleasant scent of
healthy youngster.
"Sorry, Sire," the cub said, abashed. His head
pivoted; a dozen of his brothers
were rioting up from the copse of trees in the valley
below, where the guards
and aircars were parked. They showed as ripples in
the long grass of the
hillside, with bursts of orange movement as cubs
soared up in leaps after the
white glitter of butterflies, or just for the sake of
movement. They could leap
ten meters or more, in this gravity; Wunderland was
only about half Kzin-normal,
less than two-thirds of Earth's pull.
"Gertrude-nurse!" Chuut-Riit called.
A Wunderlander woman came puffing up, dressed in a
white uniform with body-apron
and gloves of tough synthetic. Chuut-Riit extended
the cub at the end of one
tree-thick arm.
"Yes, Chuut-Riit," the nurse said; a kzin with a full
Name was never addressed
by title, of course. "Come along, now, young master,"
the nurse said, in a
passable imitation of the Hero's Tongue. House
servants were allowed to speak
it, as a special favor. "Dinner-time."
The God alone knows what sort of accent the young
will learn, Chuut-Riit
thought, amused.
"Eat?" The cub made a throaty rumble. "Want to eat,
Gertrude-human." The kzin
dropped into Wunderlander. "Is it good? Is it warm
and salty? Will there be
cream?"
"Certainly not," Gertrude said with mock severity.
Her charge bounced up as his
father released him, wrapping arms and legs and long
pink prehensile tail around
the human, pressing his muzzle to her chest and
purring.
"Dinner! Dinner!" the other cubs chorused as they
arrived on the hilltop; they
made a hasty obeisance to Chuut-Riit and the other
adults, then followed the
nurse downslope, walking upright and making little
bounds of excitement, their
tails held rigid. "Dinner!"
"I caught a mouse, it tasted funny."
"Gertrude-human, Funny-Spots ate a bug!"
"I did not, I spit it out. Liar, tie a knot in your
tail!"
The two quarreling youngsters flew together and
rolled down ahead of the others
in a ball, play-fighting. Chuut-Riit rippled his
whiskers, and the fur on his
blunt-muzzled face moved in the kzinti equivalent of
a chuckle as he rejoined
the group at the kill. Traat-Admiral was there, his
closest supporter;
Conservor-of-the-Patriarchal-Past, holy and ancient;
and Staff-Officer, most
promising of the inner-world youngsters who had come
with him from homeworld.
The kill was a fine young buffalo bull, and had even
given them something of a
fight before they brought it down beneath a tall
native toshborg tree. The
kzinti males were all in high good humor, panting
slightly as they lolled,
occasionally worrying a mouthful free from the
carcass.
"A fine lot of youngsters," Conservor said, a little
wistfully; such as he
maintained no harem, although they were privileged to
sire offspring on the
mates of others at ritual intervals. "Very
well-behaved for their age."
Chuut-Riit threw himself down and pulled a flask out
of his hunter's pack,
pouring it into broad shallow bowls the others held
out. The strong minty-herb
scent of the liquor filled the air, along with the
pleasant scent of
fresh-killed meat, grass, trees. The Viceroyal
hunting preserve sprawled over
hundreds of kilometers of rich land, and the signs of
agriculture had almost
vanished in the generation since the conquest. It was
a mixed landscape, the
varying shades of green from Terra, native
Wunderlander reddish-gold, and here
and there a spot of kzin orange. The animals were
likewise diverse: squat
thickset armored beasts from homeworld, tall spindly
local forms like
stick-figures from a cartoon, Earth-creatures halfway
between.
We fit in as well as anything, Chuut-Riit thought.
More, since we own it. The
kzinti lay sprawled on their bellies, their
quarter-ton of stocky muscle and
dense bone relaxed into the grass. Bat-wing ears were
fully extended and lips
were loosened from fangs in fellowship; all here were
old friends, and sharing a
kill built trust at a level deeper even than that.
The kzinti governor sank his fangs into a haunch,
rearing back and shaking his
head until a two-kilo gobbet pulled loose. He threw
back his head to bolt
it-kzinti teeth were designed for ripping and
tearing, not chewing-and extended
the claws on one four-digit hand to pick bits of
gristle from his teeth.
"Rrrrr, yes, they're promising," he said, nodding to
the boil of cubs around the
table where the human nurse was cutting chunks of rib
from a porker. "The local
servants are very good with infants, if you select
carefully."
"Some kzintosh is very glad of that!" Staff-Officer
joked, making a
playful-protective grab at his crotch.
The others bristled in mock-fear-amusement. Kzinti
females were useless for
child-rearing beyond the nursing stage, being
subsapient and speechless; the
traditional caregiver for youngsters was a gelded
male. Such were usually very
docile, and without hope for offspring of their own
tended to identify with any
cubs they were exposed to. Still, it was a little
distasteful to modern
sensibilities; one of the many conveniences of alien
slaves was their
suitability for such work. Humans were very useful. .
..
"Speaking of which, Traat-Admiral, tell me again of
your protégé's pet."
Traat-Admiral lapped at his cup for an instant longer
and belched.
"Yiao-Captain. He swears this human of his has found
an astronomical anomaly
worth investigating." A sideways flick of the head, a
kzin shrug. "I sent him to
that ancestor-forsaken outpost in . . . urrrr,
Skogarna, to test his patience."
The word was slightly derogatory, in the Hero's
Tongue . . . but among
Chuut-Riit's entourage they were working to change
that.
"Good hunting up there," Staff-Officer said brashly,
then touched his nose in a
patently insincere apology when the older males gave
him a glare.
"Chhrrrup. As you say. Worth dispatching a Swift
Hunter to investigate, at least
. . . which brings us to the accelerated Solward
surveillance."
"To receive quickly the news of the Fourth Fleet's
triumphant leap upon the
humans?" Conservor asked.
The tip of his tail twitched. The others could sniff
the dusty scent of irony.
For that matter, it would be better than a decade
before the news returned;
worst-case analysis and political realities both
demanded that the years ahead
be spent readying a Fifth Fleet.
A part of Chuut-Riit's good humor left him. Moodily,
he drew his wtsai and used
the pommel of the knife to crack a thighbone.
"Grrf," he muttered; sucking marrow. His own tail
thumped the ground. "I await
inconclusive results at best." They all winced
slightly. Four fleets; and the
home system of the monkeys was still resisting the
Eternal Pack. Chuut-Riit's
power here was still new, still shaky; it had been
necessary to ship most of
those who resented a homeworld prince as governor off
with the Fourth Fleet.
Since they also constituted the core of policy
resistance to his more cautious
strategy, that had considerable political merit as
well.
"No, it is possible that the wild humans will attempt
some countermeasure. What,
I cannot guess-they still have not made extensive use
of gravity polarizer
technology, which means we control interstellar
space-but my nose is dry when I
consider the time we have left them for thought. A
decade for each attack . . .
They are tricky prey, these hairless tree-swingers."
***
"God, what have you done to her?" Jonah asked, as
they grabbed stanchions and
halted by the viewport nearest his ship.
The observation corridor outside the central graving
dock of the base-asteroid
was a luxury, but then, with a multimegaton mass to
work with and unlimited
energy, the Sol-system military could afford that
type of extravagance. Take a
nickel-iron rock. Drill a hole down the center with
bomb-pumped lasers. Put a
spin on the resulting tube, and rig large mirrors
with the object at their focal
points; the sun is dim beyond the orbit of Mars, but
in zero-G you can build big
mirrors big. The nickel-iron pipe heats, glows, turns
soft as taffy, swells
outward evenly like cotton candy at a fair; cooling,
it leaves a huge open space
surrounded by a thick shell of metal-rich rock.
Robots drill the tunnels and
corridors, humans and robots install the power
sources, life-support, gravity
polarizers . . .
An enlisted crewman bounced by them horizontal to
their plane of reference,
sketching a sloppy salute as he twisted, hit the
corner feetfirst, and rebounded
away. The air had the cool clean tang that Belters
grew up with, and an
industrial-tasting underlay of ozone and hot metal:
the seals inside UNSN base
Gibraltar were adequate for health but not up to Belt
civilian standards. Even
while he hung motionless and watched the technicians
gutting his ship, some
remote corner of Jonah's mind noted that again.
Flatlanders had a nerve-wracking
tendency to make-do solutions.
My ship, he thought.
UNSN Catskinner hung in the vacuum chamber,
surrounded by the flitting shapes of
spacesuited repair workers, compuwaldos, and robots;
torches blinked blue-white,
and a haze of detached fittings hinted the haste of
the work. Beneath it the
basic shape of the Dart-class attack boat showed, a
massive fusion-power unit,
tiny life-support bubble, and the asymmetric fringe
of weapons and sensors
designed for deep-space operation.
"What have you done to her?" Jonah said again.
"Made modifications, Captain," Raines replied. "The
basic drive and armament
systems are unaltered."
Jonah nodded grudgingly. He could see the clustered
grips for the spike-pods,
featureless egg-shaped ovoids, that were the basic
weapon for light vessels, a
one-megaton bomb pumping an X-ray laser. In battle
they would spread out like
the wings of a raptor, a pattern thousands of
kilometers wide slaved to the
computers in the control pod; and the other weapons,
fixed lasers, ball-bearing
scatterers, railguns, particle-beam projectors, the
antennae for stealthing and
beam-deflection fields.
Unconsciously, the pilot's hands twitched; his
reflexes and memory were back in
the crashcouch, fingers moving infinitesimally in the
lightfield gloves, holos
feeding data into his eyes. Dodging with
fusion-powered feet, striking with
missile fists, his Darts locked with the kzinti
Vengeful Slashers in a dance of
battle that was as much like zero-G ballet as
anything else. . . .
"What modifications?" he asked.
"Grappling points for attachment to a ramscoop ship.
Battleship class,
technically, although she's a one-off, experimental;
they're calling her the
Yamamoto. The plan is that we ride piggyback, and she
goes through the
Wunderland system at high Tau, accelerating all the
way from here to Alpha
Centauri, and drops us off on the way. They won't
have much time to prepare, at
those speeds."
The ship would be on the heels of the wave-front
announcing its arrival. She
called up data on her beltcomp, and he examined it.
His lips shaped a silent
whistle; big tanks of onboard hydrogen, and initial
boost from half the
launch-lasers in the solar system. There was going to
be a lot of energy behind
the Yamamoto. For that matter, the fields a
ramscooper used to collect
interstellar matter were supposed to be fatal to
higher life forms.
Lucky it's just us sods in uniform, then, he thought
sardonically, continuing
aloud: "Great. And just how are we supposed to stop?"
At .90 light, things
started to get really strange. Particles of
interstellar hydrogen began acting
like cosmic rays. . . .
"Oh, that's simple," Raines said. For the first time
in their brief
acquaintance, she smiled. Damn, she's good looking,
Jonah thought with mild
surprise. Better than good. How could I not notice?
"We ram ourselves into the sun," she continued.
Several billion years before, there had been a
species of sophonts with a
peculiar ability. They called themselves (as nearly
as humans could reproduce
the sound) the thrint; others knew them as Slavers.
The ability amounted to an
absolutely irresistible form of telepathic hypnosis,
evolved as a hunting aid in
an ecosystem where most animals advanced enough to
have a spinal cord were at
least mildly telepathic; this was a low-probability
development, but in a
universe as large as ours anything possible will
occur sooner or later. On their
native world, thrintun could give a subtle prod to a
prey-animal, enough to tip
its decision to come down to the waterhole. The
thrint evolved intelligence, as
an additional advantage. After all, their prey had
millions of years to develop
resistance.
Then a spaceship landed on the thrint homeworld. Its
crew immediately became
slaves; absolutely obedient, absolutely trustworthy,
willing and enthusiastic
slaves. Operating on nervous systems that had not
evolved in an environment
saturated with the Power, any thrint could control
dozens of sophonts. With the
amplifiers that slave-technicians developed, a thrint
could control an entire
planet. Slaves industrialized a culture in the
hunting-band stage, in a single
generation. Controlled by the Power, slaves built an
interstellar empire
covering most of a galaxy.
Slaves did everything, because the thrint had never
been a very intelligent
species, and once loose with the Power they had no
need to think. Eventually
they met, and thought they had enslaved, a very
clever race indeed, the
tnuctipun. The revolt that eventually followed
resulted in the extermination of
every tool-using sentient in the Galaxy, but before
it did the tnuctipun made
some remarkable things. . . .
***
"A Slaver stasis field?" he said. Despite himself,
awe showed in his voice. One
such field had been discovered on Earth, then lost,
one more on a human-explored
world. Three centuries of study had found no
slightest clue concerning their
operating principles; they were as incomprehensible
as a molecular-distortion
battery would have been to Thomas Edison. Monkey-see
monkey-do copies had been
made, each taking more time and expense than the
Gibraltar, and so far exactly
two had functioned. One was supposedly guarding UNSN
headquarters, wherever that
was.
"Uh-mmm, give the captain a big cigar, right the
first time."
Jonah shuddered, remembering the flatlander's smoke.
"No, thanks."
"Too right, Captain. Just a figure of speech."
"Call me Jonah. We're going to be camped enough on
this trip without poking
rank-elbows in each other's ribs."
"Jonah. The Yamamoto skims through the system,
throwing rocks." At .90 of c,
missiles needed no warheads. The kinetic energies
involved made the impacts as
destructive as antimatter. "We go in as an offcourse
rock. Course corrections,
then on with the stasis field, go ballistic, use the
outer layer of the sun for
braking down to orbital speeds."
Nothing outside its surface could affect the contents
of a Slaver field; let the
path of the Catskinner stray too far inward and they
would spend the rest of the
lifespan of the universe at the center of Alpha
Centauri's sun, in a single
instant of frozen time. For that matter, the stasis
field would probably survive
the re-contraction of the primal monobloc and its
explosion into a new cosmic
cycle. . . . He forced his mind away from the
prospect.
"And we're putting in a Class-VII computer system."
Jonah raised a brow. Class-VII systems were
consciousness-level; they also went
irredeemably insane sometime between six months and a
year after activation, as
did any artificial entity complex enough to be aware
of being aware.
"Our . . . mission won't take any longer than that,
and it's worth it." A shrug.
"Look, why don't we hit a cafeteria and talk some
more. Really talk, you're
going to have briefings running out of every orifice
before long, but that isn't
the same."
Jonah sighed, and stopped thinking of ways out of the
role for which he had been
"volunteered." This was too big to be dodged, far and
away too big. Two stasis
fields in the whole Sol system; one guarding United
Nations Space Navy HQ, the
other on his ship. His ship, a Dart-Commander like
ten thousand or so others,
until this week. How many Class-VII computers? Nobody
built consciousness-level
systems anymore, except occasionally for research; it
simply wasn't
cost-effective. Build them much more intelligent than
humans and they went
non-comp almost at once; a human-level machine gave
you a sentient with a
six-month lifespan that could do arithmetic in its
head. Ordinary computers
could do the math, and for thinking people were much
cheaper. It was a dead-end
technology, like direct interfacing between human
neural systems and computers.
And they had revived it, for a special purpose
mission.
"Shit," Jonah mumbled, as they came to a lock and
reoriented themselves
feet-down. There was a gravity warning strobing
beside it; they pushed through
the air-screen curtain and into the dragging
acceleration of a one-G field. The
crewfolk about them were mostly flatlander now,
relaxed in the murderous weight
that crushed their frames lifelong.
"Naacht wh'r?" Ingrid asked. In Wunderlander, but the
Sol-Belter did not have to
know that bastard offspring of Danish and
Plattdeutsch to sense the meaning.
"I just realized . . . hell, I just realized how
important this must all be. If
the high command were willing to put that much effort
into this, willing to
sacrifice half of our most precious military asset,
throw in a computer that
costs more than this base complete with crew . . .
then they must have put at
least equal effort into searching for just the right
pilot. There's simply no
point in trying to get out of it. Tanj. I need a
drink."
***
"Take your grass-eater stink out of my air!"
Chuut-Riit shrieked. He was
standing, looking twice his size as his orange-red
pelt bottled out, teeth
exposed in what an uninformed human might have
mistaken for a grin, naked pink
tail lashing. The reference to smell was purely
metaphorical, since the
conversation was 'cast. Which was as well, he was
pouring aggression-pheromones
into the air at a rate that would have made a roomful
of adult male kzin nervous
to the point of lost control.
The holo images on the wall before him laid
themselves belly-down on the decking
of their ship and crinkled their ears, their fur
lying flat in propitiation.
"Leave the recordings and flee, devourers of your own
kittens!" screamed the
kzinti governor of the Alpha Centauri system. The
Hero's Tongue is remarkably
rich in expressive insults. "Roll in your own shit
and mate with sthondats!" The
wall blanked, and a light blinked in one corner as
the data was packed through
the link into his private files.
Chuut-Riit's fur smoothed as he strode around the
great chamber. It stood open
to the sky, beneath a near-invisible dome that kept
the scant rain of this area
off the kudlotlin-hide rugs. They were priceless
imports from the home world;
the stuffed matched pair of Chunquen on a granite
pedestal were souvenirs
acquired during the pacification of that world. He
looked at them, soothing his
eyes with the memory-taste of a successful hunt, at
other mementos. Wild smells
drifted in over thin walls that were crystal-enclosed
sandwiches of circuitry;
in the distance something squalled hungrily. The
palace-preserve-fortress of a
planetary governor, governor of the richest world to
be conquered by kzin in
living memory. Richest in wealth, richest in honor .
. . if the next attack on
the human homeworld was something more than a fifth
disaster.
"Secretariat," he rasped. The wall lit.
A human looked from a desk, stood and came to
attention. "Henrietta," the kzin
began, "hold my calls for the rest of the day. I've
just gotten the final
download on the Fourth Fleet fiasco, and I'm a little
upset. Run it against my
projections, will you?" Most of the worst-case
scenarios he had run were quite
close to the actual results; that did not make it
much easier to bear.
"Yes, Chuut-Riit," he said-No, God devour it, she,
I've got to start remembering
human females are sentient. At least he could tell
them apart without smelling
them, now. Even distinguish between individuals of
the same subspecies. There
are so many types of them!
"I don't think you'll find major discrepancies."
"That bad?" the human said.
The expression was a closed curve of the lips; the
locals had learned that
baring their teeth at a kzin was not a good idea.
Smile, Chuut-Riit reminded
himself. Betokening amusement, or friendliness, or
submission. Which is it
feeling? Born after the Conquest Fleet arrived here.
Reared from a cub in the
governor's palace, superbly efficient . . . but what
does it think inside that
ugly little head?
"Worse, the --"-he lapsed into the Hero's Tongue,
since no human language was
sufficient for what he felt about the Fourth Fleet's
hapless
Kfraksha-Admiral-"couldn't apply the strategy
properly in circumstances beyond
the calculated range of probable response."
It was impossible to set out too detailed a plan of
campaign, when communication
took over four years. His fur began to bristle again,
and he controlled his
reaction with a monumental effort of will. I need to
fight something, he
thought.
"Screen out all calls for the next sixteen hours,
unless they're Code VI or
above." A thought prompted at him. "Oh, It's your
offspring's naming-day next
week, isn't it?"
"Yes, Chuut-Riit." Henrietta had once told him that
among pre-Conquest humans it
had been a mark of deference to refer to a superior
by title, and of familiarity
to use names. His tail twitched. Extraordinary. Of
course, humans all had names,
without having to earn them. In a sense, they're
assigned names as we are rank
titles, he thought.
"Well, I'll drop by at the celebration for an hour or
so and bring one of my
cubs." That would be safe enough if closely
supervised; most intelligent species
had long infancies.
"We are honored, Chuut-Riit!" The human bowed, and
the kzin waved a hand to
break contact.
"Valuable," he muttered to himself, rising and pacing
once more. Humans were the
most valuable subject-species the kzin had yet
acquired. Or partially acquired,
he reminded himself. Most kzin nobles on Wunderland
had large numbers of human
servants and technicians about their estates, but few
had gone as far as he in
using their administrative talents.
"Fools," he said in the same undertone; his kzin
peers knew his opinion of them,
but it was still inadvisable to get into the habit of
saying it aloud. "I am
surrounded by fools." Humans fell into groups
naturally, they thought
organization. The remote ancestors of Kzin had hunted
in small packs; the
prehumans in much larger ones. Stupidity to deny the
evidence of senses and
logic, he thought with contempt. These hairless
monkeys have talents we lack.
Most refused to admit that, as though it somehow
diminished the Hero to grant a
servant could do what the master could not. Idiocy.
Chuut-Riit yawned, a pink,
red, and white expanse of ridged palate, tongue, and
fangs, his species's
equivalent of a dismissive shrug. Is it beneath the
Hero to admit that a sword
extends his claws, or a computer his mind? With human
patience and
organizational talent at the service of the Heroes,
there was nothing that they
could not accomplish! Even monkey inquisitiveness was
a trait not without merit,
irritating though it could be.
He pulled his mind away from vistas of endless
victory, a hunt ranging over
whole spiral arms; that was a familiar vision, one
that had driven him to
intrigue and duel for this position. To use a tool
effectively, you had to know
its balance and heft, its strengths and weaknesses.
Humans were more gregarious
than kzin, more ready to identify with a
leader-figure; but to elicit such
cooperation, you had to know the symbol-systems that
held power over them. I
must wear the mask they can see. Besides which, their
young are . . . what is
their word? Cute. I will select the cub carefully,
one just weaned, and stuff it
full of meat first. That will be safest.
Chuut-Riit intended to take his offspring, the best
of them, with him to Earth,
after the conquest. Early exposure to humans would
give them an intuitive grasp
of the animals that he could only simulate through
careful study. With a fully
domesticated human species at their disposal, his
sons' sons' sons could even
aspire to . . . no, unthinkable. And not necessary to
think of it; that was
generations away.
Besides that, it would take a great deal of time to
tame the humans properly.
Useful already, but far too wild, too undependable,
too varied. A millennium of
culling might be necessary before they were fully
shaped to the purpose.
***
" . . . didn't just bull in," Lieutenant Raines was
saying, as she followed the
third aquavit with a beer chaser. Jonah sipped more
cautiously at his, thinking
that the asymmetry of nearly pure alcohol and lager
was typically Wunderlander.
"Only it wasn't caution-the pussies just didn't want
to mess the place up and
weren't expecting much resistance. Rightly so."
Jonah restrained himself from patting her hand as she
scowled into her beer. It
was dim in their nook, and the gravity was
Wunderland-standard, .61 Earth. The
initial refugees from the Alpha Centauri system had
been mostly planetsiders,
and from the dominant Danish-Dutch-German-Balt ethnic
group. They had grown even
more clannish in the generation since, which showed
in the tall ceramic steins
along the walls, plastic wainscoting that made a
valiant attempt to imitate
fumed oak, and a human bartender in wooden shoes,
lederhosen, and a beard
clipped closer on one side than the other.
The drinks slipped up out of the center of the table,
of course.
"That was, teufel, three years ago, my time. We'd had
some warning, of course,
once the UN started masering what the crew of the
Angel's Pencil found on the
wreckage of that kzin ship. Plenty of singleships,
and any reaction drive's a
weapon; couple of big boost-lasers. But"-a shrug-"you
know how it was back
then."
"Before my time, Lieutenant," Jonah said, then cursed
himself as he saw her
wince. Raines had been born nearly three quarters of
a century ago, even if her
private duration included only two and a half decades
of it.
"Ingrid, if you're going to be Jonah instead of
Captain Matthiesson. Time-I keep
forgetting, my head remembers but my gut forgets . .
. Well, we just weren't set
up to think in terms of war, that was ancient
history. We held them off for
nearly six months, though. Long enough to refit the
three slowships in orbit and
give them emergency boost; I think the pussies didn't
catch up and blast us
simply because they didn't give a damn. They couldn't
decelerate us and get the
ships back . . . arrogant sons of . . ." Another of
those broad urchin grins.
"Well, bitches isn't quite appropriate, is it?"
Jonah laughed outright. "You were in Munchen when the
kzin arrived?"
"No, I'd been studying at the Scholarium there,
software design philosophy, but
I was on sabbatical in Vallburg with two friends of
mine, working out some, ah,
personal problems."
The bartender with the unevenly forked beard was
nearly as attenuated as a
Belter, but he had the disturbingly mobile ears of a
pure-bred Wunderland
herrenmann, and they were pricked forward. Alpha
Centauri's only habitable
planet has a thin atmosphere; the original settlers
have adapted, and keen
hearing is common among them. Jonah smiled at the man
and stabbed a finger for a
privacy screen. It flickered into the air across the
outlet of the booth, and
the refugee saloonkeeper went back to polishing a mug.
"That'd be, hmmm, Claude Montferrat-Palme and Harold
Yarthkin-Schotmann?"
Raines nodded, moodily drawing a design on the
tabletop with a forefinger dipped
in the dark beer. "Yes . . . teufel, they're both of
them in their fifties now,
getting on for middle-aged." A sigh. "Look . . .
Harold's a-hmmm, hard to
explain to a Sol-Belter, or even someone from the
Serpent Swarm who hasn't spent
a lot of time dirtside. His father was a Herrenmann,
one of the Nineteen
Families, senior line. His mother wasn't married to
him."
"Oh," Jonah said, racking his memory. History had
never been an interest of his,
and his generation had been brought up to the War,
anyway. "Problems with wills
and inheritances and suchlike?"
"You know what a bastard is?"
"Sure. Someone you don't like, such as for example
that flatlander bastard who
assigned me to this." He raised his stein in salute.
"Though I'm fast becoming
resigned to it, Ingrid."
She half-smiled in absent-minded acknowledgment, her
mind 4.3 light-years and
four decades away. "It means he got an expensive
education, a nice little
nest-egg settled on him . . . and that he'd never,
never be allowed past the
front door of the Yarthkin-Schotmanns' family
schloss. Lucky to be allowed to
use the name. An embarrassment."
"Might eat at a man," Jonah said.
"Like a little kzin in the guts. Especially when he
grew enough to realize why
his father only came for occasional visits; and then
that his half-siblings
didn't have half his brains or drive and didn't need
them either. It drove him,
he had to do everything twice as fast and twice as
good, take crazy risks . . .
made him a bit of a bastard in the Sol sense of the
word too, spines like a
pincodillo, sense of humor that could flay a
gruntfish."
"And Montferrat-Palme?"
"Claude? Now, he was Herrenmann all through; younger
son of a younger son, poor
as an Amish dirt-farmer, and . . ." A laugh. "You had
to meet Claude to
understand him. I think he got serious about me
mostly because I kept turning
him down-it was a new experience and drove him crazy.
And Harold he halfway
liked and halfway enjoyed needling . . ."
***
Municipal Director of Internal Affairs Claude
Montferrat-Palme adjusted his cape
and looked up at the luminous letters that floated
disembodied ten centimeters
from the smooth brown brick of the building in front
of him.
HAROLD'S TERRAN BAR, it read. A WORLD ON ITS OWN.
Below, in smaller letters:
HUMANS ONLY.
Ah, Harold, he thought. Always the one for a piece of
useless melodrama. As if
kzin would be likely to frequent this section of Old
Munchen, or wish to enter a
human entertainment spot if they did, or as if they
could be stopped if by some
fluke of probability they did end up down here.
His escort stirred, looking around nervously. The
Karl-Jorge Avenue was dark,
most of its glowstrips long ago stolen or simply
spray-painted in the random
vandalism that breeds in lives fueled by purposeless
anger. It was fairly clean,
because the kzin insisted on that, and the four-story
brick buildings were solid
enough, because the early settlers had built well.
Brick and concrete and
cobbled streets glimmered faintly, still damp from
the afternoon's rain; loud
wailing music echoed from open windows, and there
would have been groups of
idle-looking youths loitering on the front steps of
the tenements, if the car
had not had Munchen Polezi plates.
Baha'i, he thought, mentally snapping his fingers. He
was tall, even for a
Herrenmann, with one side of his face cleanshaven and
the other a close-trimmed
brown beard cut to a foppish point; the plain blue
uniform and circular brimmed
cap of the city police emphasized the deep-chested
greyhound build. This was a
Baha'i neighborhood.
"You may go," he said to the guards. "I will call for
the car."
"Sir," the sergeant said, the guide-cone of her
stunner waving about
uncertainly. Helmet and nightsight goggles made her
eyes unreadable. " 'Tis iz a
rough district."
"I am aware of that, Sergeant. Also that Harold's
place is a known underworld
hangout. Assignment to my headquarters squad is a
promotion; please do not
assume that it entitles you to doubt my judgment." Or
you may find yourself back
walking a beat, without such opportunities for
income-enhancement, went unspoken
between them. He ignored her salute and walked up the
two low stairs.
The door recognized him, read retinas and
encephalograph patterns, slid open.
The coal-black doorman was as tall as the police
officer and twice as broad,
with highly-illegal impact armor underneath the white
coat and bow tie of
Harold's Terran Bar. The impassive smoky eyes above
the ritually scarred cheeks
gave him a polite once-over, an equally polite and
empty bow.
"Pleased to see you here again, Herrenmann
Montferrat-Palme," he said.
You grafting ratcat-loving collaborationist son of a
bitch. Montferrat added the
unspoken portion himself. And I love you too.
Harold's Terran Bar was a historical revival, and
therefore less out of place on
Wunderland than it would have been in the Sol system.
Once through the
vestibule's inner bead-curtain doorway Montferrat
could see most of the
smoke-hazed main room, a raised platform in a C
around the sunken dance-floor
and the long bar. Strictly human-service here, which
was less of an affectation
now than it had been when the place opened, twenty
years ago. Machinery was
dearer than it used to be, and human labor much
cheaper, particularly since
refugees began pouring into Munchen from a
countryside increasingly preempted
for kzin estates. Not to mention those displaced by
strip-mining . . .
"Good evening, Claude."
He started; it was always disconcerting, how quietly
Harold moved. There at his
elbow now, expressionless blue eyes. Face that should
have been ugly, big-nosed
with a thick lower lip and drooping eyelids. He was .
. . what, sixty-three now?
Just going grizzled at the temples, which was an
affectation or a sign that his
income didn't stretch to really first-class geriatric
treatments. Short,
barrel-chested; what sort of genetic mismatch had
produced that build from a
Herrenmann father and a Belter mother?
"Looking me over for signs of impending dissolution,
Claude?" Harold said,
steering him toward his usual table and snapping his
fingers for a waiter.
"It'll be a while yet."
Perhaps not so long, Montferrat thought, looking at
the pouches beneath his
eyes. That could be stress . . . or Harold could be
really skimping on the
geriatrics. They become more expensive every year.
The kzin don't care . . .
there are people dying of old age at seventy, now,
and not just Amish. Shut up,
Claude, you hypocrite. Nothing you can do about it.
"You will outlast me, old friend."
"A case of cynical apathy wearing better than cynical
corruption?" Harold asked,
seating himself across from the police chief.
Montferrat pulled a cigarette case from his jacket's
inner pocket and snapped it
open with a flick of the wrist. It was plain white
gold, from Earth, with a
Paris jeweler's initials inside the frame and a date
two centuries old, one of
his few inheritances from his parents . . . Harold
took the proffered cigarette.
"You will join me in a schnapps?" Montferrat said.
"Claude, you've been asking that question for twenty
years, and I've been saying
no for twenty years. I don't drink with the paying
customers."
Yarthkin leaned back, let smoke trickle through his
nostrils. The liquor
arrived, and a plateful of grilled things that
resembled shrimp about as much as
a lemur resembled a man, apart from being dark-green
and having far too many
eyes. "Now, didn't my bribe arrive on time?"
Montferrat winced. "Harold, Harold, will you never
learn to phrase these things
politely?" He peeled the translucent shell back from
one of the grumblies,
snapped off the head between thumb and forefinger and
dipped it in the sauce.
"Exquisite . . ." he breathed, after the first bite,
and chased it down with a
swallow of schnapps. "Bribes? Merely a token
recompense, when out of the
goodness of my heart and in memory of old friendship,
I secure licenses, produce
permits, contacts with owners of estates and fishing
boats-"
"-so you can have a first-rate place to guzzle-"
"-I allow this questionable establishment to
flourish, risking my position,
despite the, shall we say, dubious characters known
to frequent it-"
"-because it makes a convenient listening post and
you get a lot of, shall we
say, lucrative contacts."
They looked at each other coolly for a moment, and
then Montferrat laughed.
"Harold, perhaps the real reason I allow this den of
iniquity to continue is
that you're the only person who still has the
audacity to deflate my
hypocrisies."
Yarthkin nodded calmly. "Comes of knowing you when
you were an idealistic
patriot, Director. Like being in hospital together .
. . Will you be gambling
tonight, or did you come to pump me about the rumors?"
"Rumors?" Montferrat said mildly, shelling another
grumbly.
"Of another kzin defeat. Two shiploads of our
esteemed ratcat masters coming
back with their fur singed."
"For god's sake!" Montferrat hissed, looking around.
"No bugs," Yarthkin continued. "Not even by your
ambitious assistants. They
offered a hefty sweetener, but I wouldn't want to see
them in your office. They
don't stay bought."
Montferrat smoothed his mustache. "Well, the kzin do
seem to have a rather lax
attitude toward security at times," he said. Mostly,
they don't realize how
strong the human desire to get together and chatter
is, he mused.
"Then there's the rumor about a flatlander
counterstrike," Yarthkin continued.
Montferrat raised a brow and cocked his mobile
Herrenmann ears forward. "Not
becoming a believer in the myth of liberation, I
hope," he drawled.
Yarthkin waved the hand that held the cigarette,
leaving a trail of blue smoke.
"I did my bit for liberation. Got left at the altar,
as I recall, and took the
amnesty," he said. His face had become even more
blank, merely the slightest
hint of a sardonic curve to the lips. "Now I'm just
an innkeeper. What goes on
outside these walls is no business of mine." A pause.
"It is yours, of course,
Director. People know the ratcats got their whiskers
pasted back, for the fourth
time. They're encouraged . . . also desperate. The
kzin will be stepping up the
war effort, which means they'll be putting more
pressure on us. Not to mention
that they're breeding faster than ever."
Montferrat nodded with a frown. Battle casualties
made little difference to a
kzin population; their nonsentient females were held
in harems by a small
minority of males, in any event. Heavy losses meant
the lands and mates of the
dead passing to the survivors . . . and more young
males thrown out of the nest,
looking for lands and a Name of their own. And kzin
took up a lot of space; they
weighed in at a quarter-ton each, and they were pure
carnivores. Nor would they
eat synthesized meat except on board a military
spaceship. There were still
fewer than a hundred thousand in the Wunderland
system, and more than twenty
times that many humans, and even so it was getting
crowded.
"More 'flighters crowding into Munchen every day,"
Yarthkin continued in that
carefully neutral tone.
Refugees. Munchen had been a small town within their
own lifetimes; the original
settlers of Wunderland had been a close-knit coterie
of plutocrats, looking for
elbow room. Limited industrialization, even in the
Serpent Swarm, and rather
little on the planetary surface. Huge domains staked
out by the Nineteen
Families and their descendants; later immigrants had
fitted into the cracks of
the pattern, as tenants, or carving out smallholdings
on the fringes of the
settled zone. Many of them were ethnic or religious
separatists anyway.
Until the kzin came. Kzin nobles expected vast
territories for their own
polygamous households, and naturally seized the best
and most-developed
acreages. Some of the human landworkers stayed to
labor for new masters, but
many more were displaced. Or eaten, if they objected.
Forced-draft industrialization in Munchen and the
other towns; kzin did not live
in cities, and cared little for the social
consequences. Their planets had
always been sparsely settled, and they had developed
the gravity polarizer early
in their history, hence they mined their asteroid
belts but put little industry
in space. Refugees flooding in, to work in industries
that produced war matériel
for the kzin fleets, not housing or consumer-goods
for human use . . .
"It must be a bonanza for you, selling exit-permits
to the Swarm," Harold
continued. Outside the base-asteroid of Tiamat, the
Belters were much more
loosely controlled than the groundside population.
"And exemptions from military
call-up."
Montferrat smiled and leaned back, following the
schnapps with lager. "There
must be regulations," he said reasonably. "The Swarm
cannot absorb all the
would-be immigrants. Nor can Wunderland afford to
lose the labor of all who
would like to leave. The kzin demand technicians, and
we cannot refuse; the
burden must be allocated."
"Nor can you afford to pass up the palm-greasing and
the, ach, romantic
possibilities-" Yarthkin began.
"Alert! Alert! Emergency broadcast!" The mirror
behind the long bar flashed from
reflective to broadcast, and the smoky gloom of the
bar's main hall erupted in
shouted questions and screams.
The strobing pattern of light settled into the
civil-defense blazon, and the
unmistakable precision of an artificial voice. "All
civilians are to remain in
their residences. Emergency and security personnel to
their duty stations,
repeat, emergency and security personnel to their-"
A blast of static and white noise loud enough to send
hands to ears, before the
system's emergency overrides cut in. When reception
returned the broadcast was
two-dimensional, a space-armored figure reading from
a screenprompt over the
receiver. The noise in Harold's Terran Bar sank to
shocked silence at the sight
of the human shape of the combat armor, the
blue-and-white UN sigil on its
chest.
"-o all citizens of the Alpha Centauri system," the
Terran was saying. In
Wunderlander, but with a thick accent that could not
handle the gutturals.
"Evacuate areas of military or industrial importance
immediately. Repeat,
immediately. The United Nations Space Command is
attacking kzinti military and
industrial targets in the Alpha Centauri system.
Evacuate areas-" The broadcast
began again, but the screen split to show the same
message in English and two
more of the planet's principal languages. The door
burst open and a squad of
Munchen Polezi burst through.
"Scheisse!" Montferrat shouted, rising. He froze as
the receiver in his uniform
cap began hissing and snarling override-transmission
in the Hero's Tongue.
Yarthkin relaxed and smiled as the policeman sprinted
for the exit. He cocked
one eye towards the ceiling and silently flourished
Montferrat's last glass of
schnapps before sending it down with a snap of his
wrist.
***
"Weird," Jonah Matthieson muttered, looking at the
redshifted cone of light
ahead of them. Better this way. This way he didn't
have to think of what they
were going to do when they arrived. He had been a
singleship pilot before doing
his military service; the Belt still needed miners.
You could do software design
anywhere there was a computer system, of course, and
miners had a lot of spare
time. His reflexes were a pilot's, and they included
a strong inhibition against
high-speed intercept trajectories.
This was going to be the highest-speed intercept of
all time.
The forward end of the pilot's cabin was very simple,
a hemisphere of smooth
synthetic. For that matter, the rest of the cabin was
quite basic as well; two
padded crashcouches, which was one more than normal,
an autodoc, an autochef,
and rather basic sanitary facilities. That left just
enough room to move-in zero
gravity. Right now they were under one-G
acceleration, crushingly uncomfortable.
They had been under one-G for weeks, subjective time;
the Yamamoto was being run
to flatlander specifications.
"Compensate," Ingrid said. The view swam back, the
blue stars ahead and the dim
red behind turning to the normal variation of colors.
The dual-sun Centauri
system was dead ahead, looking uncomfortably close.
"We're making good time. It
took thirty years coming back on the slowboat, but
the Yamamoto's going to put
us near Wunderland in five point seven. Objective,
that is. Probably right on
the heels of the pussy scouts."
Jonah nodded, looking ahead at the innocuous twinned
stars. His hands were in
the control-gloves of his couch, but the
pressure-sensors and lightfields were
off, of course. There had been very little to do in
the month-subjective since
they left the orbit of Pluto. Accelerated learning
with RNA boosters, and he
could now speak as much of the Hero's Tongue as
Ingrid-enough to understand it.
Kzin evidently didn't like their slaves to speak much
of it; they weren't
worthy. He could also talk Belter-English with the
accent of the Serpent Swarm,
Wunderland's dominant language, and the five or six
other tongues prevalent in
the many ethnic enclaves . . . sometimes he found
himself dreaming in Pahlavi or
Croat or Amish Pletterdeisz. It wasn't going to be a
long trip; with the gravity
polarizer and the big orbital lasers to push them up
to ramscoop speeds, and no
limit on the acceleration their compensators could
handle . . .
We must be nipping the heels of photons by now, he
thought. Speeds only robot
ships had achieved before, with experimental fields
supposedly keeping the
killing torrent of secondary radiation out. . . .
"Tell me some more about Wunderland," he said.
Neither of them were fidgeting.
Belters didn't; this sort of cramped environment had
been normal for their
people since the settlement of the Sol-system Belt
three centuries before. It
was the thought of how they were going to stop that
had his nerves twisting.
I've already briefed you twenty times," she replied,
with something of a snap in
the tone. Military formality wore thin pretty quickly
in close quarters like
this. "All the first-hand stuff is fifty-six years
out of date, and the
nine-year-old material's in the computer. You're just
bored."
No, I'm just scared shitless. "Well, talking would be
better than nothing.
Spending a month strapped to this thing is even more
monotonous than being a
rockjack You were right, I'm bored."
"And scared."
He looked around. She was lying with her hands behind
her head, grinning at him.
"I'm scared too. The offswitch is exterior to the
surface of the effect." It had
to be; time did not pass inside a stasis field.
"The designers were pretty sure it'd work."
"I'm sure of only two things, Jonah."
"Which are?"
"Well, the first one is that the designers aren't
going to be diving into the
photosphere of a sun at point-nine lights."
"Oh." That had occurred to him too. On the other
hand, it really was easier to
be objective when your life wasn't on the line . . .
and in any case, it would
be quick. "What's the other thing?"
Her smile grew wider, and she undid the collar-catch
of her uniform. "Even in a
gravity field, there's one thing I want to experience
again before possible
death."
***
"Overview, schematic, trajectory," Traat-Admiral
commanded. The big semicircle
of the kzinti dreadnought's bridge was dim-lit by the
blue and red glow of
screens and telltales, crackly with the ozone scents
of alerted kzintosh;
Throat-Ripper was preparing for action.
Spray-fans appeared on the big circular
display-screen below his crash couch.
Traat-Admiral's fangs glinted wet as he considered
them. The ship would pass
fairly near Wunderland, and quite near Alpha Centauri
itself. Slingshot effect
was modest with something moving at such speeds, but
. . . ah, yes. The other
two suns of this cluster would also help. Still, it
would be a long time before
that vessel headed back towards the Sol system, if
indeed that was their aim.
What forsaken-of-ancestors trick is this? he
wondered. Then: Were those
Kfraksha-Admiral's last thoughts?
He shook off the mood. "Identification?"
"Definitely a ramscoop vessel, Dominant One,"
Riesu-Fleet-Operations said.
"Estimated speed is approximately .9071 c. In the
1600 kilokzinmass range."
About the mass of a light cruiser, then. His whiskers
ruffled. Quite a weight to
get up to such a respectable fraction of c, when you
did not have the gravity
polarizer. On the other paw, the humans used very
powerful launch-boost
lasers-useful as weapons, too, which had been an
unanticipated disaster for the
kzinti fleets-and by now they might have the gravity
polarizer. Polarizer-drive
vessels could get up to about .8 c if they were
willing to spend the energy, and
that was well above ramscoop initial speeds.
"Hrrr. That is considerably above the mass-range of
the robot vessels the humans
used"-for scouting new systems and carrying small
freight loads over
interstellar distances. They used big slowboats at .3
c for colonization and
passenger traffic. "Fleet positions, tactical."
The screen changed, showing the positions of his
squadrons, stingfighter
carriers and dreadnoughts, destroyers and cruisers.
Most were still crawling
across the disk of the Alpha Centauri system,
boosting from their ready stations
near replenishment asteroids or in orbit around
Wunderland itself. He scowled;
the human probe was damnably well stealthed for
something moving that fast, and
there had been little time. His own personal
dreadnought and battle-group were
thirty AU outside the outermost planet, beginning to
accelerate back in toward
the star. The problem was that no sane being moved at
interstellar speeds this
close to high concentrations of matter, which put the
enemy vessel in an
entirely different energy envelope.
We must strike in passing, he thought; he could feel
the claws slide out of the
black-leather-glove shapes of his hands, pricking
against the rests in the
gloves of his space armor.
"Dominant One," Riesu-Fleet-Operations said. The tone
in his voice and a sudden
waft of spoiled-ginger scent brought Traat-Admiral's
ears folding back into
combat position, and his tongue lapped across his
nose instinctively.
"Separation . . . No, it's not breaking up . . .
We're getting relay from the
outer-system drone sentinels, Traat-Admiral. The
human ship is launching."
"Launching what?"
"Traat-Admiral . . . ahhh. Projectiles of various
sorts. Continuous launch. None
over one-tenth kzinfist mass." About twenty grams, in
human measurements-but
stealthing could be in use, hiding much larger
objects in the clutter. "Some are
buckshot arrays, others slugs. Spectroscopic analysis
indicates most are of
nickel-iron composition. Magnetic flux. The human
ship is using magnetic
launchers of very great power for initial guidance."
Traat-Admiral's fur went flat, then fluffed out to
stand erect all over his
body.
"Trajectories!" he screamed.
"Ereaauuuu-" the officer mewled, then pulled himself
together. "Dominant One,
intersection trajectories for the planet itself and
the following
installations-"
Alarm klaxons began to screech. Traat-Admiral ignored
them and reached for his
communicator. Chuut-Riit was not going to be happy,
when he learned of how the
humans replied to the Fourth Fleet.
Chuut-Riit had told him that some humans were worthy
of respect. He was
beginning to believe it.
***
Raines and Jonah commanded the front screen to stop
mimicking a control board;
beyond a certain level fear-adrenaline was an
anti-aphrodisiac. Now the upper
half was an unmodified view of the Alpha Centauri
system; the lower was a battle
schematic, dots and graphs and probability-curves
like bundles of fuzzy sticks.
The Yamamoto was going to cross the disk of the
Wunderland system in subjective
minutes, mere hours even by outside clocks, with her
ramscoop fields spreading a
corona around her deadly to any life-form with a
nervous system, and the fusion
flare a sword behind her half a parsec long, fed by
the fantastically rich
gas-field that surrounded a star. Nothing but
beam-weapons stood a chance of
catching her, and even messages were going to take
prodigies of computing power
to unscramble. Her own weapons were quite simple:
iron eggs. Velocity equals
mass; when they intercepted their targets, the
results would be in the
megaton-yield range.
Jonah's lips skinned back from his teeth, and the
hair struggled to raise itself
along his spine. Plains ape reflex, he thought,
smelling the rank odor of
fight/flight sweat trickling down his flanks. Your
genes think they're about to
tackle a Cape buffalo with a thighbone club. His
fingers pressed the inside of
the chair seat in a complex pattern.
"Responding," said the computer in its usual husky
contralto.
Was it imagination that there was more inflection in
it? Conscious computer, but
not a human consciousness. Memory and instincts
designed by humans . . . free
will, unless he or Ingrid used the override keys.
Unless the high command had
left sleeper drives. Perhaps not so much free will; a
computer would see the
path most likely to succeed and follow it. How would
it be to know that you were
a made thing, and doomed to encysted madness in six
months or less? Nobody had
ever been able to learn why. He had speculated to
himself that it was a matter
of time; to a consciousness that could think in
nanoseconds, that could govern
its own sensory input, what would be the point of
remaining linked to a
refractory cosmos? It could make its own universe,
and have it last forever in a
few milliseconds. Perhaps that was why humans who
linked directly to a computer
system of any size went catatonic as well. . . .
"Detection. Neutronic and electromagnetic-range
sensors." The ship's system was
linked to the hugely powerful but subconscious level
machines of the Yamamoto.
"Point sources."
Rubies sprang out across the battle map, and they
moved as he watched, swelling
up on either side and pivoting in relation to each
other. A quick glimpse at the
fire-bright point source of Alpha Centauri in the
upper screen showed a
perceptible disk, swelling as he watched. Jonah's
skin crawled at the sight;
this was like ancient history, air and sea battles
out of Earth's past. He was
used to maneuvers that lasted hours or days, matching
relative velocities while
the planets moved slowly and the sun might as well be
a fixed point at the
center of the universe . . . perhaps when gravity
polarizers were small and
cheap enough to fit in Dart-class boats, it would all
be like this.
"The pussies have the system pretty well covered," he
said.
"And the Swarm's Belters," Ingrid replied. Jonah
turned his head, slowly, at the
sound of her voice. Shocked, he saw a glistening in
her eyes.
"Home . . ." she whispered. Then more decisively:
"Identification, human-range
sensors, discrete."
Half the rubies flickered for a few seconds. Ingrid
continued to Jonah: "This is
a messy system; more of its mass in asteroids and
assorted junk than yours.
Belters use more deep-radar and don't rely on
telescopes as much. The pussies
couldn't have changed that much; they'd cripple the
Swarm's economy and destroy
its value to them." Slowly. "That's the big station
on Tiamat. They've got a
garrison there, it's a major shipbuilding center, was
even"-she swallowed-"fifty
years ago. Those others are bubbleworlds . . . More
detectors on Wunderland than
there used to be, and in close orbit. At the poles,
and that looks like a
military-geosynchronous setup."
"Enemy action. Laser and particle-beam weapons."
Nothing they could do about
that. "Enemy vessels are detonating high-yield fusion
weapons on our anticipated
trajectory."
Attempting to overload the ramscoop, and unlikely to
succeed unless they had
something tailored for it, like cesium gas bombs. The
UNSN had done theoretical
studies, but the pussies were unlikely to have
anything on hand. This trick was
not in their book, and they were rather inflexible in
tactics.
Of course, if they did have something, the Yamamoto
would become a rather
dangerous slug of high-velocity gas in nanoseconds.
Catskinner might very well
survive, if the stasis field kicked in quickly enough
. . . in which case her
passengers would spend the next several thousand
years in stasis, waiting for
just the right target to slow them down.
"Home," Ingrid said, very softly.
Jonah thought briefly what it would be like to return
to the Sol-Belt after
fifty years. Nearly a third of the average lifetime,
longer than Jonah had been
alive. What it would be like, if he ever got home.
The Yamamoto could expect to
see Sol again in twenty years objective, allowing
time to pass through the Alpha
Centauri system, decelerate and work back up to a
respectable Tau value. The
plan-in-theory was for him and Ingrid to accomplish
their mission and then boost
the Catskinner out in the direction of Sol, turn on
the stasis field again and
wait to be picked up by UNSN craft.
About as likely as doing it by putting our heads
between our knees and spitting
hard, he thought sardonically.
"Ships," the computer said in its dispassionate tone.
"Movement. Status,
probable class and dispersal cones."
Color-coded lines blinking over the tactical map.
Columns of print scrolling
down one margin, coded velocities and key-data;
hypnotic training triggered
bursts into their minds, crystalline shards of fact,
faster than conscious
recall. Jonah whistled.
"Loaded for bandersnatch," he said. There were a lot
of warships spraying out
from bases and holding-orbits, and that was not
counting those too small for the
Yamamoto's detection systems: their own speed would
be degrading signal
drastically. Between the ramscoop fields, their
velocity, and normal shielding,
there was very little that could touch the
ramscooper, but the kzin were
certainly going to try.
"Aggressive bastards," he said, keeping his eyes
firmly fixed on the tactical
display. Getting in the way of the Yamamoto took
courage, individually and on
the part of their commander. Nobody had used a
ramscoop ship like this before;
the kzin had never developed a Bussard-type drive;
they had had the gravity
polarizer for a long time, and it had aborted work on
reaction jet systems. But
they must have made staff studies, and they would
know what they were facing.
Which was something more in the nature of a
large-scale cosmic event than a
ship. Mass equals velocity: by now the Yamamoto had
the effective bulk of a
medium-sized moon, moving only a tenth slower than a
laser beam.
That reminded him of what the Catskinner would be
doing shortly-and the Dart did
not have anything like the scale of protection the
ramscoop warship did. Even a
micrometeorite . . . Alpha Centauri was a black disk
edged by fire in the upper
half of the screen.
"Projectiles away," the computer said. Nothing
physical, but another inverted
cone of trajectories splayed out from the path of the
Yamamoto. Highly polished
chrome-tungsten-steel alloy slugs, which had spent
the trip from Sol riding
grapnel-fields in the Yamamoto's wake. Others were
clusters of small shot, or
balloons, to transmit energy to fragile targets; at
these speeds, a slug could
punch through a ship without slowing enough to do
more than leave a small
glowing hole through the structure. Wildly varying
albedos, from fully-stealthed
to deliberately reflective; the Catskinner was going
to be rather conspicuous
when the Slaver stasis field's impenetrable surface
went on. Now the warship's
magnetics were twitching the kinetic-energy weapons
out in sprays and clusters,
at velocities that would send them across the
Wunderland system in hours. It
would take the firepower of a heavy cruiser to
significantly damage one, and
there were a lot of them. Iron was cheap, and the
Yamamoto grossly overpowered.
"You know, we ought to have done this before," Jonah
said. The sun-disk filled
the upper screen, then snapped down several sizes as
the computer reduced the
field. A sphere, floating in the wild arching
discharges and coronas of a G-type
sun. "We could have used ramrobots. Or the pussies
could have copied our designs
and done it to us."
"Nope," Ingrid said. She coughed, and he wondered if
her eyes were locking on
the sphere again as it clicked down to a size that
would fit the upper screen.
"Ramscoop fields. Think about it."
"Oh." When you put it that way, he could think of
about a half-dozen ways to
destabilize one; drop, oh, ultracompressed radon into
it. Countermeasures . . .
luckily, nothing the kzin were likely to have right
on hand.
"For that matter," she continued, "throwing
relativistic weapons around inside a
solar system is a bad idea. If you want to keep it."
"Impact," the computer said helpfully. An asteroid
winked, the tactical screen's
way of showing an expanding sphere of plasma:
nickel-iron, oxygen, nitrogen,
carbon-compounds, some of the latter kzin and humans
and children and their pet
budgies.
"You have to aim at stationary targets," Ingrid was
saying. "The things that war
is supposed to be about seizing. It's as insane as
fighting a planetside war
with fusion weapons and no effective defense. Only
possible once."
"Once would be enough, if we knew where the kzin home
system was." For a
vengeful moment he imagined robot ships falling into
a sun from infinite
distances, scores of light-years of acceleration at
hundreds of G's, their own
masses raised to near-stellar proportions. "No. Then
again, no."
"I'm glad you said that," Ingrid replied. Softly: "I
wonder what it's like, for
them out there."
"Interesting," Jonah said tightly. "At the very
least, interesting."

Chapter 2
"Please, keep calm," Harold Yarthkin-Schotmann said,
for the fourth time. "For
Finagle's sake, sit down and shut up!"
This one seemed to sink in, or perhaps the remaining
patrons were getting tired
of running around in circles and shouting. The staff
were all at their posts, or
preventing the paying customers from hitting each
other or breaking anything
expensive. Several of them had police-model stunners
under their dinner jackets,
like his; hideous illegal, hence quite difficult to
square. Not through
Claude-he was quite conscientious about avoiding
things that would seriously
annoy the ratcats-but there were plenty lower down
the totem pole who lacked his
gentlemanly sense of their own long-term interests.
Everyone was watching the screen behind the bar
again; the UNSN announcement was
off the air, but the Munchen news service was
slapping in random readouts from
all over the planet. For once the collaborationist
government was too busy to
follow their natural instincts and keep everyone in
the dark, and the kzin had
never given much of a damn; the only thing they cared
about was behavior,
propaganda be damned.
The flatlander warship was still headed insystem;
from the look of things they
were going to use the sun for as much of a
course-alteration as possible. He
could feel rusty spaceman's reflexes creaking into
action. That was a perfectly
sensible ploy; ramscoop ships were not easy to turn.
Even at their speeds, you
couldn't use the interstellar medium to bank; turning
meant applying lateral
thrust, and it would be easier to decelerate, turn
and work back up to high Tau.
Unless you could use a gravitational sling, like a
kid on roller-skates going
hell-for-leather down a street and then slapping a
hand on a lamppost-and even a
star's gravity was pretty feeble at those speeds.
He raised his glass to the sometime mirror behind the
bar. It was showing a
scene from the south polar zone. Kzin were stuck with
Wunderland's light
gravity, but they preferred a cooler, drier climate
than humans. The first
impact had looked like a line of light drawn down
from heaven to earth, and the
shockwave flipped the robot camera into a spin that
had probably ended on hard,
cold ground. Yarthkin grinned, and snapped his
fingers for coffee.
"With a sandwich, sweetheart," he told the waitress.
"Heavy on the mustard." He
loosened his archaic tie and watched flickershots of
boiling dust-clouds
crawling with networks of purple-white lightning.
Closer, into canyons of night
seething up out of red-shot blackness. That must be
molten rock; something had
punched right through into the magma.
"Sam." The man at the musicomp looked up from
trailing his fingers across the
keyboard; it was configured for piano tonight. An
archaism, like the whole
setup. Popular, as more and more fled in fantasy what
could not be avoided in
reality, back into a history that was at least human.
Of course, Wunderlanders
were prone to that; the planet had been a patchwork
of refugees from an
increasingly homogenized and technophile Earth
anyway. I've spent a generation
cashing in on a nostalgia boom, Yarthkin thought
wryly. Was that because I had
foresight, or was I one of the first victims?
"Sir?" Sam was Krio, like McAndrews the doorman,
although he had never gone the
whole route and taken warrior scars. Just as tough in
a fight, though. He'd been
enrolled in the Sensor-Effector program at the
Scholarium, been a gunner with
Yarthkin in the brief war in space, and they had been
together in the hills. And
he had come along when Yarthkin took the amnesty,
too. Even more of a wizard
with the keys than he had been with a jizzer or a
strakaker or a ratchet knife.
"Play something appropriate, Sam. 'Stormy Weather.' "
The musician's face lit with a vast white grin, and
he launched into the ancient
tune with a will, even singing his own version,
translated into Wunderlander.
Yarthkin murmured into his lapel to turn down the
hysterical commentary from the
screen, still babbling about dastardly attacks and
massive casualties.
It took a man back. Humans were dying out there, but
so were ratcats . . .
Here's looking at you, he thought to the hypothetical
crew of the Yamamoto.
Possibly nothing more than recordings and
sensor-effector mechanisms, but he
doubted it.
"Stormy weather for sure," he said softly to himself.
Megatons of dust and water
vapor were being pumped into the atmosphere. "Bad for
the crops." Though there
would be a harvest from this, yes indeed. I could
have been on that ship, he
thought to himself, with a sudden flare of murderous
anger. I was good enough.
There are probably Wunderlanders aboard her; those
slowships got through. If I
hadn't been left sucking vacuum at the airlock, it
could have been me out there!

"But not Ingrid," he whispered to himself. "The bitch
wouldn't have the guts."
Sam was looking at him; it had been a long time since
the memory of the last
days came back. With a practiced effort of will he
shoved it deeper below the
threshold of consciousness and produced the same
mocking smile that had faced
the world for most of his adult life.
"I wonder how our esteemed ratcat masters are taking
it," he said. "Been a while
since the ones here've had to lap out of the same
saucer as us lowlife
monkey-boys. I'd like to see it, I truly would."
***
" . . . estimate probability of successful
interception at less than one-fifth,"
the figure in the screen said. "Vengeance-Fang and
Rampant-Slayer do not respond
to signals. Lurker-At-Waterholes continues to
accelerate at right angles to the
ecliptic. We must assume they were struck by the
ramscoop fields."
The governor watched closely; the slight bristle of
whiskers and rapid open-shut
flare of wet black nostrils was a sign of intense
frustration.
"You have leapt well, Traat-Admiral," Chuut-Riit said
formally. "Break off
pursuit. The distant shadow-watchers would have their
chance."
A good tactician, Traat-Admiral; if he had come from
a better family, he would
have a double name by now. Would have a double name,
when Earth was conquered, a
name, and vast wealth. One percent of all the product
of the new conquest for
life, since he was to be in supreme military command
of the Fifth Fleet. That
would make him founder of a Noble Line, his bones in
a worship shrine for a
thousand generations; Chuut-Riit had hinted that he
would send several of his
daughters to the admiral's harem, letting him mingle
his blood with that of the
Patriarch.
"Chuut-Riit, are we to let the . . . the . . .
omnivores escape unscathed?" The
admiral's ears were quivering with the effort
required to keep them out at
parade-rest.
A rumble came from the space-armored figures that
bulked in the dim orange light
behind the flotilla commandant. Good, the planetary
governor thought. They are
not daunted.
"Your bloodlust is commendable, Traat-Admiral, but
the fact remains that the
human ship is traveling at velocities which render it
. . . It is at a different
point on the energy gradient, Traat-Admiral."
"We can pursue as it leaves the system!"
"In ships designed to travel at point-eight
lightspeed? From behind? Remember
the Human Lesson. That is a very effective reaction
drive they are using."
A deep ticking sound came from his throat, and
Traat-Admiral's ears laid back
instinctively. The thought of trying to maneuver past
that planetary-length
sword of nuclear fire . . .
Chuut-Riit paused to let the thought sink home before
continuing: "This has been
a startling tactic. We assumed that possession of the
gravity polarizer would
lead the humans to neglect further development of
their so-efficient reaction
drives, as we had done; hr'rrearow t'chssseee
mearowet'aatrurrte,
this-does-not-follow. We must prepare
countermeasures, investigate the
possibility of ramscoop interstellar missiles . . .
At least they did not strike
at this system's sun, or drop a really large mass
into the planetary gravity
well."
The fur of the kzin on Throat-Ripper's bridge lay
flat, sculpting the
bone-and-muscle planes of their faces.
"Indeed, Chuut-Riit," Traat-Admiral said fervently.
"A series of polarizer-driven missiles, with
laser-cannon boost, deployed ready
to destabilize ramscoop fields . . . In any case, you
are ordered to break off
action, assist with emergency rescue efforts, detach
two units with interstellar
capacity to shadow the intruder until it leaves the
immediate vicinity. Waste no
more Heroes in futility; instead, we must repair the
damage and redouble our
preparations for the next attack on Sol."
"As you command, Chuut-Riit, although it goes against
the grain to let the
leaf-eating monkeys escape, when the Fifth Fleet is
so near completion."
The governor rose, letting his weight forward on
hands whose claws slid free. He
restrained any further display of impatience. I must
teach him to think. To
think correctly, he must be allowed to make errors.
"Its departure has already been delayed. Will losing
further units in fruitless
pursuit speed the repairs and modifications which
must be made? Attend to your
orders!"
"At once, Chuut-Riit!"
The governor held himself impressively immobile until
the screen blanked. Then
he turned and leaped with a tearing shriek over the
nearest wall, out into the
unnatural storm and darkness. A half-hour later he
returned, meditatively
picking bits of hide and bone from between his teeth
with a thumb-claw. His pelt
was plastered flat with mud, leaves, and blood, and a
thorned branch had cut a
bleeding trough across his sloping forehead. The
screens were still flicking
between various disasters, each one worse than the
last.
"Any emergency calls?" he asked mildly.
"None at the priority levels you established," the
computer replied.
"Murmeroumph," he said, opening his mouth wide into
the killing gape to get at
an irritating fragment between two of the back
shearing teeth. "Staff."
One wall turned to the ordered bustle of the
household's management centrum.
"Ah, Henrietta," he said in Wunderlander. "You have
that preliminary summary
ready?"
The human swallowed and averted her eyes from the
bits of something that the
kzin was flicking from his fangs and muzzle. The
others behind her were looking
drawn and tense as well, but no signs of panic. If I
could recognize them, the
kzin thought. They panic differently. A Hero overcome
with terror either fled,
striking out at anything in his path, or went into
mindless berserker frenzy.
Berserker, he mused thoughtfully. The concept was
fascinating; reading of it had
convinced him that kzin and humankind were enough
alike to cooperate
effectively.
"Yes, Chuut-Riit," she was saying. "Installations
Seven, Three, and Twelve in
the north polar zone have been effectively destroyed,
loss of industrial
function in the seventy-five to eighty percent range.
Over ninety percent at
Six, the main fusion generator destabilized in the
pulse from a near-miss."
Ionization effects had been quite spectacular.
"Casualties in the range of five
thousand Heroes, thirty thousand humans. Four major
orbital facilities hit, but
there was less collateral damage there, of course,
and more near-misses." No air
to transmit blast in space. "Reports from the
asteroid belt still coming in."
"Merrower," he said, meditatively. Kzin government
was heavily decentralized;
the average Hero did not make a good bureaucrat, that
was work for slaves and
computers. A governor was expected to confine himself
to policy decisions. Still
. . . "Have my personal spaceship prepared for lift.
I will be doing a tour."
Henrietta hesitated. "Ah, noble Chuut-Riit, the feral
humans will be active,
with defense functions thrown out of order."
She was far too experienced to mistake Chuut-Riit's
expression for a smile.
"Markham and his gang? I hope they do, Henrietta, I
sincerely hope they do." He
relaxed. "I'll view the reports from here. Send in
the groomers; my pelt must be
fit to be seen." A pause. "And replacements for one
of the bull buffalo in the
holding pen."
The kzin threw himself down on the pillow behind his
desk, massive head propped
with its chin on the stone surface of the workspace.
Grooming would help him
think. Humans were so good at it . . . and
blowdryers, blowdryers alone were
worth the trouble of conquering them.
***
"Prepare for separation," the computer said. The
upper field of the Catskinner's
screen was a crawling slow-motion curve of orange and
yellow and darker spots;
the battle schematic showed the last few slugs
dropping away from the Yamamoto,
using the gravity of the sun to whip around and curve
out toward targets in a
different quarter of the ecliptic plane. More than a
few were deliberately
misaimed, headed for catastrophic destruction in
Alpha Centauri's photosphere as
camouflage.
It can't be getting hotter, he thought.
"Gottdamn, it's hot," Ingrid said. "I'm
swine-sweating."
Thanks, he thought, refraining from speaking aloud
with a savage effort. "Purely
psychosomatic," he grated.
"There's one thing I regret," Ingrid continued.
"What's that?"
"That we're not going to be able to see what happens
when the Catskinner and
those slugs make a high-Tau transit of the sun's
outer envelope," she said.
Jonah felt a smile crease the rigid sweat-slick
muscles of his face. The
consequences had been extrapolated, but only roughly.
At the very least, there
would be solar-flare effects like nothing this system
had ever witnessed before,
enough to foul up every receptor pointed this way.
"It would be interesting, at
that."
"Prepare for separation," the computer continued.
"Five seconds and counting."
One. Ingrid had crossed herself just before the field
went on. Astonishing.
There were worse people to be crammed into a Dart
with for a month, even among
the more interesting half of the human race.
Two. They were probably going to be closer to an
active star than any other
human beings had ever been and survived to tell the
tale. Provided they
survived, of course.
Three. His grandparents had considered emigrating to
the Wunderland system; he
remembered them complaining about how the Belt had
been then, everything
regulated and taxed to death, and psychists hovering
to resanitize your mind as
soon as you came in from a prospecting trip. If
that'd happened, he might have
ended up as a conscript technician with the Fourth
Fleet.
Four. Or a guerrilla: the prisoners had mentioned
activity by "feral humans."
Jonah bared his teeth in an expression a kzin would
have had no trouble at all
understanding. I intend to remain very feral indeed.
The kzin may have done us a
favor; we were well on the way to turning ourselves
into sheep when they
arrived. If I'm going to be a monkey, I'll be a big,
mean baboon, by choice.
Five. Ingrid was right, it was a pity they wouldn't
be able to see it.
"Personally, I just wish that ARM bastard who
volunteered me for this was here-"

-discontinuity-

"Ready for separation, sir," the computer said.
Buford Early grunted. He was alone in the corvette's
control room; none of the
others had wanted to come out of deepsleep just to
sit helplessly and watch
their fate decided by chance.
"The kzinti aren't the ones who should be called
pussies," he said. Early
chuckled softly, enjoying a pun not one human in ten
million would have
appreciated. Patterns of sunlight crawled across his
face from the screens; the
Inner Ring was built inside the hull of a captured
kzinti corvette, but the
UNSN-and the ARM-had stuffed her full of surprises.
"I don't know what the youth
of today is coming to."
At that he laughed outright; he had been born into a
family of the . . . even
mentally, he decided not to specify . . . secret
path. Born a long, long time
ago, longer even than the creaking quasi-androids of
the Struldbrug Club would
have believed; there were geriatric technologies that
the ARM and its masters
guarded as closely as the weapons and destabilizing
inventions people knew
about.
Damn, but I'm glad the Long Peace is over, he mused.
It had been far too long,
whatever the uppermost leadership thought, although
of course he had backed the
policy. Besides, there was no real fun in being
master in the Country of the
Cows; Earthers had gotten just plain boring, however
docile.
"Boring this isn't, no jive," he said, watching the
disk of Alpha Centauri grow.
"About-"

-discontinuity-

"Greow-Captain, there is an anomaly in the last
projectile!"
"They are all anomalies, Sensor-Operator!" The
commander did not move his eyes
from the schematic before his face, but his tone held
conviction that the humans
had used irritatingly nonstandard weapons solely to
annoy and humiliate him.
Behind his back, the other two kzin exchanged glances
and moved expressive ears.
The Slasher-class armed scout held three crewkzin in
its delta-shaped control
chamber: the commander forward and the Sensor and
Weapons operators behind him
to either side. There were three small screens
instead of the single larger
divisible one a human boat of the same size would
have had, and many more
manually activated controls. Kzin had broader-range
senses than humans, faster
reflexes, and they trusted cybernetic systems rather
less. They had also had
gravity control almost from the beginning of
spaceflight; a failure serious
enough to immobilize the crew usually destroyed the
vessel.
"Simply tell me," the kzin commander said, "if our
particle-beam is driving it
down." The cooling system was whining audibly as it
pumped energy into its
central tank of degenerate matter, and still the
cabin was furnace-hot and dry,
full of the wild odors of fear and blood that the
habitation-system poured out
in combat conditions. The ship shuddered and banged
as it plunged in a curve
that was not quite suicidally close to the outer
envelope of the sun.
Before Greow-Captain a stepped-down image showed the
darkened curve of the gas
envelope, and the gouting coriolis-driven plumes as
the human projectiles plowed
their way through plasma. Shocks of discharge arched
between them as they drew
away from the kzin craft above, away from the beams
that sought to tumble them
down into denser layers where even their velocity
would not protect them. Or at
least throw them enough off course that they would
recede harmlessly into
interstellar space. The light from the holo-screen
crawled in iridescent
streamers across the flared scarlet synthetic of the
kzin's helmet and the huge
lambent eyes; the whole corona of Alpha Centauri was
writhing, flowers of
nuclear fire, a thunder of forces beyond the
understanding of human or kzinkind.
The two Operators were uneasily conscious that
Greow-Captain felt neither awe
nor the slightest hint of fear. Not because he was
more than normally courageous
for a young male kzin, but because he was utterly
indifferent to everything but
how this would look on his record. Another uneasy
glance went between them.
Younger sons of nobles were notoriously anxious to
earn full Names at record
ages, and Greow-Captain had complained long and
bitterly when their squadron was
not assigned to the Fourth Fleet. Operational
efficiency might suffer.
They knew better than to complain openly, of course.
Whatever the state of his
wits, there was nothing wrong with Greow-Captain's
reflexes, and he already had
an imposing collection of kzin-ear dueling trophies.
"Greow-Captain, the anomaly is greater than a
variance in reflectivity," the
Sensor-Operator yowled. Half his instruments were
useless in the flux of
energetic particles that were sheeting off the
Slasher's screens. He hoped they
were being deflected; as a lowly Sensor-Operator he
had not had a chance to
breed-not so much as a sniff of kzinrret fur since
they carried him mewling from
the teats of his mother to the training creche. "The
projectile is not absorbing
the quanta of our beam as the previous one did, nor
is its surface ablating. And
its trajectory is incompatible with the shape of the
others; this is larger,
less dense, and moving" . . . a pause of less than a
second to query the
computer . . . "moving as if its outer shell were
absolutely frictionless and
reflective, Greow-Captain. Should this not be
reported?"
Reporting would mean retreat, out to where a
message-maser could punch through
the chaotic broad-spectrum noise of an injured star's
bellow.
"Do my Heroes refuse to follow into danger?"
Greow-Captain snarled.
"Lead us, Greow-Captain!" Put that way, they had no
choice; which was why a
sensible officer would never have put it that way.
Both Operators silently
cursed the better diet and personal-combat training
available to offspring of a
noble's household. It had been a long time since kzin
met an enemy capable of
exercising greater selective pressure than their own
social system. His very
scent was intimidating, overflowing with the ketones
of a fresh-meat diet.
"Weapons-Operator, shift your aim to the region of
compressed gases directly
ahead of our target, all energy weapons. I am taking
us down and accelerating
past red-line." With a little luck, he could ignite
the superheated and
compressed monatomic hydrogen directly ahead of the
projectile, and let the
multimegaton explosion flip it up or down off the
ballistic trajectory the
humans had launched it on.
Muffled howls and spitting sounds came from the
workstations behind him; the
thin black lips wrinkled back more fully from his
fangs, and slender lines of
saliva drooled down past the open neckring of his
suit. Warren-dwellers, he
thought, as the Slasher lurched and swooped.
His hands darted over the controls, prompting the
machinery that was throwing it
about at hundreds of accelerations. Vatach hunters.
The little quasi-rodents
were all lower-caste kzin could get in the way of
live meat. Although the
anomaly was interesting, and he would report noticing
it to
Khurut-Squadron-Captain. I will show them how a true
hunter-
The input from the kzin boat's weapons was barely a
fraction of the kinetic
energy the Catskinner was shedding into the gases
that slowed it, but that was
just enough. Enough to set off chain-reaction fusion
in a sizable volume around
the invulnerably-protected human vessel. The kzin
craft was far enough away for
the wave-front to arrive before the killing blow:
"-shield overload, loss of directional hhnrrreaw-"
The Sensor-Operator shrieked and burned as
induction-arcs crashed through his
position. Weapons-Operator was screaming the hiss of
a nursing kitten as his
claws slashed at the useless controls.
Greow-Captain's last fractional second was spent in a
cry as well, but his was
of pure rage. The Slasher's fusion-bottle
destabilized at almost the same
nanosecond as her shields went down and the gravity
control vanished; an
imperceptible instant later only a mass-spectroscope
could have told the
location as atoms of carbon and iron scattered
through the hot plasma of the
inner solar wind.

-discontinuity-

"Shit," Jonah said, with quiet conviction. "Report.
And stabilize that view."
The streaking pinwheel in the exterior-view screen
slowed and halted, but the
control surface beside it continued to show the
Catskinner twirling end-over-end
at a rate that would have pasted them both as a thin
reddish film over the
interior without the compensation fields. Gravity
polarizers were a wonderful
invention, and he was very glad humans had mastered
them, but they were
nerve-wracking.
The screen split down the middle as Ingrid began
establishing their possible
paths.
"We are," the computer said, "traveling twice as fast
as our projected velocity
at switchoff, and on a path twenty-five degrees
further to the solar north." A
pause. "We are still, you will note, in the plane of
the ecliptic."
"Thank Finagle for small favors," Jonah muttered,
working his hands in the
control gloves. The Catskinner was running on her
accumulators, the fusion
reactor and its so-detectable neutrino flux shut down.
"Jonah," Ingrid said. "Take a look." A corner of the
screen lit, showing the
surface of the sun and a gigantic pillar of flare
reaching out in their wake
like the tongue of a hungry fire-elemental. "The
pussies are burning up the
communications spectra, yowling about losing
scout-boats. They had them down low
and dirty, trying to throw the slugs that went into
the photosphere with us
off-course."
"Lovely," the man muttered. So much for quietly
matching velocities with
Wunderland while the commnet is still down. To the
computer: "What's ahead of
us?"
"For approximately twenty-three point six
light-years, nothing."
"What do you mean, nothing?"
"Hard vacuum, micrometeorites, interstellar dust,
possible spacecraft, bodies
too small or nonradiating to be detected,
superstrings, shadowmatter-"
"Shut up!" he snarled. "Can we brake?"
"Yes. Unfortunately, this will require several hours
of thrust and exhaust our
onboard fuel reserves."
"And put up a fucking great sign, 'Hurrah, we're
back' for every pussy in the
system," he grated. Ingrid touched him on the arm.
"Wait, I have an idea. . . . Is there anything
substantial in our way, that we
could reach with less of a burn?"
"Several asteroids, Lieutenant Raines. Uninhabited."
"What's the status of our stasis-controller?"
A pause. "Still . . . I must confess, I am
surprised." The computer sounded
surprised that it could be. "Still functional,
Lieutenant Raines."
Jonah winced. "Are you thinking what I think you're
thinking?" he said
plaintively. "Another collision?"
Ingrid shrugged. "Right now, it'll be less noticeable
than a long burn.
Computer, will it work?"
"Ninety-seven percent chance of achieving a stable
Swarm orbit. The risk of
emitting infrared and visible-light signals is
unquantifiable. The field switch
will probably continue to function, Lieutenant
Raines."
"It should, it's covered in neutronium." She turned
her head to Jonah. "Well?"
He sighed. "Offhand, I can't think of a better
solution. When you can't think of
a better solution than a high-speed collision with a
rock, something's wrong
with your thinking, but I can't think of what would
be better to think . . .
What do you think?"
"That an unshielded collision with a rock might be
better than another month
imprisoned with your sense of humor. . . . Gott, all
those fish puns . . ."
"Computer, prepare for minimal burn. Any
distinguishing characteristics of those
rocks?"
"One largely silicate, one eighty-three percent
nickel-iron with traces of-"
"Spare me. The nickel-iron, it's denser and less
likely to break up. Prepare for
minimal burn."
"I have so prepared, on the orders of Lieutenant
Raines."
Jonah opened his mouth, then frowned. "Wait a minute.
Why is it always
Lieutenant Raines? You're a damned sight more
respectful of her."
Ingrid buffed her fingernails. "While you were
briefing up on Wunderland and the
Swarm . . . I was helping the team that programmed
our tin friend."
***
"Are you sure?"
The radar operator held her temper in check with an
effort. She had not been
part of the Nietzsche's crew long, but more than long
enough to learn that you
did not back-talk Herrenmann Ulf Reichstein-Markham.
Bastard's as arrogant as a
kzin himself, she thought resentfully.
"Yes, sir. It's definitely heading our way since that
microburn. Overpowered
thruster, unusual spectrum, and unless it's unmanned
they have a gravity
polarizer. Two hundred G's, they pulled."
The guerrilla commander nodded thoughtfully. "Then it
is either kzin, which is
unlikely in the extreme since they do not use
reaction drives on any of their
standard vessels, or . . ."
"And, sir, it's cool. Hardly radiating at all, when
the fusion plant's off. If
we weren't close and didn't know where to look . . .
granted, this isn't a
military sensor, but I doubt the ratcats have seen
him."
Markham's long face drew into an expression of
disapproval. "They are called
kzin, soldier. I will tolerate no vulgarities in my
command."
Bastard. "Yessir."
The man was tugging at his asymmetric beard.
"Evacuate the asteroid. It will be
interesting to see how they decelerate, perhaps some
gravitic effect . . . and
even more interesting to find out what those fat
cowards in the Sol system think
they are doing."
***
"Prepare for stasis," the computer said.
"How?" Ingrid and Jonah asked in unison. The rock
came closer, tumbling, half a
kilometer on a side, falling forever in a slow silent
spiral. Closer . . .
"Interesting," the computer said. "There is a ship
adjacent."
"What?" Jonah said. His fingers slid into the control
gloves like snakes fleeing
a mongoose, then froze. It was too late, and they
were committed.
"Very well stealthed." A pause, and the asteroid grew
in the wall before them,
filling it from end to end.
Tin-brained idiot's a sadist, Jonah thought.
"And the asteroid is an artifact. Well hidden as
well, but at this range my
semi-passive systems can pick up a tunnel complex and
shut-down power system.
Life support on maintenance. Twelve seconds to
impact."
"Is anybody there?" Jonah barked.
"Negative, Jonah. The ship is occupied; I scan
twinned fusion drives, and
hull-mounted weaponry, concealed as part of the
grappling apparatus. X-ray
lasers, possible rail-guns. Two of the cargo bays
have dropslots that would be
of appropriate size for kzin light-seeker missiles.
Eight seconds to impact."
"Put us into combat mode," the Sol-Belter snapped.
"Prepare for emergency
stabilization as soon as the stasis field is off.
Warm for boost. Ingrid, if
we're going to talk you'll probably be better able to
convince them of our-"

-discontinuity-

"-bona fides."
The ripping-cloth sound of the gravity polarizer
hummed louder and louder, and
there was a wobble felt more as a subliminal tugging
at the inner ear, as the
system strained to stop a spin as rapid as a
gyroscope's. The asteroid was
fragments glowing a dull orange-red streaked with
dark slag, receding; the
Catskinner was moving backward under twenty G's, her
laser-pods star-fishing out
and railguns humming with maximum charge.
"Alive again," Jonah breathed, feeling the response
under his fingertips. The
wall ahead had divided into a dozen panels,
schematics of information, stresses,
possibilities; the central was the exterior view.
"Tightbeam signal, identify
yourselves."
"Sent. Receiving signal also tightbeam." A pause.
"Obsolete hailing pattern.
Requesting identification."
"Request video, same pattern."
The screen flickered twice, and an off-right panel
lit with a furious bearded
face, tightly contained fury, in a face no older than
his own, less than thirty;
beard close-shaven on one side, pointed on the right,
yellow-blond and wiry,
like the close-cropped mat on the narrow skull; pale
narrow eyes, mobile ears,
long-nosed with a prominent bony chin beneath the
carefully cultivated goatee.
Behind him a control-chamber that was like the one in
the Belter museum back at
Ceres, an early-model independent miner-but modified,
crammed with jury-rigged
systems of which many were marked in the
squiggles-and-angles kzin script;
crammed with people as well, some of them in armored
spacesuits. An improvised
warship, then. Most of the crew were in neatly
tailored gray skinsuits, with a
design of a phoenix on their chests.
"Explain yourzelfs," the man said, with a slight
guttural overtone to his Belter
English, enough to mark him as one born speaking
Wunderlander.
"UNSN Catskinner, Captain Jonah Matthieson
commanding, Lieutenant Raines as
second. Presently," he added dryly, "on detached
duty. As representative of the
human armed forces, I require your cooperation."
"Cooperation!" That was one of the spacesuited
figures behind the Wunderlander,
a tall man with hair cut in the Belter crest, and
adorned with small silver
bells. "You fucker, you just missiled my bloody base
and a year's takings!"
"We didn't missile it, we just rammed into it," Jonah
said. "Takings? What are
these people, pirates?"
"Calm yourzelf, McAllistaire," the Wunderlander said.
His eyes had narrowed
slightly at the Sol-Belter's words, and his ears
cocked forward. "Permit
self-introduction, Hauptmann Matthieson. Commandant
Ulf Reichstein-Markham, at
your zerfice. Commandant in the Free Wunderland navy,
zat is. My, ahh, coworker
here is an independent entrepreneur who iss pleazed
to cooperate wit' the naval
forces."
"Goddam you, Markham, that was a year's profits yours
and mine both. Shop the
bastard to the ratcats, now. We could get a pardon
out of it, easy. Hell, you
could get that piece of dirt back on Wunderland
you're always on about."
The self-proclaimed Commandant held up a hand
palm-forward to Jonah and turned
to speak to the owner of the ex-asteroid. "You try my
patience, McAllistaire.
Zilence."
"Silence yourself, dirtsider. I-"
"-am now dispensable." Markham's finger tapped the
console. Stunners hummed in
the guerrilla ship, and the figures not in gray
crumpled.
The Commandant turned to a figure offscreen. "Strip
zem of all useful equipment
and space zem," he said casually. Turning to the
screen again, with a slight
smile. "It is true, you haff cost us valuable
matériel . . . You will
understant, a clandestine war requires unort'odox
measures, Captain. Ve are
forced sometimes to requisition goods, as the Free
Wunderland government cannot
levy ordinary taxes, and it iss necessary to exchange
these for vital supplies
vit t'ose not of our cause." A more genuine smile.
"As an officer ant a
chentelman, you vill appreciate the relief of no
lonker having to deal vit this
schweinerie."
Ingrid spoke softly to the computer, and another
portion of the screen switched
to an exterior view of the Free Wunderland ship. An
airlock door swung open, and
figures spewed out into vacuum with a puff of vapor;
some struggled and thrashed
for nearly a minute. Another murmur, and a green line
drew itself around the
figure of Markham. Stress-reading, Jonah reminded
himself. Pupil-dilation
monitoring. I should have thought of that.
Interesting: he thinks he's telling
the truth.
One of the gray-clad figures gave a dry retch at her
console. "Control yourzelf,
soldier," Markham snapped. To the screen: "Wit' all
the troubles, the kzin are
unlikely to have noticed your, ah, sudden
deceleration." The green line
remained. "Still, ve should establish vectors to a
less conspicuous spot. Then I
can offer you the hozpitality of the Nietzsche, and
we can discuss your mission
and how I may assist you at leisure." The green line
flickered, shaded to
green-blue. Mental reservations.
Not on board your ship, that's for sure, Jonah
thought, smiling into the steely
fanatic's gaze in the screen. "By all means," he
murmured.
***
" . . . zo, as you can imagine, we are anxious to
take advantage of your
actions," Markham was saying. The control chamber of
the Catskinner was crowded
with him and the three "advisors" he had insisted on;
all three looked
wirecord-tough, and all had stripped to usefully
lumpy coveralls. And they all
had something of the outer-orbit chill of Markham's
expression.
"To raid kzin outposts while they're off-balance?"
Ingrid said. Markham gave her
a quick glance down the eagle sweep of his nose.
"You vill understand, wit' improvised equipment it is
not always pozzible to
attack the kzin directly," he said to Jonah,
pointedly ignoring the junior
officer. "As the great military t'inker Clausewitz
said, the role of a guerrilla
is to avoid strength and attack weakness. Ve
undertake to sabotage their
operations by dizrupting commerce, and to aid ze
groundside partisans wit'
intelligence and supplies as often as pozzible."
Translated, you hijack ships and bung the crews out
the airlock when it isn't an
unmanned cargo pod, all for the Greater Good.
Finagle's ghost, this is one scary
bastard. Luckily, I know some things he doesn't.
"And the late unlamented McAllistaire?"
A frown. "Vell, unfortunately, not all are as devoted
to the Cause as might be
hoped. In terms of realpolitik, it iss to be
eggspected, particularly of the
common folk when so many of deir superiors haff
decided that collaboration wit'
the kzin is an unavoidable necessity." The faded blue
eyes blinked at him. "Not
an unreasonable supposition, when Earth has abandoned
us-until now . . . Zo, of
the ones willing to help, many are merely the lawless
and corrupt. Motivated by
money; vell, if one must shovel manure, one uses a
pitchfork."
Jonah smiled and nodded, grasping the meaning if not
the agricultural metaphor.
And the end justifies the means. My cheeks are
starting to hurt. "Well, I have
my mission to perform. On a need-to-know basis, let's
just say that Lieutenant
Raines and I have to get to Wunderland, preferably to
a city. With cover
identities, currency, and instructions to the
underground there to assist us, if
it's safe enough to contact."
"Vell." Markham seemed lost in thought for moments.
"I do not believe ve can
expect a fleet from Earth. They would have followed
on the heels of the
so-effective attack, and such would be impossible to
hide. You are an
afterthought." Decision, and a mouth drawn into a
cold line. "You must tell me
of this mission before scarce resources are devoted
to it."
"Impossible. This whole attack was to get Ingri-the
lieutenant and me to
Wunderland." Jonah cursed himself for the slip, saw
Markham's ears twitch
slightly. His mouth was dry, and he could feel his
vision focusing and
narrowing, bringing the aquiline features of the
guerrilla chieftain into closer
view.
"Zo. This I seriously doubt. But ve haff become adept
at finding answers, even
some kzin haff ve persuaded." The three "aides" drew
their weapons, smooth and
fast; two stunners and some sort of homemade
dart-thrower. "You vill answer.
Pozzibly, if the answers come quickly and wizzout
damage, I vill let you proceed
and giff you the help you require. This ship vill be
of extreme use to the
Cause, vhatever the bankers and merchants of Earth,
who have done for us nothing
in fifty years of fighting, intended. Ve who haff
fought the kzin vit' our bare
hands, while Earth did nothing, nothing . . ."
Markham pulled himself back to self-command. "If it
is inadvisable to assist
you, you may join my crew or die." His eyes, flatly
dispassionate, turned to
Ingrid. "You are from zis system. You also vill
speak, and then join or . . .
no, there is always a market for workable bodies, if
the mind is first removed.
Search them thoroughly and take them across to the
Nietzsche in a bubble." A
sign to his followers. "The first thing you must
learn, is that I am not to be
lied to."
"I don't doubt it," Jonah drawled, lying back in his
crashcouch. "But you can't
take this ship."
"Ah." Markham smiled again. "Codes. You vill furnish
them."
"The ship," Ingrid said, considering her fingertips,
"has a mind of its own. You
may test it."
The Wunderlander snorted. "A zelf-aware computer?
Impozzible. Laboratory
curiosities."
"Now that," the computer said, "could be considered
an insult, Landholder Ulf
Reichstein-Markham." The weapons of Markham's
companions were suddenly thrown
away with stifled curses and cries of pain.
"Induction fields . . . Your error,
sir. Spaceships in this benighted vicinity may be
metal shells with various
systems tacked on, but I am an organism. And you are
in my intestines."
Markham crossed his arms. "You are two to our four,
and in the same environment,
so no gases or other such may be used. You vill tell
me the control codes for
this machine eventually; it is easy to make such a
device mimic certain
functions of sentience. Better for you if you come
quietly."
"Landholder Markham, I grow annoyed with you," the
computer said. "Furthermore,
consider that your knowledge of cybernetics is fifty
years out of date, and that
the kzin are a technologically conservative people
with no particular gift for
information systems. Watch."
A railgun yapped through the hull, and there was a
bright flare on the flank of
the stubby toroid of Markham's ship. A voice babbled
from the handset at his
belt, and the view in the screen swooped crazily as
the Catskinner dodged.
"That was your main screen generator," the computer
continued. "You are now open
to energy weapons. Need I remind you that this ship
carries more than thirty
parasite-rider X-ray lasers, pumped by one-megaton
bombs? Do we need to alert
the kzin to our presence?"
There was a sheen of sweat on Markham's face. "I haff
perhaps been somevhat
hasty," he said flatly. No nonsentient computer could
have been given this
degree of initiative. "A fault of youth, as mein
mutter is saying." His accent
had become thicker. "As chentlemen, we may come to
some agreement."
"Or we can barter like merchants," Jonah said, with
malice aforethought. Out of
the corner of his eye, he saw Ingrid flash an "O"
with her fingers. "Is he
telling the truth?"
"To within ninety-seven percent of probability," the
computer said. "From pupil,
skin-conductivity, encephalographic and other
evidence." Markham hid his start
quite well. "I suggest the bargaining commence.
Commandant Reichstein-Markham,
you would also be well advised not to . . . engage in
falsehoods."
***
"You are not on the datarecord of vessels detached
for this duty," the kzin in
the forward screen said.
Buford Early watched carefully as the readouts beside
the catlike face formed
themselves into a bar-graph; worry, generalized
anxiety, and belief. Not as good
as the readings on humans-ARM computer technology was
as good as telepathy on
that, and far more reliable-but enough. Around him
the four-person combat crew
tensed at their consoles, although at this range
reaction to any attack would
have to be largely cybernetic. The control chamber
was very quiet, and the air
had a neutral pine-scented coolness that leached out
the smell of fear-sweat.
They were a long way from home, and going into harm's
way.
"Ktrodni-Stkaa has ordered me to observe and report
upon the efficiency with
which these operations are carried out," he said; the
computer would translate
that into the Hero's Tongue, adding a kzin image and
appropriate body language.
The Inner Circle's stealthing included an ability to
broadcast energies which
duplicated the electromagnetic and neutrino
signatures of a kzinti corvette.
The kzin officer's muzzle jerked toward the screen
and the round pupils of his
eyes flared wide. Hostility. Aggressive intent, the
computer indicated silently.
"This is not Ktrodni-Stkaa's sector!" the kzin
snarled. Literally; lines of
saliva trailed from the thin black lips as they
peeled back from the inch-long
ivory daggers of the fangs. Early felt tiny hairs
crawling along his spine, as
instincts remembered ancestors who had fought lions
with spears.
Early shrugged. Formal lines of authority in the
kzinti armed forces seemed to
be surprisingly loose; the prestige of individual
chieftains mattered a good
deal more, and the networks of patronage and blood
kinship. And it was not at
all uncommon for a high-ranking, full-name kzin to
jump the chain of command and
send personal representatives to the site of an
important action. Ktrodni-Stkaa
seemed to be about fourth from the top in the kzinti
military hierarchy, to
judge from the broadcast monitoring they had been
able to do, and a locally-born
opponent of Chuut-Riit.
"Report on your progress," he went on, insultingly
refusing to give his own name
or ask the other kzin's.
"You may monitor," the alien replied.
Receiving dataflow, the computer added.
The kzinti ships were floating near an industrial
habitat, an elongated cylinder
that had been spun for gravity, with a crazy quilt of
life-bubbles and
fabricator frameworks spun out for kilometers on
either side. There had been a
rough order to it, before the missiles from the
Yamamoto struck. Those had been
ballonets and string-wire; broad surfaces worked well
in vacuum and transferred
energy more readily to the target. The main
spin-habitat was tumbling now,
peeled open along its long axis; many of the other
components were drifting
away, with their connecting lattices and pipelines
severed as if by giant flying
cheesecutters. Two kzinti corvettes hung near, with
space-armored figures
flitting about; they were much like the one the Inner
Mind had been rebuilt
from. A troop-transport must be loading with refugees
from the emergency
bubbles, and a human-built self-propelled graving
dock had been brought for
heavy repair work.
Which will be needed, Early reflected; the strikes
would have lasted
microseconds, but the damage was comprehensive.
Frozen air glittered in the
blind unmerciful light, particles of water-ice and
ores and metal mists, of
blood and bone. The close-ups showed bodies drifting
amid the wrecked
fabricators and processing machines, and doubtless
the habitat had been a refuge
for children and pregnant mothers, as was common in
the Sol-belt. Certain things
required gravity, and he doubted the kzinti had
spread gravity polarizers around
wholesale.
A pity, he thought coldly, a little surprised at his
own lack of emotion. You
could not live as long as he had, in the service to
which he had been born,
without becoming detached. What is necessary, must be
done.
"Why are you wasting efforts here?" he said harshly,
watching the growling
response of the kzin to the computer's arrogant
synthesis. "Most of the
equipment"-the facility had manufactured
fission-triggers, superconductors, and
degenerate-matter energy storage devices-"seems to be
in good order and salvage
can wait." The machine provided his false image with
the ripple of fur, ears,
tail that provided an analogue of a chuckle. "And the
meat will keep."
"If you sthondat-groomers can't be of use, get out of
the way!" the kzin
screamed. Extreme hostility, the computer warned.
Intent to initiate violence.
"We're doing emergency rescue work here."
"Your leader's concern for monkeys is touching,"
Early sneered.
"These are valuable and loyal slaves, personal
property of the Patriarchal
clan," the other said. "Evacuate the vicinity."
"I order you to depart for work of higher priority,"
Early rasped. "Co-ordinates
follow."
"I defecate upon your co-ordinates and leave it
unburied!" the kzin howled. "I
am here under direct orders of the Viceregal Staff!"
"I convey the orders of Ktrodni-Stkaa."
"Then Ktrodni-Stkaa is a vatach-sucking fool-"
A beam stabbed out from the kzin vessel, deliberately
aimed to miss. The torrent
of fire that followed from the Inner Circle was aimed
to kill, and did so very
effectively. The ships had been at zero relative
velocity and within a few
hundred thousand kilometers, rare conditions for
space combat. Precisely-aimed
laser and neutral-particle beams from the camouflaged
human vessel stabbed into
the kzinti corvettes like superheated icepicks. Metal
and synthetic sublimed and
gouted out in asymmetric jets of plasma. The warships
tumbled; the kzin
officer's face was driven into the visual pickup of
his screen, a fractional
second of horrified surprise before flesh smeared
over the crystal. That screen
went black, but the exterior pickup showed two brief
new stars as fusion
warheads detonated point-blank.
"Computer," Early said. "Broadcast to the
survivors"-most of the kzinti crews
had been doing EVA rescue work-"that we were acting
under Ktrodni-Stkaa's
orders, and that Chuut-Riit's vessels initiated
hostilities. Oh, and hole that
transport-gut her passenger compartments."
"Sir!" One of the others, turning a sweat-sheened
face to Early. "Sir, there are
humans aboard that transport."
"Exactly," Early said with chill satisfaction, as the
big wedge-shaped craft
blossomed fragments of hull panel and began to tumble
slowly. "Son, we're here
to stir up Resistance activity, among other things.
You should read more
history." A quasi-pornographic activity, even now
that the restrictions of the
Long Peace had been lifted. "Our friend Chuut-Riit is
a sensible,
rational-Finagle, even humane, by kzin
standards-pussy. The absolute last thing
we want; we want the kzin to be as horrible and
brutal as possible, and if they
won't do the atrocities themselves we'll tanjit do it
ourselves and blame them.
Besides stoking up dissension within enemy ranks, of
course."
He leaned back. Divide et impera, he thought. The
ARM's true motto, and the
Brotherhood's-with the added proviso that you did it
without anyone realizing
who was to blame.
He grinned; an almost kzinlike expression. Naive,
that's what these pussies are.

***
Chuut-Riit always enjoyed visiting the quarters of
his male offspring.
"What will it be this time?" he wondered, as he
passed the outer guards. The
household troopers drew claws before their eyes in
salute, faceless in
impact-armor and goggled helmets, the beam-rifles
ready in their hands. He paced
past the surveillance cameras, the detector pods, the
death-casters, and the
mines; then past the inner guards at their consoles,
humans raised in the
household under the supervision of his personal
retainers.
The retainers were males grown old in the Riit
family's service; there had
always been those willing to exchange the uncertain
rewards of competition for a
secure place, maintenance, and the odd female.
Ordinary kzin were not to be
trusted in so sensitive a position, of course, but
these were families which had
served the Riit clan for generation after generation.
There was a natural
culling effect; those too ambitious left for the
Patriarchy's military and the
slim chance of advancement, those too timid were not
given opportunity to breed.
Perhaps a pity that such cannot be used outside the
household, Chuut-Riit
thought. Competition for rank was far too intense and
personal for that, of
course.
He walked past the modern sections, and into an area
that was pure Old Kzin;
maze-walls of reddish sandstone with twisted spines
of wrought-iron on their
tops, the tips glistening razor-edged.
Fortress-architecture from a world older
than this, more massive, colder and drier; from a
planet harsh enough that a
plains carnivore had changed its ways, put to
different use an upright posture
designed to place its head above savannah grass,
grasping paws evolved to climb
rock. Here the modern features were reclusive, hidden
in wall and buttress. The
door was a hammered slab graven with the faces of
night-hunting beasts, between
towers five times the height of a kzin. The air
smelled of wet rock and the
raked sand of the gardens.
Chuut-Riit put his hand on the black metal of the
outer portal, stopped. His
ears pivoted, and he blinked; out of the corner of
his eye he saw a pair of
tufted eyebrows glancing through the thick twisted
metal on the rim of the
ten-meter battlement. Why, the little sthondats, he
thought affectionately. They
managed to put it together out of reach of the holo
pickups.
The adult put his hand to the door again, keying the
locking sequence, then
bounded backward four times his own length from a
standing start. Even under the
lighter gravity of Wunderland, it was a creditable
feat. And necessary, for the
massive panels rang and toppled as the rope-swung
boulder slammed forward. The
children had hung two cables from either tower, with
the rock at the point of
the V and a third rope to draw it back. As the doors
bounced wide he saw the
blade they had driven into the apex of the egg-shaped
granite rock, long and
barbed and polished to a wicked point.
Kittens, he thought. Always going for the dramatic.
If that thing had struck him
or the doors under its impetus, there would have been
no need of a blade.
Watching too many historical adventure holos.
"Errorowwww!" he shrieked in mock-rage, bounding
through the shattered portal
and into the interior court, halting atop the
kzin-high boulder. A round dozen
of his older sons were grouped behind the rock,
standing in a defensive clump
and glaring at him; the crackly scent of their
excitement and fear made the fur
bristle along his spine. He glared until they dropped
their eyes, continued it
until they went down on their stomachs, rubbed their
chins along the ground and
then rolled over for a symbolic exposure of the
stomach.
"Congratulations," he said. "That was the closest
you've gotten. Who was in
charge?"
More guilty sidelong glances among the adolescent
males crouching among their
discarded pull-rope, and then a lanky youngster with
platter-sized feet and
hands came squatting-erect. His fur was in the proper
flat posture, but the
naked pink of his tail still twitched stiffly.
"I was," he said, keeping his eyes formally down.
"Honored Sire Chuut-Riit," he
added, at the adult's warning rumble.
"Now, youngling, what did you learn from your first
attempt?"
"That no one among us is your match, Honored Sire
Chuut-Riit," the kitten said.
Uneasy ripples went over the black-striped orange of
his pelt.
"And what have you learned from this attempt?"
"That all of us together are no match for you,
Honored Sire Chuut-Riit," the
striped youth said.
"That we didn't locate all of the cameras," another
muttered. "You idiot,
Spotty." That to one of his siblings; they snarled at
each other from their
crouches, hissing past bared fangs and making
striking motions with unsheathed
claws.
"No, you did, cubs," Chuut-Riit said. "I presume you
stole the ropes and tools
from the workshop, prepared the boulder in the ravine
in the next courtyard,
then rushed to set it all up between the time I
cleared the last gatehouse and
my arrival?"
Uneasy nods. He held his ears and tail stiffly,
letting his whiskers quiver
slightly and holding in the rush of love and pride he
felt, more delicious than
milk heated with bourbon. Look at them! he thought.
At an age when most young
kzin were helpless prisoners of instinct and hormone,
wasting their strength
ripping each other up or making fruitless direct
attacks on their sires, or
demanding to be allowed to join the Patriarchy's
service at once to win a Name
and household of their own . . . his get had learned
to cooperate and use their
minds!
"Ah, Honored Sire Chuut-Riit, we set the ropes up
beforehand, but made it look
as if we were using them for tumbling practice," the
one the others called
Spotty said. Some of them glared at him, and the
adult raised his hand again.
"No, no, I am moderately pleased." A pause. "You did
not hope to take over my
official position if you had disposed of me?"
"No, Honored Sire Chuut-Riit," the tall leader said.
There had been a time when
any kzin's holdings were the prize of the victor in a
duel, and the dueling
rules were interpreted more leniently for a young
subadult. Everyone had a
sentimental streak for a successful youngster; every
male kzin remembered the
intolerable stress of being physically mature but
remaining under dominance as a
child.
Still, these days affairs were handled in a more
civilized manner. Only the
Patriarchy could award military and political office.
And this mass
assassination attempt was . . . unorthodox, to say
the least. Outside the rules
more because of its rarity than because of formal
disapproval. . . .
A vigorous toss of the head. "Oh, no, Honored Sire
Chuut-Riit. We had an
agreement to divide the private possessions. The
lands and the, ah, females."
Passing their own mothers to half-siblings, of
course. "Then we wouldn't each
have so much we'd get too many challenges, and we'd
agreed to help each other
against outsiders," the leader of the plot finished
virtuously.
"Fatuous young scoundrels," Chuut-Riit said. His eyes
narrowed dangerously. "You
haven't been communicating outside the household,
have you?" he snarled.
"Oh, no, Honored Sire Chuut-Riit!"
"Word of honor! May we die nameless if we should do
such a thing!"
The adult nodded, satisfied that good family feeling
had prevailed. "Well, as I
said, I am somewhat pleased. If you have been keeping
up with your lessons. Is
there anything you wish?"
"Fresh meat, Honored Sire Chuut-Riit," the spotted
one said. The adult could
have told him by the scent, of course. A kzin never
forgot another's personal
odor; that was one reason why names were less
necessary among their species.
"The reconstituted stuff from the dispensers is
always . . . so . . . quiet."
Chuut-Riit hid his amusement. Young Heroes-to-be were
always kept on an
inadequate diet, to increase their aggressiveness. A
matter for careful gauging,
since too much hunger would drive them into mindless
cannibalistic frenzy.
"And couldn't we have the human servants back? They
were nice." Vigorous
gestures of assent. Another added: "They told good
stories. I miss my
Clothidal-human."
"Silence!" Chuut-Riit roared. The youngsters
flattened stomach and chin to the
ground again. "Not until you can be trusted not to
injure them. How many times
do I have to tell you, it's dishonorable to attack
household servants! You are
getting to be big enough to hurt them easily; until
you learn self-control, you
will have to make do with machines."
This time all of them turned and glared at a mottled
youngster in the rear of
their group; there were half-healed scars over his
head and shoulders. "It bared
its teeth at me," he said sulkily. "All I did was
swipe at it. How was I
supposed to know it would die?" A chorus of rumbles,
and this time several of
the covert kicks and clawstrikes landed.
"Enough," Chuut-Riit said after a moment. Good, they
have even learned how to
discipline each other as a unit. "I will consider it,
when all of you can pass a
test on the interpretation of human expressions and
body-language." He drew
himself up. "In the meantime, within the next two
eight-days, there will be a
formal hunt and meeting in the Patriarch's Preserve;
kzinti homeworld game, the
best Earth animals, and even some feral-human
outlaws, perhaps!"
He could smell their excitement increase, a
mane-crinkling musky odor not
unmixed with the sour whiff of fear. Such a hunt was
not without danger for
adolescents, being a good opportunity for hostile
adults to cull a few of a
hated rival's offspring with no possibility of blame.
They will be in less
danger than most, Chuut-Riit thought judiciously. In
fact, they may run across a
few of my subordinates' get and mob them. Good.
"And if we do well, afterwards a feast and a visit to
the Sterile Ones." That
had them all quiveringly alert, their tails held
rigid and tongues lolling;
nonbearing females were kept as a rare privilege for
Heroes whose
accomplishments were not quite deserving of a mate of
their own. Very rare for
kits still in the household to be granted such, but
Chuut-Riit thought it past
time to admit that modern society demanded a
prolonged adolescence. The days
when a male kit could be given a spear, a knife, a
rope, and a bag of salt and
kicked out the front gate at puberty were long gone.
Those were the wild,
wandering years in the old days, when survival
challenges used up the
superabundant energies. Now they must be spent
learning history, technology,
xenology, none of which burned off the gland-juices
saturating flesh and brain.
He jumped down amid his sons, and they pressed around
him, purring throatily
with adoration and fear and respect; his presence and
the failure of their plot
had reestablished his personal dominance
unambiguously, and there was no danger
from them for now. Chuut-Riit basked in their
worship, feeling the rough caress
of their tongues on his fur and scratching behind
their ears. Together, he
thought. Together we will do wonders.

Chapter 3
Dreaming, Harold Yarthkin-Schotmann twitched. Sweat
ran down his stubbled
bulldog face, and his fingers dug into the sodden
sheets. It had been-
Crack. Crack.
Pulses of orange-purple light went by overhead. Ahead
of them the building where
the aircar was hidden exploded. The air was
pitch-black, stars hidden by the
smoke of burning buildings, air full of a chemical
reek. It rasped at the inside
of his throat, and he coughed savagely as they went
to ground and he slapped
down the hunting goggles. Green-tinted brightness
replaced the black, and he
raised his head to peer back over the rim of the
shattered house. Overhead the
scorched yellow leaves of the jacaranda tree rustled.
"Scheisse," he muttered in awe. Half of Munchen
seemed to be burning, the ruddy
light glittering off the unnatural waves of the Donau
river.
"Von Sydow, Hashami, get a hundred meters or so west
and take overwatch on our
route. Mogger, spread the rest out. Wait for my
word," Harold snapped. The
half-dozen others melted back into the rubble of the
low stone-block houses that
had lined this street, the half-dozen who were left
out of the thirty who had
been with them yesterday.
Sam Ogun grunted beside him, shifting the burden of
the makeshift antitank
rocket in his arms. Everything was makeshift. . . .
"Anything, Claude?" he
said.
"Spaceport's still holding out," he said, fiddling
with the keyboard of the
communicator unit. "And the Ritterhaus. Not for long.
We make it in half an hour
or we don't make it."
"Why they still letting launches go on?" Sam wondered.
"I think they're playing with us," Harold said. God,
I'm tired. At least there
were no civilians around here . . . Most of them had
gone bush, gone to ground
outside town, when the ratcats landed. Nobody had
known what to do; no human had
fought a war for three hundred-odd years.
At least we weren't completely domesticated, like the
flatlanders. Wunderland
still had the odd bandit, and a riot now and then.
The Families maintained a
ghost of a martial tradition as well . . . We knew
enough to take the Angel's
Pencil warning seriously. The Angel had been the
first human ship to contact the
kzinti, and had survived by a miracle. Back in the
Sol system, the ARM had
suppressed the news-suppressed the fact that the
first aliens humans had
encountered traveled in warships. Wunderland had had
a year to prepare, although
most of it was spent reinventing the wheel.
"Much good it did us, oh scheisse," he muttered.
A vehicle was floating down the broad stone-block
pavement of K. von
Bulowstrasse. Some sort of gravity-control effect,
too small for fusion-power,
but massive, like a smoothly gleaming wedge of some
dark material, bristled with
the pickups of sensors and communications gear. From
the sharply sloped front
jutted a segmented tube. Plasma gun, he recognized
from the sketchy briefings.
The howling whine of its passage overrode the roar of
flames, and gusts of smoke
and dirt billowed sideways from under it. A wrecked
groundcar spun away from a
touch of the kzinti vehicle's bow, flipping
end-over-end into the remains of an
outdoor restaurant.
The others had frozen; he heard Claude whisper, very
softly; "Why only one?"
Because it's more Finagle-fucked fun, Claude, Harold
thought savagely. Because
they're hunting us.
Don't miss, Sam. There was a taut grin on the black
Krio's face as he raised the
tube.
Crack. The hovertank had pivoted and fired a
plasma-pulse into an intact house
on the other side of the street and a few hundred
meters down. Stone spalled
away, burning white as it turned to lime; the front
of the building rumbled down
into the street, and the interior stood exposed. It
was like a breakaway doll's
house, kitchen and autochef, bedrooms upstairs with
beds neatly made, all
perfect and small for a moment before the floors fell
in. Rubble cascaded into
the street, snapping off trees. The vehicle pivoted
again to aim its gun down
the street, slid sideways and began circling the pile
of broken stone and
furniture.
"Now," Harold whispered.
Thup. The missile whooshed out of the tube, driven by
magnetic coils. The kzin
tank detected it, lost a vital half-second trying to
bring its gun to bear
before it was around the last of the stone. The
hovertank's rear swung wide as
its bow ground against rock, and the missile arrived
overhead. A bang this time,
a pancake of orange fire turning to a ball as the
self-forging arrowhead of
tungsten drove straight down into the upper deck of
the war machine. It
staggered, died, fell with an echoing clang to the
road; hatches like gull-wings
popped open on either side just behind the gun.
"Now!" Harold shouted.
His strakaker gave its high-pitched strangled scream,
spitting out a stream of
high-velocity pellets filled with liquid teflon. Four
others did likewise. The
two huge orange shapes were springing out of the
tank, blurring fast. One
staggered in midair, fell to the pavement with a thud
audible even now; the
other managed to recoil, but a long pink tail and
short thick arm sprawled out,
motionless. The hand flexed and then went limp, four
digits like a big black
leather glove, the claws glinting as they slid free a
last time. Blood dripped,
darker than human; on general principle he emptied
the rest of the clip into the
compartment, aiming where the body would be. Limb and
tail jerked as the pellets
jellied the corpse.
"Samedi bless, it worked," Sam Ogun said.
"Harry, we've got to move," Claude Montferrat-Palme
said. "They're still not
trying for a matching orbit with the slowboat"-for
some inscrutable alien reason
the kzinti had not tried to stop anyone leaving the
Alpha Centauri system;
contempt, perhaps-"but it's the last shuttle and the
last launch-window."
"Well, Ingrid's piloting," Harold said, forcing
himself to grin. Suddenly the
noise of fire and distant fighting seemed almost
quiet.
"Von Sydow, Hashami," he called softly. "All clear?"
One of the other guerrillas raised her head to look
for the scouts. It vanished
in an almost-visible flicker of white light;
beam-rifle, close range. The body
stayed upright for a moment, then toppled backward
like a tree. The screaming
began a moment later, astonishingly loud; a month ago
he would have sworn it
came from something other than a human throat.
"Ratcat!" someone shouted; there was a scramble as
they dove for new positions
that gave cover to their rear. All but Sam. He came
to his knees, raising his
jazzer.
"Eat this!" he screamed, and the stubby-barreled
weapon thumped twice, pitching
out its bomblets.
"Follow me!" Harold yelled on the heels of the quick
crumpcrumpcrump of their
explosion; there was no time for a firefight. One
more human died before they
reached what had been a sunken garden behind the
house, still screened by the
wreckage of a pergola and a scarlet froth of
bougainvillea. The broad muzzle of
a beam rifle showed above; behind him Claude snapshot
with his strakaker,
tearing it out of the kzin's hands. Harold dove
through the screen of withes and
vines-
-and fell to his back as his feet slipped on
flagstones running with blood.
Human blood, mostly. Von Sydow and Hashami were here;
Hashami's legs were
missing, and her head. Von Sydow was still alive, but
it looked as if something
had bitten half his stomach out and then pulled.
Something had. It loomed over him, immense even for a
kzin, two and a half
meters. Infantry this time, synthetic impact-armor
glittering where fragments
and bullets had cut it, a bone-deep slash on the
blunt muzzle running dark-red
blood as it reached for him. Pain and hysteria made
it disdain the other weapons
clipped to its harness; artificial claws of
density-enhanced steel glittered and
snapped out on its gauntlets as it reached to pull
his throat to that mouthful
of fangs. His strakaker seemed fixed in honey as he
strained to bring it around,
finger closing spasmodically on the trigger plate.
Pellets splashed on the
impact-armor over the thing's belly, knocking it
back. The weapon hissed empty.
The kzin straightened with a grunting roar, and then
it was coming at him again-
A whining buzz, and it stopped in its tracks. Then it
fell, legs useless.
Twirling and slashing with its claws even as it
collapsed, but Sam danced back,
poised as graceful as a matador, moved in with a
chopping cut. Kzinti blood
smoked away from the buzzing wire edges of his
ratchet knife, spurted in
hose-like jets from the alien's throat; the Krio
thumbed the weapon off and
clipped it back at his shoulder. Behind him a
strakaker chittered once and von
Sydow's gasping breath ceased.
"Come on, Mr. Yarthkin," he said, extending a hand.
"Miss Raines is waiting."
-and Harold jerked awake.
"Hunh," he mumbled, shaking his head in the darkness,
shaking away the nightmare
and forty years. His teeth chattered on the glass he
grabbed two-handed from the
bedside stand; some of the verguuz slopped down the
sides, its smell sharp and
minty in the stale odors of his bedroom. Fire bloomed
in his gut, giving him
steadiness enough to palm on the lights. That had
been a bad one, he hadn't had
that one for more than a decade.
"But she wasn't waiting," he said quietly. The glass
crashed against the wall.
"She wasn't there at all."
***
Interesting, Chuut-Riit thought, standing on the
veranda of his
staff-secretary's house and lapping at the gallon tub
of half-melted vanilla ice
cream in his hands. Quite comely, in its way.
In a very unkzin fashion. The senior staff quarters
of his estate were laid out
in a section of rolling hills, lawns and shrubs and
eucalyptus trees, modest
stone houses with high-pitched shingle roofs set
among flowerbeds. A dozen or so
of the adults who dwelt here were gathered at a
discreet distance, down by the
landing pad; he could smell their colognes and
perfumes, the slightly mealy odor
of human flesh beneath, a mechanical tang overlain
with alien greenness and
animals and . . . Yes, the children were coming
back-preceded by the usual blast
of sound. The kzin's ears folded themselves away at
the jumbled high-pitched
squealing, one of the less attractive qualities of
young humans. Although there
was a very kzinlike warbling mixed in among the
monkeysounds. . . .
The giant ball of yarn bounced around the corner of
the house and across the
close-clipped grass of the lawn, bounding from side
to side with the slight
drifting wobble of .61 gravities, trailing floppy
ends. A peacock fled shrieking
from the toy and the shouting mob of youngsters that
followed it; the bird's
head was parallel to the ground and its feet pumped
madly. Chuut-Riit sighed,
finished the ice cream, and began licking his muzzle
and fingers clean. Alpha
Centauri was setting, casting bronze shadows over the
creeper-grown stone around
him, and it was time to go.
"Like this!" the young kzin leading the pack
screamed, and leaped in a soaring
arch, landing spreadeagled on the soft fuzzy surface
of the ball. He was a
youngster of five, all head and hands and feet, the
fur of his pelt an electric
orange with fading black spots, the infant mottling
that a very few kzin kept
into early youth. Several of the human youngsters
made a valiant attempt to
follow, but only one landed and clutched the strands,
screaming delightedly. The
others fell, one skinning a knee and bawling.
Chuut-Riit rose smoothly to his feet and bounced
forward, scooping the crying
infant up and stopping the ball with his other hand.
"You should be more careful, my son," he said to the
kzin child in the Hero's
Tongue. To the human: "Are you injured?"
"Mama!" the child wailed, twining its fists into his
fur and burying its
tear-and-snot-streaked face in his side.
"Errruumm," Chuut-Riit rumbled helplessly. They are
so fragile. His nostrils
flared as he bent over the tiny form, taking in the
milky-sweat smell of
distress and the slight metallic-salt odor of blood
from its knee.
"Here is your mother," he continued as the human
female scuttled up and began
apologetically untwining the child.
"Here, take it," he rumbled, as she cuddled the
infant. The woman gave it a
brief inspection and looked up at the eight-foot
orange height of the kzin.
"No harm done, just overexcited, Honored Chuut-Riit,"
she said. The kzin rumbled
again, looked up at the guards standing by his
flitter in the driveway, and laid
back his ears; they became elaborately casual,
examining the sky or the ground
and controlling their expressions. He switched his
glare back to his own
offspring on top of the ball. The cub flattened
itself apologetically, then
whipped its head to one side as the human child
clinging to the slope of the
ball threw a loose length of yarn. Chuut-Riit
wrenched his eyes from the
fascinating thing and plucked his son into the air by
the loose skin at the back
of his neck.
"It is time to depart," he said. The young kzin had
gone into an instinctive
half-curl. He cast a hopeful glance over his shoulder
at his father, sighed, and
wrapped the limber pink length of his tail around the
adult's massive forearm.
"Yes, Honored Sire Chuut-Riit," he said meekly, then
brightened and waved at the
clump of estate-worker children standing by the ball.
"Good-bye," he called,
waving a hand that seemed too large for his arm, and
adding a cheerful parting
yeowl in the Hero's Tongue. Literally translated it
meant roughly "drink blood
and tear cattle into gobbets," but the adult trusted
the sentiment would carry
over the wording.
The human children jumped and waved in reply as
Chuut-Riit carried his son over
to the car and the clump of parents waiting there:
Henrietta was in the center
with her offspring by her side. I think her posture
indicates contentment, he
thought. This visit confers much prestige among the
other human servants. Which
was excellent; a good executive secretary was a
treasure beyond price. Besides .
..
"That was fun, Father," the cub said. "Could I have
another piece of cake?"
"Certainly not, you will be sick as it is,"
Chuut-Riit said decisively. Kzin
were not quite the pure meat-eaters they claimed to
be, and their normal diet
contained the occasional sweet, but stuffing that
much sugar-coated confection
down on top of a stomach already full of good raw
ztirgor was something the cub
would regret soon. Ice cream, though . . . Why had
nobody told him about ice
cream before? Even better than bourbon-and-milk; he
must begin to order in bulk.
"I must be leaving, Henrietta," Chuut-Riit said. "And
young Ilge," he added,
looking down at the offspring. It was an odd-looking
specimen, only slightly
over knee-high to him and with long braided head-pelt
of an almost kzinlike
orange; the bare skin of its face was dotted with
markings of almost the same
color. Remarkable. The one standing next to it was
black-there was no end to
their variety.
The cub wiggled in his grasp and looked down. "I hope
you like your armadillo,
Ilge," he said. Ilge looked down at the creature she
had not released since the
gift-giving ceremony and patted it again. A snout and
beady eye appeared for a
second, caught the scent of kzin, and disappeared
back into an armored ball with
a snap.
"They're lots of fun." Kzin children adored
armadillos, and Chuut-Riit provided
his with a steady supply, even if the shells made a
mess once the cubs finally
got them peeled.
"It's nice," she said solemnly.
"The ball of fiber was an excellent idea," Chuut-Riit
added to Henrietta. "I
must procure one for my other offspring."
"I thought it would be, Honored Chuut-Riit," the
human replied, and the kzin
blinked in bafflement at her amusement.
One of the guards was too obviously entertained by
his commander's eccentricity.
"Here," Chuut-Riit called as he walked through the
small crowd of bowing humans.
"Guard Trooper. Care for this infant as we fly, in
the forward compartment. Care
for him well."
The soldier blinked dubiously at the small bundle of
chocolate-and-mud-stained
fur that looked with eager interest at the
fascinating complexities of his
equipment, then slung his beam rifle and accepted the
child with an unconscious
bristling. Chuut-Riit gave the ear-and-tail twitch
that was the kzin equivalent
of sly amusement as he stepped into the passenger
compartment and threw himself
down on the cushions. There was a slight internal
wobble as the car lifted, an
expected retching sound and a yeowl of protest from
the forward compartment.
The ventilators will be overloaded, the governor
thought happily. Now, about
that report . . .
***
Tiamat was shabby. Coming in to dock on the
rockjacker prospecting craft Markham
had found for them it had looked the same, a little
busier and more exterior
lights; a spinning ironrock tube twenty kilometers
across and sixty long, with
ships of every description clustered at the docking
yards at either end. More
smelters and robofabricators hanging outside, more
giant baggies of water ice
and volatiles. But inside it was shabby, rundown.
That was Ingrid Raines's first thought: shabby. The
hand-grips were worn, the
vivid murals that covered the walls just in from the
poles of the giant cylinder
fading and grease-spotted. The constant subliminal
rumble from the freighter
docks was louder; nobody was bothering with the sonic
baffles that damped the
vibration of megatons of powdered ore, liquid metal,
vacuum-separated refinates
pouring into the network of pumptubes. Styles were
more garish than she
remembered, face-paint and tiger-striped oversuits;
there was a quartet of
police hanging spaced evenly around the entry
corridor, toes hooked into rails
and head in toward the center. Obstructing traffic,
but nobody was going to
object, not when the goldskins wore impact armor and
powered endoskeletons, not
when shockrods dangled negligently in their hands.
"Security's tight," Jonah murmured as they made
flip-over and went feet-first
into the stickyfield at the inward end of the
passage. There was a familiar
subjective click behind their eyes, and the corridor
became a half-kilometer of
hollow tower over their heads, filled with the
up-and-down drift of people.
"Shut up," Ingrid muttered back. That had been no
surprise; from what they'd
been told the collaborationist government had
reinvented the police state all by
themselves in their enthusiasm. They went through the
emergency pressure
curtains, into the glare and blare of the inner
corridors. Zero-G, here near the
core of Tiamat, away from the rims that were under
one-G. Tigertown, she
thought. The resident kzin were low-status engineers
and supervisors, or navy
types: They liked heavy gravity; the pussies had
never lived in space without
gravity control. Tigers, she reminded herself. That
was the official slang term.
Ratcat if you wanted to be a little dangerous.
They turned into a narrow side corridor, what had
been a residential section the
last time she was here, transient's quarters around
the lowgrav manufacturing
sections of the core. Now it was lined on three sides
by shops and small
businesses, with the fourth spinward side playing
down. Not that there was
enough gravity to matter this close to the center of
spin, but it was
convenient. They slowed to a stroll, two more figures
in plain rockjack
innersuits, the form-fitting coverall everyone wore
under vacuum armor.
Conservative Belter stripcuts, backpacks with
printseal locks to discourage
pickpockets, and the black plastic hilts of ratchet
knives.
Ingrid looked around her, acutely conscious of the
hard shape nestling butt-down
on her collarbone. Distortion battery, and a
blade-shaped lozenge of wire;
switch it on, and the magnetic field made it vibrate,
very fast. Very sharp. She
had been shocked when Markham's intelligence officer
pushed them across the
table to the UNSN operatives.
"Things are that bad?"
"The ratcats don't care," the officer had said.
"Humans are forbidden any weapon
that can kill at a distance. Only the collabo police
can carry stunners, and the
only thing the ratcats care about is that production
keeps up. What sort of
people do you think join the collabo goldskins?
Social altruists? The only
ordinary criminals they go after are the ones too
poor or stupid to pay them
off. When things get bad enough to foul up war
production, they have a big
sweep, and maybe catch some of the middling-level
gangrunners and feed them to
the ratcats. The big boys? The big boys are the
police, or vice versa. That's
the way it is, sweetheart."
Ingrid shivered, and Jonah put an arm around her
waist as they walked in the
glide-lift-glide of a stickyfield. "Changed a lot,
hey?" he said.
She nodded. The booths were for the sort of
small-scale industry that bigger
firms contracted out; filing, hardcopy, genetic
engineering of bacteria for
process production of organics, all mixed in with
cookshops and handicrafts and
service trades of a thousand types. Holo displays
flashed and glittered,
strobing with all shades of the visible spectrum;
music pounded and blared and
crooned, styles she remembered and styles utterly
strange and others that were
revivals of modes six centuries old: Baroque and
Classical and Jazz and Dojin-Go
Punk and Meddlehoffer. People crowded the 'way, on
the downside and wall-hopping
between shops, and half the shops had private guards.
The passersby were mostly
planetsiders, some so recent you could see they had
trouble handling low-G
movement.
Many were ragged, openly dirty. How can that happen?
she thought.
Fusion-distilled water was usually cheap in a closed
system. Oh. Probably a
monopoly. And there were beggars, actual beggars with
open sores on their skins
or hands twisted with arthritis, things she had only
seen in historical flats so
old they were shot two-dimensional.
"Here it is," Jonah grunted. The eating-shop was
directly above them; they
switched off their shoes, waited for a clear space,
and flipped up and over,
slapping their hands onto the catch net outside the
door. Inside, the place was
clean, at least, with a globular free-fall kitchen
and a human chef, and
customers in dark pajama-like clothing floating with
their knees crossed under
stick-tables. Not Belters, too stocky and muscular;
mostly heavily Oriental by
bloodline, rare in the genetic stew of the Sol system
but more common here.
Icy stares greeted them as they swung to a vacant
booth and slid themselves in,
their long legs tangling under the synthetic
pineboard of the stick-table.
"It must be harder for you," Jonah said. "Your home."
She looked up at him with quick surprise. He was
usually the archetypical
rockjack, the stereotype asteroid prospector, quiet,
bookish, self-sufficient, a
man without twitches or mannerisms but capable of
cutting loose on furlough-but
perceptive, and rockjacks were not supposed to be
good at people.
Well, he was a successful officer, too, she thought.
And they do have to be good
at people.
A waitress in some many-folded garment of black silk
floated up to the privacy
screen of their cubicle and reached a hand through to
scratch at the post.
Ingrid keyed the screen, and the woman's features
snapped clear.
"Sorry, so sorry," she said. "This special place, not
Belter food." There was a
singsong accent to her English that Jonah did not
recognize, but the underlying
impatience and hostility came through the calm
features.
He smiled at her and ran a hand over his crest. "But
we were told the tekkamaki
here is fine, the oyabun makes the best," he said.
Ingrid could read the thought
that followed: Whatever the fuck that means.
The frozen mask of the waitress's face could not
alter, but the quick duck of
her head was empty of the commonplace tension of a
moment before. She returned
quickly with bowls of soup and drinking straws; it
was some sort of fish broth
with onions and a strange musky undertaste. They
drank in silence, waiting. For
what, the pussies to come and get us? she thought.
The Catskinner-computer had
said Markham was on the level-but also that he was
capable of utter treachery
once he had convinced himself that Right was on his
side, and that to Markham
the only ultimate judge of Right was, guess who, the
infallible Markham.
Gottdamned Herrenmann, she mused: going on fifty
years objective, everything
else in the system had collapsed into shit, and the
arrogant lop-bearded
bastards hadn't changed a bit. . . .
A man slid through the screen. Expensively
nondescript dress, gray oversuit, and
bowl-cut black hair. Hint of an expensive natural
cologne. Infocomp at his
waist, and the silver button of a reader-bonephone
behind his ear. This was
Markham's "independent entrepreneur." Spoken with
tones of deepest contempt,
more than a Herrenmann's usual disdain for business,
so probably some type of
criminal like McAllistaire. She kept a calm smile on
her face as she studied the
man, walling off the remembered sickness as the
kicking doll-figures tumbled
into space, bleeding from every orifice. Oriental,
definitely; there were Sina
and Nipponjin enclaves down on Wunderland, ethnic
separatists like many of the
early settlers. Not in the Serpent Swarm Belt, not
when she left, Belters did
not go in for racial taboos. Things had changed.
The quiet man smiled and produced three small
drinking-bulbs. "Rice wine," he
said. "Heated. An affectation, to be sure, but we are
very traditional these
days."
Pure Belter English, no hint of an accent. She called
up training, looked for
clues: in the hands, the skin around the eyes, the
set of the mouth. Very
little, no more than polite attention; this was a
very calm man. Hard to tell
even the age; if he was getting good geriatric care,
anything from fifty minimum
up to a hundred. Teufel, he could have been from Sol
system himself, one of the
last bunches of immigrants, and wouldn't that be a
joke to end them all.
Silence stretched. The oriental sat and sipped at his
hot sake and smiled; the
two Belters followed suit, controlling their surprise
at the
varnish-in-the-throat taste.
At the last, Jonah spoke: "I'm Jonah. This is Ingrid.
The man with gray eyes
sent us for tekkamaki."
"Ah, our esteemed GVB," the man said. A deprecatory
laugh and a slight wave of
the fingers; the man had almost as few hand gestures
as a Belter. "Gotz von
Blerichgen, a little joke. Yes, I know the one you
speak of. My name is
Shigehero Hirose, and as you will have guessed, I am
a hardened criminal of the
worst sort." He ducked his head in a polite bow.
Ingrid noticed his hands then,
the left missing the little finger, and the edges of
vividly-colored tattoos
under the cuffs of his suit.
"And you," he continued to Jonah, "are sent not by
our so-Aryan friend, but by
the UNSN." A slight frown. "Your charming companion
is perhaps of the same
provenance, but from the Serpent Swarm originally."
Jonah and Ingrid remained silent. Another shrug. "In
any case, according to our
informants, you wish transportation to Wunderland and
well-documented cover
identities."
"If you're wondering how we can pay . . ." Jonah
began. They had the best and
most compact source of valuata the UN military had
been able to provide.
"No, please. From our own resources, we will be glad
to do this."
"Why?" Ingrid said, curious. "Criminals seem to be
doing better now than they
ever did in the old days."
Hirose smiled again, that bland expression that
revealed nothing and never
touched his eyes. "The young lady is as perceptive as
she is ornamental." He
took up his sake bulb and considered it. "My . . .
association is a very old
one. You might call us predators; we would prefer to
think of it as a symbiotic
relationship. We have endured many changes, many
social and technological
revolutions. But something is common to each: the
desire to have something and
yet to forbid it.
"Consider drugs and alcohol . . . or wirehead drouds.
All strictly forbidden at
one time, legal another, but the demand continues.
Instruction in martial arts,
likewise. In our early days in dai Nippon, we
performed services for feudal
lords that their own code forbade. Later, the great
corporations, the zaibatsu,
found us convenient for dealing with recalcitrant
shareholders and unions; we
moved substances of various types across inconvenient
national frontiers,
liberated information selfishly stockpiled in closed
data banks, recruited
entertainers, provided banking services . . .
invested our wealth wisely, and
moved outward with humanity to the planets and the
stars. Sometimes we have been
so respectable that our affairs were beyond question;
sometimes otherwise. A
conservative faction undertook to found our branch in
the Alpha Centauri system,
but I assure you the . . . family businesses, clans
if you will, still flourish
in Sol system as well. Inconspicuously."
"That doesn't answer Ingrid's question," Jonah said
bluntly. "This setup looks
like hog heaven for you."
"Only in the short term. Which is enough to satisfy
mere thugs, mere bandits
such as a certain rockholder known as McAllistaire .
. . You met this person?
But consider: we are doing well for the same reason
bacteria flourish in a dead
body. The human polity of this system is dying, its
social defenses
disorganized, but the carnival of the carrion-eaters
will be shortlived. We
speak of the free humans and those in the direct
service of the kzin, but to our
masters we of the 'free' are slaves of the Patriarchy
who have not yet been
assigned individual owners. We are squeezed, tighter
and tighter; eventually,
there will be nothing but the households of kzin
nobles. My association could
perhaps survive such a situation; we are making
preparations. Better by far to
restore a functioning human system; our pickings
would be less in the short
term, more secure in the longer."
"And by helping us, you'll have a foot in both camps
and come up smelling of
roses whoever wins."
Hirose spread his hands. "It is true, the kzin have
occasionally found
themselves using our services." His smile became more
genuine, and sharklike.
"Nor are all, ah, Heroes, so incorruptible, so immune
to the temptations of vice
and profit, as they would like to believe.
"Enough." He produced a sealed packet and slid it
across the table to them. "The
documentation and credit is perfectly genuine. It
will stand even against kzin
scrutiny; our influence reaches far. I have no
knowledge of what it contains,
nor do I wish to. You in turn have learned nothing
from me that possible
opponents do not already know, and know that I know,
and I know that they know .
. . but please, even if I cannot join you, do stay
and enjoy this excellent
restaurant's cuisine."
"Well . . ." Jonah palmed the folder. "It might be
out of character, rockjacks
in a fancy live-service place like this."
Shigehero Hirose halted, partway through the privacy
screen. "You would do well
to study local conditions a little more carefully,
man-from-far-away. It has
been a long time since autochefs and dispensers were
cheaper than humans."

Shigehero Hirose sat back on his heels and sighed
slightly.
"Well, my dear?" he said.
His wife laid the bamboo strainer down on the tray
and lifted the teacup in both
hands. He accepted her unspoken rebuke and the
teacup, raising it to his lips as
he looked out the pavilion doors. Even the
Association's wealth could not buy
open space on Tiamat, but this was a reasonable
facsimile. The graceful
structure about them was dark varnished wood, sparely
ornamented, carrying
nothing but the low tray that held the tea service
and a single chrysanthemum.
Outside was a chamber of raked gravel and a few
well-chosen rocks, and a quiet
recirculating fountain. The air was sterile, though;
no point in a chemical
mockery of garden scents.
There are times when I regret accepting this post, he
thought, sipping the tea
and returning the cup with a ritual gesture of
thanks. It was hard, not seeing
green things except ones that grew in a tank. . . .
Of course, this was the post of honor and profit.
Humans would remain half-free
longer in the Serpent Swarm than on the surface of
Wunderland, and so the
Association was preparing its bolt-holes. Nothing
must endanger that.
Enough, he told himself. Put aside care.
Much later, his wife sighed herself. "Worthless
though my advice is, yet all
possible precautions must be taken," she said, hands
folded in her lap and eyes
downcast.
Traditional to a fault, he thought; perhaps a bit
excessive, seeing that she had
a degree in biomechanics. Still . . .
"It would be inadvisable to endanger their mission
excessively," he pointed out.
"Ah, very true. But maintaining our connections with
the human government is
still essential."
Essential and more difficult all the time. The kzinti
pressed on their
collaborationist tools more and more each year; they
grew more desperate in
turn. Originally many had been idealists of a sort,
trying to protect the
general populace as much as they could. Few of that
sort were left, and the rest
were beginning to eat each other like crabs in a
bucket.
"Still . . . a vague rumor would be best, I think. We
will use the fat man as
our go-between; we can claim we were playing them
along for more information if
they are taken."
"My husband is wise," she said, bowing.
"And if the collaborationists grow desperate enough,
they might offer rewards
sufficient to justify sacrificing those two."
"Who are, after all, only gaijin. And on a mission
which will do us little good
even if it succeeds."
"Indeed, there are limits to altruism." They turned
their faces to the garden
and fell silent once more.
***
"The inefficiency of you leaf-eaters is becoming
intolerable," the kzin said.
Claude Montferrat-Palme bowed his head. Don't stare.
Never, never stare at a
ratca-at a kzin. "We do our best,
Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals," he said.
The kzin superintendent of Munchen stopped its
restless striding and stood
close, smiling, its tail held stiffly beside one
column-thick leg. Two and a
half meters tall, a thickly padded cartoon-figure cat
that might have looked
funny in a holo, it grinned down at him with the
direct gaze that was as much a
threat display as the bared fangs.
"You play your monkey games of position and money,
while the enemies of the
Patriarchy scurry and bite in the underbrush." Its
head swiveled toward the
police chief's desk. "Scroll!"
Data began to move across the suddenly transparent
surface, with a moving
schematic of the Serpent Swarm; colors and symbols
indicated feral-human
attacks. Ships lost, outposts raided, automatic cargo
containers hijacked . . .
"Comparative!" the kzin snapped. Graphs replaced the
schematic. "Distribution!
"See," he continued. "Raids of every description have
sprouted like fungus since
the sthondat-spawned Sol-monkeys made their coward's
passage through this
system. With no discernible pattern. And even the
lurkers in the mountains are
slipping out to trouble the estates again."
"With respect, Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals, my sphere
of responsibility is the
human population of this city. There has been little
increase in feral activity
here."
Claws rested centimeters from his eyes. "Because this
city is the locus where
feral-human packs dispose of their loot, exchange
information and goods, meet
and coordinate-paying their percentage to you! Yes,
yes, we have heard your
arguments that it is better for this activity to take
place where our minions
may monitor it, and they are logical enough-while we
lack the number of Heroes
necessary to reduce this system to true order and are
preoccupied with the
renewed offensive against Sol."
He mumbled under his breath, and Montferrat caught an
uncomplimentary reference
to Chuut-Riit.
The human bowed again. "Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals,
most of the groups
operating against the righteous rule of the
Patriarchy are motivated by material
gain; this is a characteristic of my species. They
cooperate with the genuine
rebels, but it is an alliance plagued by mistrust and
mutual contempt;
furthermore, the rebels themselves are as much a
grouping of bands as a unified
whole." And were slowly dying out, until the UN
demonstrated its reach so
spectacularly. Now they'll have recruits in plenty
again, and the bandits will
want to draw the cloak of respectable Resistance over
themselves.
His mind cautiously edged toward a consideration of
whether it was time to begin
hedging his bets, and he forced it back. The kzin
used telepaths periodically to
check the basic loyalties of their senior servants.
That was one reason he had
never tried to reach the upper policy levels of the
collaborationist government,
that and . . . a wash of non-thought buried the
speculation.
"Accordingly, if their activity increases, our
sources of information increase
likewise. Once the confusion of the, ah, passing raid
dies down, we will be in a
position to make further gains. Perhaps to trap some
of the greater leaders,
Markham or Hirose."
"And you will take your percentage of all these
transactions,"
Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals said with heavy irony.
"Remember that a trained
monkey that loses its value may always serve as
monkeymeat. Remember where your
loyalties ultimately lie, in this insect-web of
betrayals you fashion, slave."
Yes, thought Montferrat, dabbing at his forehead as
the kzin left. I must
remember that carefully.
"Collation," he said to his desk. "Attack activity."
The schematic returned.
"Eliminate all post-Yamamoto raids that correlate
with seventy-five percent MO
mapping to pre-Yamamoto attacks."
A scattering, mostly directed toward borderline
targets that had been too
heavily protected for the makeshift boats of the Free
Wunderland
space-guerrillas, disconcertingly many of them on
weapons-fabrication plants,
with nearly as many seizing communications,
stealthing, command-and-control
components. Once those were passed along to the other
asteroid lurkers, all hell
was going to break lose. And gravity-polarization
technology was becoming more
and more widespread as well. The kzin had tried to
keep it strictly for their
own ships and for manufacturing use, but the
principles were not too difficult,
and the methods the Patriarchy introduced were
heavily dependent on it.
"Now, correlate filtered attacks with past ten-year
pattern for bandits Markham,
McAllistaire, Finbogesson, Cheung, Latimer, Wu.
Sequencing.
"Scheisse," he whispered. Markham, without a doubt:
the man did everything by
the book, and you could rewrite the manuscript by
watching him. Now equipped
with something whose general capacities were
equivalent to a kzin Stalker, and
proceeding in a methodical amplification of the sort
of thing he had been doing
before . . . Markham was the right sort for the
Protracted Struggle, all right.
He'd read his Mao and Styrikawsi and Laugidis, even
if he gave Clausewitz all
the credit.
"Code, Till Eulenspiegel. Lock previous analysis,
non-redo, simulate other
pattern if requested. Stop."
"Stop and locked," the desk said.
Montferrat relaxed. At least partly, the Eulenspiegel
file was supposedly
secure. Certainly none of his subordinates had it, or
they would have gone to
the ratcats with it long ago; there was more than
enough in there to make him
prime monkeymeat. He swallowed convulsively; as
Police Chief of Munchen, he was
obliged to screen the kzin hunts far too frequently.
Straightening, he adjusted
the lapels of his uniform and walked to the picture
window that formed one wall
of the office. Behind him stretched the sleek expanse
of feathery
down-dropper-pelt rugs over marble tile, the settees
and loungers of pebbled but
butter-soft okkaran hide. A Matisse and two
Vorenagles on the walls, and a
priceless Pierneef . . . he stopped at the long oak
bar and poured himself a
single glass of Maivin; that was permissible.
Interviews with the kzin Supervisor-of-Animals were
always rather stressful.
Montferrat sipped, looking down on the low-pitched
tile roofs of Old Munchen:
carefully restored since the fighting, whatever else
went short. The sprawling
shanty-suburbs and shoddy gimcrack factories of
recent years were elsewhere.
This ten-story view might almost be as he had known
it as a student, the curving
tree-lined streets that curled through the hills
beside the broad blue waters of
the Donau. Banked flowers beside the pedestrian ways,
cafés, the honeygold
quadrangles of the University, courtyarded homes
built around expanses of
greenery and fountains. Softly blooming frangipani
and palms and gumblossom in
the parks along the river; the gothic flamboyance of
the Ritterhaus, where the
Landholders had met in council before the kzin came.
And the bronze grouping in
the great square before it, the Nineteen Founders.
Memory rose before him, turning the hard daylight of
afternoon to a soft
summer's night; he was young again, arm in arm with
Ingrid and Harold and a
dozen of their friends, the new students' caps on
their heads. They had come
from the beercellar and hours of swaying song, the
traditional graduation-night
feast, and they were all a little merry. Not drunk,
but happy and in love with
all the world, a universe and a lifetime opening out
before them. The three of
them had led the scrambling mob up the granite steps
of the plinth, to put their
white-and-gold caps on the three highest sculpted
heads, and they had ridden the
bronze shoulders and waved to the sea of dancing,
laughing young faces below.
Fireworks had burst overhead, yellow and green . . .
Shut up, he told himself.
The present was what mattered. The UN raid had not
been the simple smash-on-the
wing affair it seemed, not at all.
"I knew it," he muttered. "It wasn't logical, they
didn't do as much damage as
they could have." The kzin had not thought so, but
then, they had a predator's
reflexes. They just did not think in terms of mass
destruction; their approach
to warfare was too pragmatic for that. Which was why
their armament was so
woefully lacking in planet-busting weapons: the
thought of destroying valuable
real estate did not occur to them. Montferrat had run
his own projections: with
weapons like that ramship, you could destabilize
stars.
"And humans do think that way." So there must have
been some other point to the
raid, and not merely to get an effective ship to the
Free Wunderlanders. Nothing
overt, which left something clandestine. Intelligence
work. Perhaps elsewhere in
the system, pray God elsewhere in the system, not in
his backyard. But it would
be just as well . . .
He crossed to the desk. "Axelrod-Bauergartner," he
said.
A holo of his second-in-command formed, seated at her
desk. The meter-high image
put down its coffee cup and straightened. "Yes,
Chief?"
"I want redoubled surveillance on all entry-exit
movements in the Greater
Munchen area. Everything, top priority. Activate all
our contacts, call in
favors, lean on everybody we can lean on. I'll be
sending you some data on
deep-hook threads I've been developing among the
hardcore ferals."
He saw her look of surprise; that was one of the
holecards he used to keep his
subordinates in order. Poor Axelrod-Bauergartner, he
thought. You want this job
so much, and would do it so badly. I've held it for
twenty years because I've
got a sense of proportion; you'd be monkeymeat inside
six months.
"Zum befhel, Chief."
"Our esteemed superiors also wish evidence of our
zeal. Get them some monkeymeat
for the next hunt, nobody too crucial."
"I'll round up the usual suspects, Chief."
The door retracted, and a white-coated steward came
in with a covered wheeled
tray. Montferrat looked up, checking . . . yes, the
chilled Bloemvin 2337, the
heart-of-palm salad, the paté . . . "And for now,
send in the exit-visa
applicant, the one who was having the problems with
the paperwork."
The projected figure grinned wickedly. "Oh, her.
Right away, Chief." Montferrat
flicked the transmission out of existence and rose,
smoothing down his uniform
jacket and flicking his mustaches into shape with a
deft forefinger. This job
isn't all grief, he mused happily.

"Recode Till Eulenspiegel," Yarthkin said, leaning
back. "Interesting
speculation, Claude old kamerat," he mused. The
bucket chair creaked as he
leaned back, putting his feet up on the cluttered
desk. The remains of a
cheese-and-mustard sandwich rested at his elbow,
perched waveringly on a stack
of printout. The office around him was a similar
clutter, bookcases and safe and
a single glowlight, a narrow cubicle at the
alley-wall of the bar. Shabby and
rundown and smelling of beer and old socks, except
for the extremely up-to-date
infosystem built into the archaic wooden desk; one of
the reasons the office was
so shabby was that nobody but Ogreson was allowed in,
and he was an indifferent
housekeeper at best.
He lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the
ceiling. Have to crank up my
contacts, he thought. Activity's going to heat up
systemwide, and there's no
reason I shouldn't take advantage of it. Safety's
sake, too: arse to the wall,
ratcats over all. This wasn't all to get our heroic
Herrenmann in the Swarm a
new toy; that was just a side-effect, somehow.
"Sam," he said, keying an old-fashioned manual
toggle. "Get me Suuomalisen."
***
"Finagle," Jonah muttered under his breath.
Munchenport was solidly cordoned
off, antiaircraft missiles and heavy beamers all
around it, and the shuttle
station had been moved out into open country. The
station was a series of square
extruded buildings and open spaces for the gravitic
shuttles, mostly for
freight; the passenger traffic was a sideline.
"Security's tight."
Ingrid smiled at the guard and handed over their
ident-cards. The man smiled
back and fed them into the reader, waiting a few
seconds while the machine read
the data, scanned the two Belters for congruence, and
consulted the central
files.
"Clear," he said, and shifted into Wunderlander:
"Enjoy your stay planetside.
God knows, more trying to get off than on, what with
casualties from the raid
and all."
"Thank you," Jonah said; his command of the language
was adequate, and his
accent would pass among non-Belters. "It was pretty
bad out in the Belt, too."
The lineup moving through the scanners in the
opposite direction stretched
hundreds of meters into the barnlike gloom of the
terminal building. A few were
obviously space-born returning home, but most were
thicker-built, as those
brought up under even as feeble a gravity as
Wunderland's tended to be, families
with crying children and string-tied parcels, or
ragged-looking laborers. They
smelled, of unwashed bodies and poverty, a peculiar
sweet-sour odor blending
with the machinery-and-synthetics smell of the
building and the residual ozone
of heavy power release. More raw material for the
industries of the Serpent
Swarm, attracted by the higher wages and the lighter
hand of the kzin
off-planet.
"Watch it," Ingrid said. The milling crowds silenced
and parted as a trio of the
felinoids walked through trailed by human servants
with baggage on maglifters;
Jonah caught snatches of the Hero's Tongue, technical
jargon. They both wheeled
at a sudden commotion. The guards were closing in on
an emigrant at the head of
the line, a man arguing furiously with the checker.
"It's right!" he screamed. "I paid good money for it,
all we got for the farm,
it's right!"
"Look, scheisskopf, the machine says there's no
record of it. Raus! You're
holding up the line."
"It's the right paper, let me through!" The man
lunged, trying to vault the
turnstile. The guard at the checker recoiled,
shrieked as the would-be traveler
slammed down his metal-edged carryall on her arm. The
two agents could hear the
wet crackle of broken bone even at five meters'
distance, and then the madman's
body disappeared behind a circle of helmeted heads,
marked by the rise and fall
of shockrods. The others in the line drew back, as if
afraid of infection, and
the police dragged the man off by his arms; the
injured one followed, holding
her splintered arm and kicking the semiconscious form
with every other step.
"Monkeymeat, you're monkeymeat, shithead," she
shrilled, and kicked him again.
There was solid force behind the blow, and she
grunted with the effort and
winced as it jarred her arm.
"Tanj," Jonah said softly. The old curse: there ain't
no justice.
"No, there isn't," Ingrid answered. "Come on, the
railcar's waiting."
***
"And the word from the Nippojen in Tiamat is that two
important ferals will be
coming through soon," Suuomalisen said.
Yarthkin leaned back, sipping at his coffee and
considering him. Suuomalisen was
fat, even by Wunderland standards, where the .61
standard gravity made it easy
to carry extra tissue. His head was pink, egg-bald,
with a beak of a nose over a
slit mouth and a double chin; the round body was
expensively covered in a suit
of white natural silk with a conservative black
cravat and onyx ring. The owner
of Harold's Terran Bar waited patiently while his
companion tucked a linen
handkerchief into his collar and began eating:
scrambled eggs with scallions,
grilled wurst, smoked kopjfissche, biscuits.
"You set a marvelous table, my friend," the fat man
said. They were alone in the
dining nook; Harold's did not serve breakfast, except
for the owner and staff.
"Twice I have offered your cook a position in my
Suuomalisen's Sauna, and twice
she has refused. You must tell me your secret."
Acquaintance, not friend, Harold thought. And my chef
prefers to work for
someone who lets her people quit if they want to.
Mildly: "From the Free
Wunderland people? They've been doing better at
getting through to the bands in
the Jotunscarp recently."
"No, no, these are special somehow. Carrying special
goods, something that will
upset the ratcats very much. The tip was vague; I
don't know if my source was
not informed or whether the slant-eyed devils are
just playing both ends against
the middle again." A friendly leer. "If you could
identify them for me, my
friend, I'd be glad to share the police reward. Not
from Montferrat, from lower
down . . . strictly confidential, of course; I
wouldn't want to cut into the
income you get from those who think this is the
safest place in town."
"Suuomalisen, has anyone ever told you what a toad
you are?" Yarthkin said,
butting out the cigarette in the cold remains of the
coffee.
"Many times, many times! But a very successful toad."
The shrewd little eyes blinked at him. "Harold, my
friend, it is a grief to me
that you take such little advantage of this excellent
base of operations. A fine
profit source, and you have wonderful contacts; think
of the use you could make
of them! You should diversify, my friend. Into
contracting, it is a natural with
the suppliers you have. Then, with your gambling, you
could bid for the lottery
contracts-perhaps even get into Guild work!"
"I'll leave that to you, Suuomalisen. Your Sauna is a
good 'base of operations';
me, I run a bar and some games in the back, and I put
people together sometimes.
That's all. The tree that grows too high attracts the
attention of people with
axes."
The fat man shook his head. "You independent
entrepreneurs must learn to move
with the times, and the time of the little man is
past . . . Ah, well, I must be
going."
Yarthkin nodded. "Thanks for the tip. I'll have Wendy
send round a case of the
kirsch. Good stuff, pre-War."
"Pre-War!" The fat man's eyes lit. "Generous,
generous. Where do you get such
stuff?"
From ex-affluent people who can't pay their gambling
debts, Yarthkin thought.
"You have to let me keep a few little secrets; little
secrets for little men."
A laugh from the fat man. "And again, any time you
wish to join my organization
. . . or even just to sell Harold's Terran Bar, my
offer stands. I'll even
promise to keep on all your people; they make the
ambience of the place anyway."
"No deal, Suuomalisen. Thanks for the consideration,
though."
***
Dripping, Jonah padded back out of the shower; at
least here in Munchen, nobody
was charging you a month's wages for hot water.
Ingrid was standing at the
window toweling her hair and letting the evening
breeze dry the rest of her. The
room was narrow, part of an old mansion split into
the cubicles of a cheap
transients' hotel; there were more luxurious places
in easy walking distance,
but they would be the haunt of the local elite. He
joined her at the opening and
put an arm around her shoulders. She sighed and
looked down the sloping street
to the rippled surface of the Donau and the traffic
of sailboats and barges. A
metal planter creaked on chains below the window; it
smelled of damp earth and
half-dead flowers.
"This is the oldest section of Munchen," she said
slowly. "There wasn't much
else, when I was a student here. Five years ago, my
time . . . and the buildings
I knew are old and shabby . . . There must be a
hundred thousand people living
here now!"
He nodded, remembering the sprawling squatter-camps
that surrounded the town.
"We're going to have to act quickly," he said. "Those
passes the oyabun got us
are only good for two weeks."
"Right," she said with another sigh, turning from the
window. Jonah watched with
appreciation as she rummaged in their bags for a
series of parts, assembling
them into a featureless box and snapping it onto the
bedside datachannel. "There
are probably blocks on the public channels . . ." She
turned her head. "Instead
of standing there making the passing girls sigh, why
not get some of the other
gear put together?"
"Right." Weapons first. The UN had dug deep into the
ARM's old stores,
technology that was the confiscated product of
centuries of perverted ingenuity.
Jonah grinned. Like most Belters, he had always felt
the ARM tended to err on
the side of caution in their role as technological
police. Opening their
archives had been like pulling teeth, from what he
heard, even with the kzin
bearing down on Sol system in all their carnivorous
splendor. I bleed for them,
he thought. I won't say from where.
The killing-tools were simple: two light-pencils of
the sort engineers carried,
for sketching on screens. Which was actually what
they were, and any examination
would prove it, according to the ARM. The only
difference was that if you
twisted the cap, so, pressed down on the clip that
held the pen in a pocket and
pointed it at an organism with a spinal cord, the pen
emitted a sharp yawping
sound whereupon said being went into grand mal
seizure. Range of up to fifty
meters, cause of death, "he died." Jonah frowned. On
second thought, maybe the
ARM was right about this one.
"Tanj," Ingrid said.
"Problem?"
"No, just that you have to input your ID and pay a
whopping great fee to access
the commercial net-even allowing for the way this
fake krona they've got has
depreciated."
"We've got money."
"Sure, but we don't want to call too much attention
to ourselves." She continued
to tap the keys. "There, I'm past the standard blocks
. . . confirming . . .
Yah, it'd be a bad idea to ask about the security
arrangements at you-know-who's
place. It's probably flagged."
"Commercial services," Jonah said. "Want me to drive?"
"Not just yet. Right, I'll just look at the record of
commercial subcontracts.
Hmm. About what you'd expect." Ingrid frowned.
"Standard goods delivered to a
depot and picked up by kzin military transports; no
joy there. Most of the
services are provided by household servants, born on
the estate; no joy there,
either. Ahh, outside contractors; now that's
interesting."
"What is?" Jonah said, stripping packets of what
looked like hard candy out of
the lining of a suitcase. Sonic grenades, but you had
to spit them at the
target.
"Our great and good Rin-Tin-Kzin has been buying
infosystems and 'ware from
human makers. And he's the only one who is; the
ratcat armed forces order
subcomponents to their own specs and assemble them in
plants under their direct
supervision. But not him."
She paused in thought. "It fits . . . limited number
of system types, like an
ascending series, with each step up a set increment
of increased capacity over
the one below. Nothing like our wild and woolly
jungle of manufacturers. They're
not used to nonstandardized goods; they make them
uneasy."
"How does that 'fit'?"
"With what the xenologists were saying. The ratcats
have an old, old
civilization-very stable. Like what the UN would have
become in Sol system, with
the psychists 'adjusting' everybody into peacefulness
and the ARM suppressing
dangerous technology-which is to say, all technology.
A few hundred years down
the road we'd be on, if the kzin hadn't come along
and upset the trajectory."
"Maybe they do some good after all." Jonah finished
checking the wire garrotes
that lay coiled in the seams of their clothing, the
tiny repeating blowgun with
the poisoned darts, and the harmless-looking
fulgurite plastic frames of their
backpacks-you twisted so and it went soft as putty,
with the buckle acting as
detonator-timer.
"It fits with what we know about you-know-who, as
well." The room had been very
carefully swept, but there were a few precautions it
did not hurt to take. Not
mentioning names, for one; a robobugger could be set
to conversations with key
words in them. "Unconventional. Wonder why he has
human infosystems installed,
though? Ours aren't that much better. Can't be."
Infosystems were a mature
technology, long since pushed to the physical limits
of quantum indeterminancy.
"Well, they're more versatile, even the obsolete
stuff here on Wunderland. I
think"-she tugged at an ear-"I think it may be the
'ware he's after, though.
Ratcat 'ware is almost as stereotyped as their
hardwiring."
Jonah nodded; software was a favorite cottage
industry in human space, and there
must be millions of hobbyists who spent their leisure
time fiddling with one
problem or another.
"So we just enter a bid?" he said, flopping back on
the bed. He was muscular for
a Belter, but even the .61 Wunderland gravity was
tiring when there was no place
to get away from it.
"Doubt it." Ingrid murmured to the system. "Finagle,
no joy. It's handled
through something called the Datamongers' Guild: 'A
mutual benefit association
of those involved in infosystem development and
maintenance.' Gott knows what
that is." A pause. "Whatever it is, there's no public
info on how to join it.
The contracts listed say you-know-who takes a random
selection from their duty
roster to do his maintenance work."
Ingrid sank back on one elbow. "We need a local
contact," she said slowly.
"Jonah . . . We both know why Intelligence picked me
as your partner. I was the
only one remotely qualified who might know . . . and
I do."
"Which one?" he asked. She laughed bitterly.
"I'd have thought Claude, but he's . . . Jonah, I
wouldn't have believed it!"
Jonah shrugged. "There's an underground surrender
movement on Earth. Lots of
flatlander quislings; and the pussies aren't even
there yet. Why be surprised
there are more here?"
"But Claude! Oh, well."
"So who else you got?"
She continued to tap at the console. "Not many. None.
A lot of them are listed
as dead in the year or two after I left. No cause of
death, just dead . . ." Her
face twisted.
Survivor guilt, Jonah thought. Dangerous. Have to
watch for that.
"Except Harold."
"Can you trust him?"
"Look, we have two choices. Go to Harold, or try the
underworld contacts. The
known-unreliable underworld contacts."
"One of whom is your friend Harold."
She sighed. "Yes, but-well, that's a good sign, isn't
it? That he's worked with
the-with them, and against-"
"Maybe."
"And a bar is a good place to meet people."
And mostly you just can't wait to see him. A man
who'll be twice your age while
you're still young. Do you love him or hate him?
"I . . ." She paused and ran a hand over her hair. "I
don't know; he just didn't
make the rendezvous in time, they were closing in,
and . . ." A shrug.
Jonah linked hands behind his head. "I still say it's
damned iffy but I guess
it's the best chance we have; I certainly don't want
to give the gangsters
another location to find us at. I guess it's the best
chance we have. At least
we'll be able to get a drink."

Chapter 4
"This is supposed to be a Terran bar?" Jonah asked
dubiously. He lifted one of
the greenish shrimpoids from the platter and clumsily
shelled it, got a thin cut
under his thumbnail, and sucked on it, cursing. There
was a holo of a stick-thin
girl with body paint dancing in a cage over the bar,
and dancing couples and
groups beneath it; most of the tables were
cheek-to-jowl, and they had had to
pay heavily for one with a shield, here overlooking
the lower level of the club.
Ingrid ignored him, focusing on the knot in her
stomach and the clammy feel of
nervous sweat across her shoulders under the formal
low-necked black jumpsuit.
Harold's Terran Bar was crowded tonight, and the
entrance-fee had been stiff.
The verguuz was excellent, however, and she sipped
cautiously, welcoming the
familiar mint-sweet-wham taste. The imitations in the
Sol system never quite
measured up. Shuddering, she noticed that two
Swarm-Belter types at the next
table were knocking back shot glasses of it, and then
following the liqueur with
beer chasers, in a mixture of extravagance and
reckless disregard for their
digestions. The squarebuilt Krio at the musicomp was
tinkling out something
old-sounding, piano with muted saxophone undertones.
Gottdamn, but that takes me back.
Claude had had an enormous collection of classical
music, expensively enhanced
stuff originally recorded on Earth, some of it on
hardcopy or analog disks. His
grandfather had acquired it, one of the
eccentricities that had ruined the
Montferrat-Palme fortunes. A silver-chased ebony box
as big as a man's head,
with a marvelous projection system. All the ancient
greats, Brahms and Mozart
and Jagger and Armstrong . . . They had all spent
hours up in his miserable
little attic, knocking back cheap Maivin and playing
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or
Sympathy for the Devil loud enough to bring hammering
broomstick protests from
the people below. . . .
Gottdamn, it is him, she thought, with a sudden flare
of determination.
"Jonah," she said, laying a hand on his arm. "This is
too public, and we can't
just wait for him. It's . . . likely to be something
of a shock, you know? That
musician, I knew him back when too. I'll get him to
call through directly, it'll
be faster."
The Sol-Belter nodded tightly; she squeezed the
forearm before she rose. In
space or trying to penetrate an infosystem, rank and
skill both made him the
leader, but here the mission and his life were both
dependent on her. On her
contacts, decades old here, and severed in no
friendly wise.
Ingrid moistened her lips; Sam had been on the edge
of their circle of friends,
and confronting him would be difficult enough, much
less Harold . . . She wiped
palms down her slacks and walked over to the
musicomp; it was a handsome legged
model in Svarterwood with a beautiful point
resonator, and a damper field to
ensure that nothing came from the area around it but
the product of the
keyboard.
"G'tag, Sam," she said, standing by one side of the
Instrument. "Still picking
them out, I see."
"Fra?" he said, looking up at her with the dignified
politeness of a well-raised
Krio country-boy. The face was familiar, but one side
of it was immobile; she
recognized the signs of a rushed reconstruction job,
the type they did after
severe nerve-damage in the surface tissues.
"Well, I haven't changed that much, Sam. Remember
Graduation Night, and that
singalong we all had by the Founders?"
His features changed, from the surface smoothness of
a well-trained professional
to a shock so profound that the living tissue went as
rigid as the dead. "Fra
Raines," he whispered. The skilled hands continued
over the musicomp's surface,
but the tune had changed without conscious intent. He
winced and hesitated, but
she put a hand on his shoulder.
"No, keep playing, Sam.

 "Remember me and you
  And you and me
 Together forever
 I can't see me lovin' nobody but you-
 For all my life-"

The musician shook his head. "The boss doesn't like
me to play that one, Fra
Raines," he said. "It reminds him, well, you'd know."
"I know, Sam. But this is bigger than any of us, and
it means we can't let the
past sleep in its grave. Call him, tell him we're
waiting."

"Mr. Yarthkin?" the voice asked.
He had been leaning a shoulder against one wall of
the inner room, watching the
roulette table. The smoke in here was even denser
than by the front bar, and the
ornamental fans made patterns and traceries through
the blue mist. Walls were
set for a space scene, a holo of Jupiter taken from
near orbit on one side and
Wunderland on the other. Beyond them the stars were
hard glitters, pinpoints of
colored light receding into infinity, infinitely out
of reach. Yarthkin dropped
his eyes to the table. The ventilation system was too
good to carry the odor of
the sweat that gleamed on the hungrily intent faces.
...
Another escape, he thought. Like the religious
revivals, and the nostalgia
craze; even the feverish corruption and pursuit of
wealth. A distraction.
"Herrenmann Yarthkin-Schotmann?" the voice asked
again, and a hand touched his
elbow.
He looked down, into a girl's face framed in a black
kerchief. Repurified Amish,
by the long drab dress. Well-to-do, by the excellent
material; many of that sect
were. Wunderland had never relied much on synthetic
foods, and the Herrenmen
estates had used the Amish extensively as subtenants.
They had flourished,
particularly since the kzin came and agricultural
machinery grew still scarcer .
. . That was ending now, of course.
"No 'Herrenmann,' sweetheart," he said gently. She
was obviously terrified, this
would be a den of Satan by her folks' teaching. "Just
Harold, or Mr. Yarthkin if
you'd rather. What can I do for you?"
She clasped her gloved hands together, a frown on the
delicately pretty features
and a wisp of blond hair escaping from her scarf and
bonnet. "Oh . . . I was
wondering if you could give me some advice, please,
Mr. Yarthkin. Everyone says
you know what goes on in Munchen." He heard the
horror in her voice as she named
the city, probably from a lifetime of hearing it from
the pulpit followed by
"Whore of Babylon" or some such.
"Advice I provide free," he said neutrally. Shut up,
he added to his mind.
There's thousands more in trouble just as bad as
hers. None of your business.
"Wilhelm and I," she began, and then halted to search
for words. Yarthkin's eyes
flicked up to a dark-clad young man with a fringe of
beard around his face
sitting at the roulette table. Sitting slumped,
placing his chits with
mechanical despair.
"Wilhelm and I, we lost the farm." She put a hand to
her eyes. "It wasn't his
fault, we both worked so hard . . . but the kzin,
they took the estate where we
were tenants and . . ."
Yarthkin nodded. Kzin took a lot of feeding. And they
would not willingly eat
grain-fed meat; they wanted lean range beasts. More
kzin estates meant less work
for humans, and what there was was in menial
positions, not the big tenant
holdings for mixed farming that the Herrenmen had
preferred. Farmholders reduced
to beggary, or to an outlaw existence that ended in a
kzin hunt.
"Your church wouldn't help?" he said. The Amish were
a close-knit breed.
"They found new positions for our workers, but the
bishop, the bishop said
Wilhelm . . . that there was no money to buy him a
new tenancy, that he should
humble himself and take work as a foreman and pray
for forgiveness." Repurified
Amish thought that worldly failure was punishment for
sin. "Wilhelm, Wilhelm is
a good man, I told him to listen to the bishop, but
he cursed him to his face,
and now we are shunned." She paused. "Things, things
are very bad there now. It
is no place to live or raise children, with food so
scarce and many families
crowded together."
"Sweetheart, this isn't a charitable institution,"
Yarthkin said warily.
"No, Mr. Yarthkin." She drew herself up and wrapped
pride around herself like a
cloak. "We had some money, we sold everything, the
stock and tools. Swarm
Agrobiotics offered Wilhelm and me a place-they are
terraforming new
farm-asteroids. With what they pay we could afford to
buy a new tenancy after a
few years." He nodded. The Swarm's population was
growing by leaps and bounds,
and it was cheaper to grow than synthesize, but
skilled dirt-farmers were rare.
"But we must be there soon, and there are so many
difficulties with the papers."
Bribes, Yarthkin translated to himself.
"It takes so much more than we thought, and to live
while we wait! Now we have
not enough for the final clearance, and . . . and we
know nothing but farming.
The policeman told Wilhelm that we must have four
thousand krona more, and we
had less than a thousand. Nobody would lend more
against his wages, not even the
Sina moneylender, he just laughed and offered to . .
. to sell me to . . . and
Wilhelm hit him, and we had to pay more to the
police. Now he gambles, it is the
only way we might get the money, but of course he
loses."
The house always wins, Yarthkin thought. The girl
steeled herself and continued.
"The Herrenmann policeman-"
"Claude Montferrat-Palme?" Yarthkin inquired, nodding
with his chin. The police
chief was over at the baccarat tables with a glass of
verguuz at his elbow,
playing his usual cautiously skillful game.
"Yes," she whispered. "He told me that there was a
way the papers could be
approved." A silence. "I said nothing to Wilhelm, he
is . . . very young,
younger than me in some ways." The china-blue eyes
turned to him. "Is this
Herrenmann one who keeps his word?"
"Claude?" Yarthkin said. "Yes. A direct promise, yes;
he'll keep the letter of
it."
She gripped her hands tighter. "I do not know what to
do," she said softly. "I
must think."
She nodded jerkily to herself and moved off. Yarthkin
threw the butt of his
cigarette down for the floor to absorb and moved over
to the roulette table. A
smile quirked the corner of his mouth, and he picked
up a handful of
hundred-krona chips from in front of the croupier.
Stupid, he thought to
himself. Oh, well, a man has to make a fool of
himself occasionally.
The Amishman had dropped his last chip and was
waiting to lose it; he gulped at
the drink at his elbow and loosened the tight collar
of his jacket. Probably
seeing the Welfare Office ahead of him, Yarthkin
thought. These days, that meant
a labor camp where the room-and-board charges were
twice the theoretical wages .
. . They would find something else for his wife to
do. Yarthkin dropped his
counter beside the young farmer's.
"I'm feeling lucky tonight, Tony," he said to the
croupier. "Let's see it."
She raised one thin eyebrow, shrugged her shoulders
under the sequins and spun
the wheel. "Place your bets, gentlefolk, please."
Impassively, she tossed the
ball into the whirring circle of metal. "Number
eight. Even, in the black."
The Amishman blinked down in astonishment as the
croupier's ladle pushed his
doubled stakes back toward him. Yarthkin reached out
and gripped his wrist as
the young man made an automatic motion toward the
plaques. It was thick and
springy with muscle, the arm of a man who had worked
with his hands all his
life, but Yarthkin had no difficulty stopping the
motion.
"Let it ride," he said. "Play the black, I'll do the
same."
Another spin, but the croupier's lips were compressed
into a thin line; she was
a professional, and hated a break in routine. "Place
your bets . . . Black wins
again, gentlefolk."
"Try twelve," Yarthkin said, shifting his own chip.
"No, all of it."
"Place your bets . . . twelve wins, gentlefolk."
Glancing up, Yarthkin caught Montferrat's coldly
furious eye, and grinned with
an equal lack of warmth. At the next spin of the
wheel he snapped his finger for
the waiter and urged the younger man at his side to
his feet, piling the chips
on an emptied drink tray. "That's five thousand,"
Yarthkin said. "Why don't you
cash them in and call it a night?"
Wilhelm paused, scrubbed his hands across his face,
straightened his rumpled
clothes. "Yes . . . Yes, thank you sir, perhaps I
should." He looked down at the
pile of chips, and Yarthkin could see his lips whiten
with shock as the impact
hit home. "I . . ."
The girl came to meet him, and gave Yarthkin a single
glance through
tear-starred lashes before the two left, clinging to
each other. The owner of
Harold's shrugged and pushed his own counters back to
the pile before the
croupier.
"How are we doing tonight, Tony?" he asked.
"About five thousand krona less well than we could
have," she said sharply.
"We'll none of us starve," Yarthkin added mildly, and
strolled over to the
baccarat table. Montferrat glanced up sharply, but
his anger had faded.
"You're a sentimental idiot, Harry," he said.
"Probably true, Claude," Yarthkin said, and took a
plain unlogoed credit chip
from the inside pocket of his jacket. "The usual."
Montferrat palmed it and smoothed back his mustache
with a finger. "Sometimes I
think you indulge in these little quixotic gestures
just to annoy me," he added,
and dropped three cards from his hand. "Banco," he
continued.
"Probably right there too, Claude," he said. "I'm
relying on the fact that
you're not an unmitigated scoundrel."
"Now I'm an honest man?"
"No, a scoundrel with mitigating factors . . . and
I'm a sentimental idiot, as
you mentioned." He stopped, listened abstractedly.
"See you later; somebody
wants to see me. Sam says it's important, and he
isn't given to exaggeration."

The doors slid open and Yarthkin stepped into the
main room, beside the north
end of the long bar. The music was the first thing he
heard, the jaunty
remembered beat. Cold flushed over his skin, and the
man he had been smiling and
waving to flinched. That brought the owner of
Harold's Terran Bar back to his
duties; they were self-imposed, and limited to this
building, but that did not
mean they could be shirked. He moved with swift grace
through the throng,
shouting an occasional greeting over the surf-roar of
voices, slapping a
shoulder, shaking a hand, smiling. The smile was
still on his face as he stepped
up off the dance floor and through the muting field
around the musicomp, but he
could taste the acid and copper of his own rage at
the back of his throat.
"I told you never to play that song again," he said
coldly. "We've been together
a long time, Samuel Ogun, it'd be a pity to end a
beautiful friendship this
way."
The musician keyed the instrument to continue without
him and swiveled to face
his employer. "Boss . . . Mr. Yarthkin, once you've
talked to those two over at
table three, you'll understand. Believe me."
Yarthkin nodded curtly and turned to the table. The
two Belters were sitting
close to the musicomp, with the shimmer of a privacy
field around them,
shrouding features as well as dulling voices.
Yarthkin smoothed the lapels of
his jacket and wove deftly between tables and servers
as he approached, forcing
his anger down into an inner cesspit where discarded
emotions went. Sam was no
fool, he must mean something by violating a standing
order that old. He did not
shake easy, either, and that had been plain to see on
him. This should be
interesting, at least; it was good to have a
straightforward bargaining session
ahead, after the embarrassing exhilaration of the
incident in the gambling room.
Money was a relaxing game to play; the rules were
clear, victory and defeat a
matter of counting the score and no embarrassing
emotions. And these might be
the ones with the special load that the rumors had
told of. More profit and more
enjoyment if they were. More danger, too, but a man
had to take an occasional
calculated risk. Otherwise, you might as well put a
droud in your head and be
done with it.
The man looked thirty and might be anything between
that and seventy;
tough-looking, without the physical softness that so
many rockjacks got from a
life spent in cramped zero-G spaceships. A
conservative dark innersuit, much
less gaudy than what most successful Swarmers wore
these days, and an
indefinably foreign look about the eyes. Yarthkin
sat, pulled out a chair and
looked over to study the woman's face. The world went
black.

"Boss, are you all right?" There was a sharp hiss
against his neck, and the
sudden sharp-edged alertness of a stimshot. "Are you
all right?"
"You," Yarthkin whispered, shaking the Krio's hand
off his shoulder with a
shrug. Ingrid's face hovered before him, unchanged,
no, a little thinner, more
tanned. But the same, not forty years different, the
same. He could feel things
moving in his head, like a mountain river he had seen
on a spring hunting trip
once. Cracks running across black ice, and the rock
beneath his feet toning with
the dark water's hidden power. "You." His voice went
guttural, and his right
hand went inside the dress jacket.
"Jonah, no!" Ingrid's hand shot out and slapped her
companion's to the table.
Yarthkin felt his mind stagger and broach back toward
reality as the
danger-prickle ran over his skin; that was probably
not an engineer's
light-pencil in the younger man's hand. He struggled
for self-command, dropped
his gun-hand back to the table.
"Well." What was there to say? "Long time, no see.
Glad you could make it. The
last time, you seemed to have a pressing appointment
elsewhere. I showed up on
time, and there the 'boat was, boosting like hell a
couple of million klicks
Solward. Me in a single ship with half a dozen kzin
Slashers sniffing around."
Ingrid's face went chalk-white. "Let me explain-"
"Don't bother. Closed account." He paused, lit a
cigarette, astonished at the
steadiness of his own hands.
"Claude know you're here?"
"No, and it's best he doesn't."
"Sure. Let me guess. Now you're back, and Mr.
Quick-Draw here with you, on some
sort of UN skullbuggery, and need my help." He looked
thoughtful. "Come to that,
how did you get here?"
"Jonah Matthieson," the Sol-Belter said. "Yes. How we
got here isn't important.
We do need your help. Damned little we've gotten in
this system that hasn't been
bought and paid for, and half the time we've been
sold out to the pussies even
so."
"Pussies? Oh, the ratcats." He laughed, a little
wildly. "So you haven't found
legions of eager, idealistic volunteers ready to
throw themselves into the jaws
of the kzin to help you on your sacred mission,
whatever it is. How can that
be?"
Yarthkin's finger touched behind one ear, and the
mirror behind the bar went
screenmode. It showed an overgrown park, flicking
between micropickups scattered
wholesale through the vegetation. There had been
lawns here once; now there was
waist-high grass, Earth trees grown to scores of
meters in the light gravity,
native Wunderlander growths soaring on spidery
trunks. The sound of panting
breath, and a naked human came stumbling through the
undergrowth. His legs and
flanks were lashed and scratched by thorns and burrs.
He reeled with exhaustion,
feet pounding with careless heaviness; the eyes were
flat and blank in the
stubbled face, mouth dribbling. Behind him there was
a flash of orange-red,
alien among the cool greens of Earth, the tawny
olives of Wunderland. A flash:
two hundred kilos of sentient carnivore charging on
all fours in a hunching rush
that parted the long grass in an arrow of rippling
wind. Not so much like a cat
as a giant weasel, blurring, looming up behind the
fleeing human in a wall of
flesh, a wall that fell tipped with bright teeth and
black claws.
The screaming began at once, sank to a bubbling sound
and the wet tearing noises
of feeding. Shouts of protest rose from the dance
floor and the other tables,
and the sound of someone vomiting into an expensive
meal. Yarthkin touched the
spot behind his ear and the screen switched back to
mirror. The protests lasted
longer, and the staff of Harold's went among the
patrons to sooth with free
drinks and apologies, murmurs. Technical mistake,
government override, here, let
me fix that for you, gentlefolk . . .
"And that," Yarthkin said, "is a good reason why
you're not going to be finding
hordes beating down your door to volunteer. We've
been living with that for
forty years, you fool. While you in the Sol system
sat fat and happy and safe."
Jonah leaned forward. "I'm here now, aren't I?
Neither fat, nor very happy, and
not at all safe right now. I was in two fleet
actions, Mr. Yarthkin. Out of
four. Earth's been fighting the kzin since I was old
enough to vote, and we
haven't lost so far. Been close a couple of times,
but we haven't lost. We could
have stayed home. Note we didn't. Ingrid and I are
considerably less safe than
you."
Ingrid and I, Yarthkin thought, looking at the faces,
side by side. The young
faces; at the Sol-Belter. Hotshot pilot. Secret
agent. All-round romantic hero,
come to save us worthless pussy-whipped peons.
Tonight seemed to be a night for
strong emotions, something he had been trying to
unlearn. Now he felt hatred
strong and thick, worse than anything he had ever
felt for the kzin. Worse even
than he had felt for himself, for a long time.
"So what do you need?"
"A way into the Datamongers' Guild, for a start."
Yarthkin looked thoughtful. "That's easy enough." He
realized that Ingrid had
been holding her breath. Bad. She wants this bad. How
bad?
"And any other access to the-to networks."
"Networks. Sure. Networks. Any old networks, right?
Want into Claude's system?
Want to see his private files? What else would you
like?"
"Hari-"
"I can do that, you know. Networks."
She didn't say anything.
"Help. You want help," he said slowly. "Well that
leaves only one question." He
poured himself a drink in Jonah's water glass, tossed
it back. "What will you
pay?"
"Anything we have. Anything you want."
"Anything?"
"Of course. When do you want me?"
"Ingrid-"
"Not your conversation, Belter. Get lost."
***
The club was dim, with the distinctive stale chill
smell of tobacco and absent
people that came in the hours just before dawn.
Yarthkin sat at the table and
sipped methodically at the verguuz; it was a shame to
waste it on just getting
drunk, but owning a bar did have some advantages. He
took another swallow,
letting the smooth sweet minty taste flow over his
tongue, then breathing out as
the cold fire ran back up his throat. A pull at the
cigarette, one of the
clove-scented ones well-to-do Baha'i smoked. My,
aren't we wallowing in sensual
indulgence tonight.
"Play," he said to the man at the musicomp. The Krio
started and ran his fingers
over the surface of the instrument, and the brassy
complexities of Meddlehoffer
lilted out into the deserted silence of the room.
"Not that," Yarthkin said, and knocked back the rest
of the Verguuz. "You know
what I want."
"No you don't," Sam said. "That's a manti-manti
mara," he continued, dropping
back into his native tongue: a great stupidity. "What
you want is to get drunk
and manyamanya, smash something up. Go ahead, it's
your bar."
"I said, play it." The musician shrugged, and began
the ancient melody. The
husky voice followed:
" . . . no matter what we say or do-"
A contralto joined it: "So happy together."
They both looked up with a start. Ingrid dropped into
a chair across from
Yarthkin, reached for the bottle and poured herself a
glass.
"Isn't there enough for two?" she asked, raising a
brow into his scowl. The
musician rose, and Yarthkin waved him back.
"You don't have to leave, Sam."
"Do I have to stay? No? Then it's late, boss, and I'm
going for bed. See you
tomorrow."
"Where's the Sol-Belter?" Yarthkin asked. His voice
was thickened but not
slurred, and his hand was steady as he poured.
"In the belly of the whale . . . still working in
your office." And trying not
to think about what we're doing. Or will be doing in
a minute, if you're sober
enough. "That's a pretty impressive system you have
there."
"Yeah. And I'm taking a hell of a chance letting you
two use it."
"So are we."
"So are we all. Honorable men, all, all honorable
men. And women. Honorable."
"Hari-"
"That's Herr Yarthkin to you, Lieutenant."
"If you let me explain-"
"Explain what?"
"Hari, the rendezvous time was fixed, and you didn't
make it! We had to boost;
there were hundreds of lives riding on it."
"Oh, no, Lieutenant Raines. The ships had to boost,
and we had to keep the kzin
off your backs as long as we could. Not every pilot
had to go with them."
"Angers was dying, radiation sickness, puking her
guts out. Flambard's nerve had
gone, Finagle's sake, Hari, I was the best they had,
and-" She stopped, looking
at his face, slumped. "Long ago, long ago."
Not so long for you as for me, he thought. Her face
was the same, not even
noticeably aged. What was different? Where did the
memory lie? Unformed, he
thought. She looks . . . younger than I remember.
Not as much behind the eyes.
"Long ago, kid. How'd you get here?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Probably I wouldn't. That raid-"
She nodded. "That raid. The whole reason for that
raid was to get us here."
"For god's sake, why?"
"I can't tell you."
"It's part of the price, sweetheart."
"Literally, I can't," Ingrid said. "Post-hypnotic.
Reinforced with- The
psychists have some new tricks, Hari. I would
literally die before I told you,
or anyone else."
"Even if they're taking you apart?"
She nodded.
Harold thought about that for a moment and shuddered.
"OK. It was a long time
ago, and maybe-maybe you saw things I didn't see. You
always were bigger on
romantic causes than the rest of us." He stood.
She got to her feet and stood expectantly. "Where?"
"There's a bedroom upstairs."
She nodded. "I've-I've thought about this a lot."
"Not as much as I have. You haven't had as long."
She laughed. "That's right."
"So now I'm old-"
"No. Not old, Hari. Not old. Which way? The stairs
over there?"
"Just a minute, kid. So. Assuming it works, whatever
you have planned, what
afterward?"
"Once it's done it doesn't matter."
"Tell that to a man under thirty. Women and we
oldsters know better."
"Well, we brought a ship with us. Nice boat, the best
the UN's making these
days. Markham's keeping her for us, and then we'll do
the guerrilla circuit
afterwards."
"Markham? Ulf Reichstein-Markham?" An old enmity
sharpened his tone, one less
personal. "A legitimate bastard of a long line of
bastards, who does his best to
out-bastard them all. He'd cut your throat for six
rounds of pistol ammunition,
if he needed them."
"Didn't strike me as a bandit."
"Worse, a True Believer . . . and you can whistle in
the wind for that ship."
She smiled. "That ship, you might say she has a mind
of her own; really, we've
got a hold on it."
Then you'll be off to the Swarm, Yarthkin thought.
Playing dodgem with the
ratcats, you and that Jonah. Flirting with danger and
living proud. There was a
taste of bile at the back of his mouth. Remembering
the long slow years of
defeat, strength crumbling away as one after another
despaired; until nothing
was left but the fanatics and the outlaws, a nuisance
to the enemy and a deadly
danger to their own people. What was honor, going on
with the killing when it
had all turned pointless and rancid, or taking the
amnesty and picking up the
pieces of life? But not for you. You and Jonah,
you'll win or go out in a blaze
of glory. No dirty alliances and dirtier compromises
and decisions with no good
choices. The two of you have stolen my life.
"Get out," he said. "Get the hell out."
"No." She took his hand and led him toward the stairs.

Chapter 5
Chuut-Riit shook his clawed fists in the air and
screamed. "I will have his
ears! I will have his testicles for my cubs to eat! I
will kill, kill, kill-"
Someone bit his tail, hard. The kzinti governor leapt
for the ceiling
screeching, whirled, and landed in attack position;
almost horizontal, with
hands outstretched.
It was Conservor. Chuut-Riit halted his leap before
it began, glaring
murderously at the priest-counsellor. His calm was
unkzin, only a slight
quirking of eyebrow-tufts and whiskers indicating
sympathetic amusement; his
scent had the almost buttery flavor of complete
relaxation. Yet of his own will
Chuut-Riit was apprentice in the ways of the
Conservors-unorthodox for a high
noble, but not without precedent-and such tricks were
among the teaching
techniques.
"You must think before you attack, Chuut-Riit,"
Conservor said firmly. "You
must. This I lay on you in the name of the God."
The younger kzin rose and began pacing; the inner
sanctum was a five-meter
square of sandstone block, with the abstract-looking
sculptures and
scent-markings of his ancestors standing in niches in
the walls. Iron braziers
wrought in the shape of crossed claws glowed, sending
trails of incense to the
high blackened beams of the ceiling. For the rest it
was empty save for the low
desk and three reclining cushions, with floors of
sanded pine. Traat-Admiral
occupied the third cushion, and he was
quivering-eager for battle, ears folded
away and gingery anger-smell rising from him.
"I cannot tolerate open flouting of my authority,"
Chuut-Riit said. He had
forced enough relaxation that his tail lashed instead
of standing out behind him
like a rigid pink column of muscle. "What am I to do?
Turn him loose in my
harem? Invite him to urinate on the shrines?"
One arm slashed at the figures; some of them were so
ancient that nostrils must
flare to take their scent. He licked his nose and
inhaled deeply with his mouth
open. The smell of their strength and pride flowed
into him, heartening and
maddening at the same time.
"Ktrodni-Stkaa disclaims all responsibility for the
destruction of the Feud and
the Severed-Vein," Conservor said. Traat-Admiral let
his lips flutter against
his fangs, derisive laughter.
"No," Conservor continued, making a palm-up gesture:
do not seize what you
cannot hold. "Ktrodni-Stkaa is . . . hasty. He is
your enemy. He is not the best
tactician in the fleets of the Great Pack. He is
overproud of his blood. But he
is a Hero; he would not engage in such deception
against an honorable"-that was,
kzinti-"foe."
"Unless he has decided that I am not worthy of
honorable combat, because of my
cautious ideas," Chuut-Riit said. He snarled,
drooling slightly, fingers flexing
as he imagined fangs grinding into bone as he brought
up his rear feet and
ripped and ripped and ripped . . .
"That is so," Conservor acknowledged with a ripple of
his spinal fur. "Yet the
balance of hard data could be construed to support
his claim of noninvolvement.
Is this not so?"
Traat-Admiral gave a grunting cough and licked
angrily at his forearms for a
moment. "The fur lies flat in that direction," he
said grudgingly. "Few
recordings survived the EMP of the engagement. They
show only a corvette of the
Bone-Breaker class, of which there are thousands.
Data is insufficient for
identification. With the damage to our systemwide
surveillance net, we have no
direct remote tracking of where it went. Perhaps it
is as Ktrodni-Stkaa
says"-Traat-Admiral's claws slid in, sign of
unconscious distaste-"and an
individual firebrand was responsible."
"Arreeoghw," Chuut-Riit said; he had stopped in
mid-stride, his fur bottling
out. "Bone-Breaker class-that is the older
specification, is it not?"
The other two kzinti flexed thumbclaws in agreement;
when Chuut-Riit had arrived
two decades ago he had brought the latest designs
from the inner worlds. Not
that there had been great differences-warship design
was a mature technology,
like most within the Patriarchy-but there had been
some refinements in weapons
mountings.
"Many of those would have been dispatched with the
Fourth Fleet," Chuut-Riit
continued softly, musing. "Very many. According to
the reports of the survivors,
Kfraksha-Admiral lost a number of vessels relatively
intact."
"Arrrh." Traat-Admiral came up on all fours, back
arching. Conservor sank down
fluidly, eyes seeking something beyond the walls.
"Arrrh," Traat-Admiral repeated. "The mass is low
enough that the human ramscoop
vessel could have included a corvette. But
deceleration-the energy discharge- No
corvette could carry enough fuel, not with the most
efficient of polarizers. And
a reaction-drive deceleration is ridiculous; such a
discharge would have been a
banner across the system for days."
Chuut-Riit licked meditatively at his wrist and
smoothed his ears with it,
fluttering them out for the soothing feel of cool air
on the pink bare-skin
membranes.
"Hrrrr. Doubtless correct. A thought, no more."
"Still," Conservor said. The two younger kzin started
slightly. "Physics is not
my specialty. Yet consider: we and the humans have
been learning of each other,
in the best of schools." War-nothing taught you a
being's inwardness like
fighting it. "If such a thing were possible, and if
the humans had learned
somewhat of us, would this not be a shrewd
jugular-strike?"
"Not if we knew-arrrhhhg. Ktrodni-Stkaa."
"Yes." They were all imagining trying to convince
that arrogance that mere
monkeys were capable of playing on kzinti internal
rivalries. Ktrodni-Stkaa
barely acknowledged that humans existed, save when he
was hungry.
"Still, it is unlikely," Traat-Admiral said,
twitching the end of his tail.
"So is sentience," Conservor said. Silence dwelt for
long moments. "Let us
consider, and clear our minds."
All three sank into the hands-folded-under-chests
posture of meditation and let
their chins sink to the floor.
***
"They've accepted our bid, Captain."
Jonah nodded stiffly. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Not
that I'm surprised."
"No, sir."
Back in Sol system a thousand hackers had labored to
produce advanced software
they thought might be salable on Wunderland. Most of
it had been too advanced;
they'd predicted a higher state of the art than
Wunderland had retained, and the
stuff wouldn't work on the ancient hardware. Even so,
there was plenty that did
work. It had only taken fifty days to make Jan
Hardman and Lucy van den Berg
moderately big names in the Datamongers' Guild. The
computer records showed them
as old timers, with a scattering of previous
individual sales. They told
everyone on the net that they owed their big success
to teaming up.
Teaming up. A damned tough fifty days . . . Jonah
looked unashamedly at Ingrid.
"I admit you've improved Herr Yarthkin's disposition
one whole hell of a lot,
but do you have to look so tanj happy?"
"Capt-Jonah, I am happy."
"Yeah."
"I-Jonah, I'm sorry if it hurts you."
"Yeah. All right. Lieutenant. We've got work to do."
***
"These are the same monkeys as before." The guards
spoke in the Hero's Tongue.
"The computer says they have access."
The kzin tapped a large button on the console, and
the door lifted.
Jonah and Ingrid cringed and waited. The kzin
sniffed, then led the way outside.
Another kzin warrior followed, and two more fell in
on either side. The routine
had been the same the other two times they had been
here.
This will be different. Maybe. Jonah pushed the
thoughts away. Kzin weren't
really telepathic, but they could sense excitement
and smell fear. Of course the
fear's natural. They probably like that scent.
Sunlight was failing behind evening clouds, and the
air held a dank chill and
the wild odors of storm-swept grassland. The two
humans crossed the landing
field between forms a third again their height,
living walls of orange-red fur;
claws slid out in unconscious reflex on the stocks of
the giants' heavy beam
rifles.
Jonah kept his eyes carefully down. It would be an
unbearable irony if they were
killed by mistake, victims of some overzealous kzin
spooked by the upsurge in
guerrilla activity. The attack of the Yamamoto had
created the chaos that let
them into Wunderland, but that same chaos just might
kill them.
Doors slid aside, and they descended into chill
corridors like a dreadnought's,
surfaces laced with armored data conduits and the
superconducting coil-complexes
of field generators.
One of the kzin followed. "This way," he said,
prodding Jonah's shoulder with
the muzzle of his weapon. The light down here was
reddish, frequencies adjusted
to the aliens' convenience; the air was drier, colder
than humans would have
wished. And everything was too big, grips and stairs
and doors adapted to a
thick-bodied, short-legged race with the bulk of
terrestrial gorillas.
They went through a chamber filled with computer
consoles. This was as far as
they'd been allowed the last two times. "Honored
Governor Chuut-Riit is pleased
with your work," the kzin officer said.
"We are honored," Ingrid replied.
"This way."
The kzin led them through another door. They stepped
into an outsized elevator,
dropped for a small eternity; when the door opened
they were in another complex,
this one with its own gravity polarizer set to Kzin
normal. Their knees sagged,
and they stepped through into another checkzone. The
desire to gawk around was
intolerable, but the gingery smell of kzin was enough
to restrain them as they
walked through a thick sliding door with the telltale
slickness of
density-enhanced matter. Jonah recognized the snouts
of heavy remote-waldoed
weapons up along the edges of the roof. Past that was
another control room, a
dozen kzin operators lying recumbent on
spaceship-style swiveling couches before
semicircular consoles. Their helmets were not the
featureless wraparounds humans
would have used; these had thin crystal facepieces,
adjustable audio pickups,
and cutouts for the ears. Not as efficient, but
probably a psychological
necessity. Kzin have keener senses than man, but are
more vulnerable to
claustrophobia, any sort of confinement that cuts off
the flow of scent, sound,
light.
Patience comes harder to them, too, Jonah thought.
Ancestral kzin had chased
their prey down in relays.
They penetrated still another set of armored doors to
the ultimate sanctum. At
last!
"Accomplish your work," the kzin said. "The inspector
will arrive in six hours.
Sanitary facilities are there."
Jonah exhaled a long breath as the alien left. Now
there was only the
featureless four-meter box of the control room; the
walls were a neutral pearly
white, ready to transmit visual data. The only
console was a standup model
modified with a pedestal so that humans could use it.
Ingrid and he exchanged a
wordless glance as they walked to it and began
unpacking their own gear,
snapping out the support tripod and sliding home the
thin black lines of the
data jacks.
A long pause, while their fingers played over the
small black rectangles of
their portable interfacing units; the only sound was
a subliminal sough of
ventilators and the faint natural chorus that the
kzin always broadcast through
the speakers of a closed installation; insects and
the rustle of vegetation.
Jonah felt a familiar narrowing, a focus of
concentration more intense than sex
or even combat, as the lines of a program-schematic
sprang out on his unit.
"Finagle, talk about paranoids," he muttered. "See
this freeze-function here?"
Ingrid's face was similarly intent, and the rushing
flicker of the
scroll-display on her unit gave her face a momentary
look as of light through
stained glass.
"Got it. Freeze."
"We're bypassed?"
"This is under our authorized codes. All right, these
are the four major
subsystems. See the physical channeling? The hardware
won't accept config
commands of more than 10K except through this channel
we're at."
"Slow response, for a major system like this," he
mused. The security locks were
massive and complex, but a little cumbrous.
"It's the man-kzin hardware interfacing," Ingrid
said. "I think. Their basic
architecture's more synchronic. Betcha they never had
an industrial-espionage
problem . . . Hey, notice that?"
"Ahhhh. Interesting." Jonah kept his voice carefully
phlegmatic. Tricky kitty.
Tricky indeed. "Odd. This would be much harder to
access through the original
Hero system."
"Tanj, you're right," Ingrid said. She looked up with
an urchin grin that
blossomed with the pure delight of solving a software
problem.
Jonah gave her a cautioning look.
Her face went back to a mask of concentration.
"Clearly this was designed with
security against kzinti in mind. See, here and here?
That's why they've
deliberately preserved the original human operating
system on this-two of
them-and used this patch-cocked integral translation
chip here, see?"
"Right!" His fingers flew. "In fact, if analyzed with
the original system as an
integrating node and catchpoint . . . See?"
"Right. Murphy, but you'd have more luck wandering
through a minefield
blindfolded than trying to get at this from an
exterior connection! There's
nothing in the original stem system but censor
programs; by the time you got by
them, the human additions would have alarmed and
frozen. Catches you on the
interface transitions, see? That's why they haven't
tried to bring the core
system up to the subsystem operating speeds. Sure
slows things down, though."
"We'll just have to live with it," Jonah said for the
benefit of any hidden
listeners. It seemed unlikely. There weren't that
many kzin programmers, and all
of them were working for the navy or the government.
This was the strictly
personal system of Viceroy Chuut-Riit.
"Wheels within wheels," Ingrid muttered.
"Right." Jonah shook his head; there was a certain
perverse beauty in using a
cobbled-up rig's own lack of functional integration
as a screening mechanism.
But all designed against kzinti. Not against us. Ye
gods, it would be easy
enough for Chuut-Riit's rivals to work through
humans-
Only none of them would think of that. This is the
only estate that uses outside
contractors. And the Heroes don't think that way to
begin with.
His fingers flew. Ingrid-Lieutenant Raines-would be
busy installing the new data
management system they were supposed to be working
at. What he was doing was far
beyond her. Jonah let his awareness and fingers work
together, almost bypassing
his conscious mind. Absently he reached for a
squeeze-bulb before he remembered
that the nearest Jolt Cola was four light-years away.
Now. Bypass the kzin core system. Move into the back
door. He keyed in the
ancient passwords embedded into the Wunderland
computer system by Earth hackers
almost a hundred years before. Terran corporate
managers had been concerned
about competition, and the ARM had had their sticky
fingers here too, and they'd
built backdoors into every operating system destined
for Wunderland. A built-in
industrial espionage system. And the kzin attack and
occupation should have kept
the Wunderlanders from finding them . . .
/ Murphy Magic. The SeCrEt of the UnIvErSe is 43, NOT
42.
$
"There is justice," Jonah muttered.
"Joy?"
"Yeah." He typed frantically.
She caught her breath. "All right."
By the time the core realizes what's going on, we'll
all be dead of old age.
"Maybe take a while. Here we go."

Two hours later he was done. He looked over at
Ingrid. She had long finished,
except for sending the final signals that would tell
the system they were done.
"About ready," he said.
She bit her lip. "All right."
For a moment he was shocked at the dark half-moons
below her eyes, the lank hair
sweat-plastered to her cheeks, and then concentration
dropped enough for him to
feel his own reaction. Pain clamped at his stomach,
and the muscles of his lower
back screamed protest at the posture he had been
frozen in for long hours of
extra gravity.
He raised his hand to his mouth and extended the
little finger back to the rear
molars. Precisely machined surfaces slipped into
nanospaced fittings in the
vat-cultured substitute that had been serving him as
a fingernail; anything else
would have wiped the coded data. He took a deep
breath and pulled; there was a
flash of pain before the embedded duller drugs kicked
in, and then it settled to
a tearing ache. The raw surface of the stripped
finger was before him, the wrist
clenched in the opposite hand. Ingrid moved forward
swiftly to bandage it, and
he spat the translucent oblong into his palm.
"Tanj," he said resentfully. Those sadistic
flatlander morons could have used a
nervepinch.
Ingrid picked the biochip up between thumb and
forefinger. She licked her lips
nervously. "Will it work?"
"It's supposed to." The sound of his own pulse in his
ears was louder than the
background noise the kzin used to fool their
subconscious into comfort. Pain
receded, irrelevant, as he looked at the tiny oblong
of modified claw. Scores of
highly skilled men and women, thousands of hours of
computer time on machines
whose pricetags ran into the billions of stars, all
for this. No, for the
information contained in this . . . nearly as much
information as was required
to make a complete human body; it was amazing what
they could do these days with
quantum-well storage. Although the complete specs for
a man were in a packet
considerably smaller, if it came to that.
"Give it here." It ought to be quick. Milliseconds
quick. A lot better than
being hunted down by the ratcats, if we can blow the
defenses. Vaporization was
the commonest way for a space-soldier to die, anyway.
She handed over the nail, and he slipped it into his
own interface unit. "As
your boyfriend likes to say, here's viewing, kinder."
She nodded tightly. He raised a thumb, pressed it
down on one of the outlined
squares of the schematic that occupied his interfacer.
"Ram dam," he said. The words came from nowhere,
until an eerie memory of old
Mukeriji speaking flitted through his mind. That had
been as they closed on the
kzinti ship, coming in to board before they could
blow the self-destruct bomb.
Dreadful Bride, spare us: ram dam ram dam ram dam
ram-
The walls pulsed, flickered green, flashed into an
intricate strobing pattern
and froze. Jonah closed his eyes for a second and
felt an enormous thankfulness.
They might still be only seconds away from death, but
at least it wouldn't be
for nothing.

"Finagle!" Jonah said bitterly. "How could even a
kzin be this paranoid?"
He kicked the pillar-console; it hurt through the
light slipper. There were
weapons and self-destruct systems in plenty, enough
to leave nothing but a very
large crater with magma at its core where
Chuut-Riit's palace-estate-preserve
had stood . . . but it wasn't clear how any of them
could be triggered from
here.
"Who ever heard of . . . wheels within wheels!" Jonah
said disbelievingly. "Am I
imagining things, or are these systems completely
separate?"
Ingrid shook her head slowly. "I'm afraid that's a
long way past me. Can't you
do anything about it?"
"Complain to the manufacturer . . . oh, maybe.
There's a chance. Worth a try,
anyway."
He touched icons on the screen surface, then tapped
in new commands. "Nope. All
right, what does this do? Nothing. Hmmm. But if-
Yeah, this may work. Not
immediately, though. You about through?"
"Hours ago. We don't have much longer."
"Right. I do want to look at a couple of things,
though." Jonah's eyes narrowed.
"Call," he said to the computer. "Weekly schedule for
user-CR, regression, six
months, common elements." His finger flicked out to a
sequence on the wall ahead
of them. "Got it! Got it, by Murphy's asshole; that's
the single common element
outside going to his office? What is it?"
Ingrid's fingers were busy. "No joy, Jonah. That's
his visit to his kiddies. The
males, weanlings up to subadult, they're in an
isolation facility."
"Oh. Bat puckey. Here, let me look-"
A warning light blazed on the console.
"They're coming," Ingrid hissed. "Hurry."
"Right. Plan B. Only-" Jonah stared at the files in
wonder. "I will be dipped in
shit. This will work."
***
"We have positive identification,"
Axelrod-Bauergartner said. The staff
conference rustled, ten men and women grouped around
a table of black ebony. It
was an elegant room, walls of white stone fretwork
and floor of tile, a
sideboard with refreshments. No sound but the gentle
rush of water in the
courtyard outside; this had been the Herrenhaus, the
legislature, before the
kzin came.
Montferrat leaned forward slightly, looking down the
table to his second in
command. How alike we all are, he thought. Not
physical appearance, but
something about the eyes . . . She was a pallid
woman, with a beginning potbelly
disgusting on someone her age, hair cropped close on
the left and in a braided
ponytail on the other.
"Oh?" he drawled. It was important to crack this case
and quickly,
Supervisor-of-Animals was on his track. Unwise to
have a subordinate take too
much credit for it-particularly this one; she had
been using her own dossier
files to build influence in the higher echelons of
human government. Two can
play at that game, he thought. And I do it better,
since relying on blackmail
alone is a crudity I've grown beyond. She doesn't
know I've penetrated her
files, either . . . of course, she may be doing
likewise . . .
No. He would be dead if she had.
"From their hotel room. No correlation on
fingerprints, of course." Alterations
to fingerprints and retina patterns were an old
story; you never caught anyone
that way who had access to underworld tailoring
shops. "But they evidently
whiled away their spare time with the old in-and-out,
and they don't clean the
mattresses there very well. DNA analysis.
"Case A, display," she continued. Sections of the
ebony before each of the staff
officers turned transparent, a molecular analysis.
"This is the male, what
forensics could make of it. Young, not more than
thirty. Sol-Belter, to
ninety-three percent: Here's a graphic of his face,
projection from the genes
and descriptions by hotel staff."
A portrait overlaid the lines and curves of the
analysis, a hard-lined blocky
face with a short Belter strip. "This doesn't include
any scars or birthmarks,
of course."
"Very interesting," Montferrat drawled. "But as
you're no doubt aware, chance
recombination could easily reproduce a Sol-Belter
genetic profile; the Serpent
Swarm was only colonized three centuries ago, and
there has been immigration
since. Our records from the Belt are not complete;
you know the trouble we've
been having getting them to tighten up on
registration."
Axelrod-Bauergartner shook her head, smiling thinly.
"Less than a three percent
chance, when you correlate with the probability of
that configuration, then
eliminate the high percentage of Swarmers we do have
full records on. Beautiful
job on the false idents, by the way. If we hadn't
been tipped, we'd never have
found them.
"And this," she said, calling up another analysis,
"is the female. Also young,
ten years post-maturity, and a Swarmer for sure. No
contemporary record."
Montferrat raised a brow and lit his cigarette,
looking indifferently down at
the abstract. "We'll have to pick them both up on
suspicion," he said, "and ream
their memories. But I'd scarcely call this a positive
ID; nothing I'd like to go
to the kzin with, for certain." A pause, a delicate
smile. "Of course, if you'd
like to take the responsibility yourself . . ."
"I may just take you up on that . . . sir,"
Axelrod-Bauergartner said, and a
cold bell began ringing at the back of Montferrat's
mind. "You see, we did find
a perfect correlate for the female's DNA pattern. Not
in any census registry,
but in an old research file at the Scholarium, a
genetics survey. Pre-War. Dead
data, but I had the central system do a universal
sweep, damn the expense, and
there were no locks on the data. Just stored out of
the way . . ."
"This doesn't make sense," Grimbardsun said. He was
Economic Regulation, older
than Axelrod-Bauergartner and fatter; less ambitious,
except for the bank
account he was so excellently placed to feed.
Complications with the kzin made
him sweat, and there were dark patches under the
armpits of his uniform tunic.
"You said she was young."
"Biological," Axelrod-Bauergartner said triumphantly.
"The forensics people
counted how many ticks she had on her biological
clock. But the Scholarium file
records her as . . ."
A picture flashed across the data, and Montferrat
coughed to hide his reaction.
Grateful for the beard and the tan, that hid the cold
waxy pallor of his skin,
as the capillaries shrank and sent the blood back to
the veins and heart, that
felt as if a huge hand had locked them fast.
"Ingrid Raines," Axelrod-Bauergartner said.
"Chronological age, better than
sixty. Qualified pilot and software wizard, and a
possible alternate slotter on
one of the slowboats that was launched just before
the end."
"I was a possible alternate myself, if I hadn't been
taken prisoner," Montferrat
said, and even then felt a slight pleasure at
Axelrod-Bauergartner's wince. She
hadn't been born then, and it was a reminder that at
least he had fought the
kzin once, not spent his adolescence scheming to
enter their service. "There
were thousands of us, and most didn't make it
anywhere near the collection
points. It was all pretty chaotic, toward the end."
His hand did not tremble as
he laid the cigarette in the ashtray, and his eyes
were not fixed on the oval
face with its long Belter strip that turned into an
auburn fountain at the back.
"Which was why the ordinary student files were lost,"
Axelrod-Bauergartner said,
nodding so that her incipient jowls swayed. "Yah. All
we got from the genetics
survey was a name and a student number than doesn't
correlate to anything
existing. But the DNA's a one-to-one, no doubt about
it at all. Raines went out
on that slowboat, and somehow Raines came back, still
young."
Still young, Montferrat thought. Still young . . .
and I sit here, my soul older
than Satan's. "Came back. Dropped off from a ship
going point-nine lightspeed?"
he scoffed.
A shrug. "The genes don't lie."
"Computer," Montferrat said steadily. "All points,
maximum priority. Pictures
and idents to be distributed to all sources. Capture
alive at all costs; we need
the information they have."
To his second. "My congratulations, Herrenfrau
Axelrod-Bauergartner, on a job
well done. We'll catch these revenants, and when we
do all the summer soldiers
who've been flocking to those Resistance idiots since
the attack will feel a
distinct chill. I think that's all for today?"
They rose with the usual round of handshakes,
Grimbardsun's hand wet,
Axelrod-Bauergartner's soft and cold as her eyes.
Montferrat felt someone
smiling with his face, talking with his mouth,
impeccably, until he was in the
privacy of his office, and staring down at the holo
in his desk. Matching it
with the one from his locked and sealed files,
matching the reality with
forensics' projection. Feeling the moisture spilling
from his eyes, down onto
the imperishable synthetic, onto the face he had seen
with the eye of the mind
every day for the last forty years. The face he would
arrest and turn over to
the interrogators and the kzin, along with the last
of his soul.
"Why did you come back?" he whispered. "Why did you
come back, to torment us
here in hell?"
***
"Right, now download," Jonah said. The interfacer
bleeped quietly and opened to
extrude the biochip.
"Well, this ought to be useful, if we can get the
information back," Ingrid said
dully, handing him the piece of curved transparent
quasi-tissue.
He unwrapped his hand gingerly and slid the
fingernail home, into the implanted
flexible gasket beneath the cuticle. "Provided we can
get ourselves, this or a
datalink to the Catskinner," he said, wincing
slightly. Useful was an
understatement; intelligence-gathering was not the
primary job for which they
had been tasked, but this was priceless load. The
complete specs on the most
important infosystem on Wunderland, and strategic
sampling of the data in its
banks. Ships, deployments, capacities. Kzin
psychology and history and politics,
command-profiles, strategic planning and kriegspiel
played by the pussy General
Staff for decades. All the back doors, from the human
systems, then, through
them, into the kzin system. UN Naval Intelligence
would willingly sacrifice half
a fleet for this. . . .
"That's it, then," Jonah said. "It's not what we came
for, but it can make a
difference. And there-"
Ingrid was not listening. "Hold on! Look!"
"Eh?"
"An alert subroutine! Gottdamn, that is an alert!
Murphy, it's about us, those
are our cover-idents it's broadcasting. We're blown."
"Block it, quick." They worked in silence for a
moment. Jonah scrubbed a hand
across his face. "That'll hold it for a half-hour."
"Never make it back to Munchen before the next call
gets through," she said.
"Not without putting up a holosign that this system's
been subverted down to the
config."
"We don't have to," Jonah said. He squeezed eyes
shut, pressed his fingers to
his forehead. "Finagle, why now . . . ? The aircar
shuttle. Computer," he
continued. "Is the civilian system still online?
Slaved to the core-system
here?"
"Affirmative, to both."
"That's it, then. We just get on the ten-minute
flight. Right. Key the internal
link to that one. Code, full-wipe after execution,
purge. Ingrid, let's go."
***
"Is the system compromised?" Chuut-Riit asked,
looking around the central
control room of his estate. His nostrils flared: yes,
the scent of two of the
monkeys, a male and . . . He snuffled further. Yes,
the female was bearing.
Grimly, he filed the smell away, for possible future
reference. It was unlikely
that he would ever encounter either of them in
person, but one could hope.
One of the kzin technicians was so involved with
following the symbols scrolling
by on the walls that he swept his hand behind him
with claws extended in an
exasperated protest at being interrupted. The
governor bristled and then
relaxed; it helped that he came from the hunt, had
killed and fed well, mated
and washed his glands and tissues clear of hormones,
freeing the reasoning
brain. Even more that he had spent the most of his
lifespan cooling a temper
that had originally been hasty even by kzin
standards. He controlled breath and
motion as the Conservors had taught him, the desire
to lash his tail and pace.
It ran through him that perhaps it was his temper
that had set him on the road
to mastery, that never-to-be-forgotten moment in the
nursery so many years ago:
the realization that his rage could kill, and in time
would kill him as dead as
the sibling beneath his claws.
The guards behind him had snarled at the infotech's
insolence, a low subliminal
rumbling and the dry-spicy scent of anger. An
expressive ripple of Chuut-Riit's
fur, ears, tail quieted them.
"These specialists are all mad," he whispered aside.
"One must humor them, like
a cub that bites your ears." They were sorry
specimens, in truth: one scrubby
and undersized, with knots in his fur, the other a
giant but clumsy, slow,
actually fat. Any Hero seeing them would know their
brilliance, since such
disgusting examples of bad inheritance would only be
kept alive for the most
pressing of needs.
The governor schooled himself to wait, shifting only
enough to keep his heated
muscles from stiffening. The big technician mumbled
to himself, occasionally
taking out a brick of dull-red dried meat from his
equipment apron and stuffing
it into his mouth. Chuut-Riit caught a whiff of it
and gagged, as much at the
thought of someone eating infantry rations for
pleasure as at the
well-remembered smell. The other one muttered as
well, but he chewed on the ends
of his claws. Those on his right hand were actually
frayed at the tips, useless
for anything but scratching its doubtless completely
ungroomed and verminous
pelt.
"Is the system compromised?" Chuut-Riit said again,
patiently. Infosystems
specialists were as bad as telepaths.
"Hrrwweo?" muttered the small one, blinking back to a
consciousness somewhat
more in congruence with the others'. "Well, we
couldn't know that, could
we?-Chuut-Riit," he added hastily, as he noticed the
governor's expression and
scent.
"What-do-you-mean?" he said.
"Well, Chuut-Riit, a successful clandestine insertion
is undetectable by
definition, hrrrrr? We're pretty sure we've found
their tracks. Computer,
isolate-alpha, linear schematic, level three." A
complex webbing sprang up all
around the room, blue lines with a few sections
picked out in green. "See,
Dominant One, where the picks were inserted? So that
the config elements could
be accessed and altered from an external source
without detection. We've
neutralized them, of course."
The claws went back into his mouth, and he mumbled
around them. "This was
humans, wasn't it? It has their scent. Very
three-dimensional; I suppose it
comes of their being monkeys. They do some wonderful
gaming programs, very
ingeniou- I abase myself in apology, Chuut-Riit." He
flattened to the ground and
covered his dry granular-looking nose. "We are as
sure as we can be that all the
unauthorized elements have been purged." To his
companion: "Wake up, suckling!"
"Whirrrr?" the fat giant chirruped, stopped his
continuous nervous purring and
then started. "Oh, yes. Lovely system you have here,
Chuut-Riit. Yes, I think
we've got it. I would like to meet the monkeys who
did the alterations, very
subtle work."
"You may go," he said, and crouched brooding,
scratching moodily behind one ear.
The internal-security team was in now, with the
sniffer-machines to isolate the
scent molecules of the intruders.
"I would like to meet them too," he said, and a line
of saliva spun itself down
from one thin black lip. He snapped it back with a
wet chop and licked his nose
with a broad wash of pink tongue. "I would like that
very much."

Chapter 6
"Somehow I think it's too quiet," Ingrid said. When
Jonah cast a blankly puzzled
look over his shoulder, she shrugged. "Aren't you
interested in anything
cultural?"
"I'm interested in staying alive," Jonah said.
They were strolling quietly down one of the riverside
walks. The Donau rolled
beside them, two kilometers across; it sparkled blue
and green-gray, little
waves showing white. A bridge soared from bank to
bank, and sailboats heeled far
over under the stiff warm breeze. Away from the
shrilling poverty of the
residential quarters, the air smelled of silty water,
grass, flowers.
"Of course, staying alive from now on jeopardizes the
mission," Jonah continued.
"No." Ingrid shook her head. "You have to get back."
"I do? Why?"
"You just do." Murphy's balls! Those ARM psychists
really do know their stuff.
He's forgotten already. What have I forgotten? It's
no fun, holes in your
memory. Even if they're deliberate.
"The plan doesn't matter," Jonah said. "If it were
going to blow, it would have
done it. And we'd have heard the bang." Something
itched at the back of his
mind. "Unless-"
"Jonah?"
"Nothing." I don't want to remember. Or maybe there's
nothing to remember. "My
hand hurts. Wonder what I did to it?"
"You don't need to know that, either." It was the
tenth time he'd asked. Clearly
the psychists had done some powerful voodoo on Jonah.
After the war, I'm getting out of Sol system. The
more I learn about the ARM,
the more they look nearly as bad as the kzin. Maybe I
should write a book
exposing them or something.
It was odd that there was so little resentment of
them, back among the
flatlanders-even the Sol-Belters didn't kick up much
of a fuss anymore. Or,
considering Jonah's present state, maybe not so odd.
She shivered and put it out
of her mind; time enough for that later, if she lived.
They hailed a pedicab and climbed into the
twin-passenger back seat. They had
both been surprised to see the little vehicles
skittering about the streets;
surely machinery could not have become that
expensive. The man hunched over the
pedals was thin, all wire and leather, dressed only
in a pair of ragged shorts.
It was not that machines were so dear, but that labor
was so cheap, labor of a
certain kind. For those with skills needed by the
kzinti war economy, there was
enough capital to support reasonable productivity.
For the increasing number of
those without, there was only what unaided brute
labor would buy: starvation
wages.
Get your mind off the troubles of Wunderland and on
to the more urgent matter of
saving your own ass, she told herself as they turned
into the Baha'i quarter.
Back to Harold's Terran Bar . . . She winced. Then
out to the Swarm; the
Catskinner would be waiting, and Markham would simply
have to accept them; that
was one of the virtues of a ship with a will of its
own. Then a straight boost
out of the system; a Dart usually didn't have
anything approaching interstellar
capacity, but the stasis field changed things. Boost
out, tightbeam the precious
data, and wait for the fleet to scoop them up.
Nothing could affect them within
a stasis field, but the field as a whole could still
be manipulated with a
gravity-polarizer . . .
The chances of coming through this with a whole skin
had seemed so remote that
it wasn't even worth the trouble of thinking about.
Now . . .
The ship will hold three. Hari, this time I won't
leave you.
They turned into the street that fronted Harold's
Terran Bar. Ingrid had just
time enough to see the owner standing beside Claude
at the entrance. The police
vomited forth, dark in their turtle helmets and
goggles, and aircars rose
silently over the roofs all about. Giant ginger-red
shapes behind them-
She rolled out of her side of the pedicab as Jonah
did on his, a motion so
smooth they might have rehearsed it. The light-pen
was in her hand, and it made
its yawping sound. A policeman died, dropping like a
puppet with the strings
cut, and she dove forward, rolling, trying for an
angle at the kzin and-
Blackness.
***
"The interrogation is complete?" Chuut-Riit reclined
again at ease on the
bubblecouch behind his desk; a censer was sending up
aromatic smoke.
The holo on the far wall showed a room beneath the
Munchen police headquarters;
a combination of human and kzin talents had long
proven most effective for such
work. Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals was there, and a
shabby-looking Telepath. The
mind-reader's fur was matted and his hands twitched;
Chuut-Riit could see
spatters of vomit down the front of his pelt, and
hear his mumble:
" . . . salad, no, no, ak, ak, pftht, no please
boiled carrots ak, pfffth . . ."
He shuddered slightly in sympathy, thinking of what
it must be like to enter the
mind of a human free-associating under drugs and
pain. Telepathy was not like
speech, it was a sharing that extended to sensations
and memory as well. Food
was a very fundamental drive. It would be bad enough
to have to share the memory
of eating the cremated meats humans were fond of-the
very stink of them was
enough to turn your stomach-but cooked plants . . .
Telepath fumbled something
out of a wrist-pouch and carefully parted the fur on
one side of his neck before
pressing it to the skin. There was a hiss, and he
sank against the wall with a
sigh of relief. His eyes slitted and he leaned chin
on knees with a high-pitched
irregular purr, the tip of his tongue showing pink
past his whiskers.
Chuut-Riit wrinkled his nose and dismissed false
compassion. How could you
sympathize with something that was a voluntary slave
to a drug? And to an
extract of sthondat blood at that.
"Yes, Chuut-Riit," Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals said.
"Telepath's reading agrees with what the trained
monkeys determined with their
truth drugs." Chuut-Riit reminded himself that the
drugs actually merely
suppressed inhibition. "The attempt was a last-minute
afterthought to the main
attack of the monkey ship last month. Some gravitic
device was used to
decelerate a pod with these two; they came down in a
remote area, using the
disturbances of the attack as cover, and reached the
city on foot. Their aim was
to trigger the self-destruct mechanisms on your
estate, but they were unable to
do so."
Chuut-Riit brooded, looking past the kzin liaison
officer to the human behind
him. "You are not the human in charge of the Munchen
police," he said.
"No, Chuut-Riit," the human said. It was a female. A
flabby one, the sort that
would squish unpleasantly when your fangs ripped open
the body cavity, and
somehow the holo gave the impression of an unpleasant
odor.
"I am Chief Assistant Axelrod-Bauergartner at your
service, Dominant One," she
continued, giving the title in a reasonably good
approximation of the Hero's
Tongue. A little insolent? Perhaps-but also
commendable, and the deferential
posture was faultless. "Chief Montferrat-Palme
delegated this summary of the
investigation, feeling that it was not important
enough to warrant his personal
attention."
"Chrrrriii," Chuut-Riit said, scratching one cheek
against a piece of driftwood
in a stand on his desk. This Montferrat-creature did
not consider an attack on
the governor's private control system important? That
monkey was developing a
distorted sense of its priorities. The human in the
screen had blanched slightly
at the kzin equivalent of an irritated scowl; he let
his lips lower back over
the fangs and continued:
"Show me the subjects." Axelrod-Bauergartner stepped
aside, to show two humans
clamped in adjustable plastic brackets amid a forest
of equipment. These were
two fine specimens, tall and lean in the manner of
the space-bred subspecies;
both unconscious, but seeming healthy enough apart
from the usual superficial
cuts, abrasions, and bruises. "What is their
condition?"
"No irreparable physical or mental harm, Chuut-Riit,"
Axelrod-Bauergartner said,
bowing. "What are your orders as to their disposal?"
"Rrrrr," Chuut-Riit mused, shifting to rub the
underside of his jaw on the wood.
The last public hunt had been yesterday, the one to
which he had taken his sons.
"How soon can they be in condition to run amusingly?"
he said.
"Half a week, Chuut-Riit. We have been cautious."
"Prepare them." His sons? No, best not to be too
indulgent. There was a
badsmelling lot of administrative work to be attended
to; he would be chained to
his desk for a goodly while anyway. Let the little
devils attend to their
studies, and he would visit them again when this had
been disposed of. Besides,
while free there had been a certain attraction in the
prospect of dealing with
this pair personally; as captives they were just two
more specimens of
monkeymeat-beneath his dignity.
"Get a good batch together, and have them all ready
for the Public Preserve at
the end of the week. Dismissed."
***
"Was that Suuomalisen I saw coming out of here?"
Montferrat said.
"Unless you know another fat, sweaty toad in a linen
suit looking like he'd just
swallowed the juiciest fly on the planet." Yarthkin
grinned like a shark as he
settled behind his desk and pushed a pile of data
chips and hardcopy to one
side. "Sit yourself down, Claude, and have a drink.
If it isn't too early."
"Fifteen hundred too early? That's in bad taste, even
for you." But the hand
that reached for the Maivin shook slightly, and there
were wrinkles in the
tunic. "But why was he so happy?"
"I just sold him Harold's Terran Bar," Yarthkin said
calmly. Light-headed, he
laughed, a boy's laugh. "Prosit!" he toasted, and
tossed back his own drink.
"What!" That was enough to bring him bolt-upright.
"Why-what-you've been turning
that swine down for thirty years!"
"Swine, Claude?" Yarthkin leaned forward, resting his
chin on paired thumbs. "Or
have you forgotten exactly who's to be monkeymeat day
after tomorrow?"
The reaction was more than Yarthkin had expected. A
jerk, as if a high-voltage
current surged through the other man's body. A dry
retching sound. Then,
incredibly, the aquiline Herrenmann's face crumpled.
As if it were a mask,
slumping and wrinkling like a balloon from which the
air has been withdrawn . .
. and he was crying, head slumping down into his
hands. Yarthkin swallowed and
looked away; Claude was a collabo and a sellout, an
extortionist without shame .
. . but nobody should see another man this naked. It
was obscene.
"Pull yourself together, Claude; I've known you were
a bastard for forty years,
but I thought you were a man, at least."
"So did I," gasped Montferrat. "I even have the
medals to prove it. I fought
well in the war."
"I know."
"So when, when they let us out of the detention camp,
I really thought I could
help. I really did." He laughed. "Life had to go on,
criminals had to be caught,
we were beaten and resistance just made it harder on
everyone. I'd been a good
policeman. I still could be."
He drank, choked, drank. "The graft, everyone had to.
They wouldn't let you get
past foot-patrol if you weren't on the pad too, you
had to be in it with them.
If I didn't get promotion how could I accomplish
anything? I told myself that,
but every year a little more of me was gone. And now,
now Ingrid's back and I
can see myself in her eyes and I know what I am, no
better than that animal
Axelrod-Bauergartner, she's gloating, she has me on
this and I couldn't,
couldn't do it. I told her to take care of it all and
went and I've been drunk
most of the time since, she'll have my head and I
deserve it, why try and stop
her, it-"
Yarthkin leaned forward and slapped the policeman
alongside the head with his
open palm, a gunshot crack in the narrow confines of
the office. Montferrat's
mood switched with mercurial swiftness, and he
snarled with a mindless sound as
he reached for his sidearm. But alcohol is a
depressant, and his hand had barely
touched the butt before the other man's stunner was
pointed between his eyes.
"Neyn, neyn, naughty," Yarthkin said cheerfully.
"Hell of a headache, Claude.
Now, I won't say you don't deserve it, but
sacrificing your own liver and lights
isn't going to do Ingrid any good." He kept the
weapon unwavering until
Montferrat had won back a measure of self-command,
then laid it down on the desk
and offered a cigarette.
"My apologies," Montferrat said, wiping off his face
with a silk handkerchief.
"I do despise self-pity." The shredded cloak of his
ironic detachment settled
about him.
Yarthkin nodded. "That's better, sweetheart. I'm
selling the club because I need
ready capital, for relocation. Grubstaking my people,
the ones who don't want to
come with me or stay here."
"Go with you? Where? And what does this have to do
with Ingrid?"
Yarthkin grinned again, tapped ash off the end of his
cigarette. Exhilaration
filled him, and something that had been missing for
far too long. What? he
thought. Not youth . . . yes, that's it. Purpose.
"It isn't every man who's given a chance to do it
over right," he said. "That,
friend Claude, is what I'm going to do. We're going
to bust Ingrid out of that
Preserve. Give her a chance at it, at least." He held
up a hand. "Don't fuck
with me, Claude, I know as well as you that the
system there is managed through
Munchen Police HQ. One badly mangled corpse
substituted for another, what
ratcat's to know? It's been done before."
"Not by me," Montferrat said, shaking his head dully.
"I always kept out of the
setup side of the Hunts. Couldn't . . . I have to
watch them, anyway, too
often."
Odd how men cling to despair, once they've hit
bottom, Yarthkin thought. As if
hope were too much effort. Is that what surrender is,
then, just giving in to
exhaustion of the soul?
Aloud: "Computer, access file Till Eulenspiegel."
The surface of his desk flashed transparent and lit
with a series of coded
text-columns. Montferrat came erect with a shaken
oath.
"How . . . if you had that, all these years, why
haven't you used it?"
"Claude, the great drawback of blackmail is that it
gives the victim the best
possible incentive to find a permanent way of
shutting you up. Risky, especially
when dealing with the police. As to the how, you're
not under the impression
that you get the best people in the police, are you?"
A squint, and the gravelly
voice went soft. "Don't think I wouldn't use it,
sweetheart, if you won't
cooperate, and there's more than enough to put you in
the edible-delicacy
category. Think of it as God's way of giving you an
incentive to get back on the
straight and narrow."
"I tell you, Axelrod-Bauergartner has the command
codes for the Preserve! I can
override, but it would be flagged. Immediately."
"Computer, display file Niebelungen AA37Bi22. Damned
lack of imagination, that
code . . . There it is, Claude. Everything you always
wanted to know about your
most ambitious subordinate but were afraid to ask,
including her private bypass
programs." Another flick of ash. "Finagle, Claude,
you can probably make all
this look like her fault, even if the ratcat smells
the proverbial rodent."
Montferrat smoothed down his uniform tunic, and it
was as if the gesture slicked
transparent armor across his skin once more. "You
appear to have me by the short
and sensitives, kamerat," he said lightly. "Not
entirely to my dismay. The plan
is, then, that Ingrid and her gallant Sol-Belter are
whisked away from under the
noses of the kzin, while you go to ground?"
Yarthkin laughed, a shocking sound. "Appearances to
the contrary, Claude old
son, you were always the romantic of us two. The one
for the noble gesture.
Nothing of the sort: Ingrid and I are going to the
Swarm."
"And the man, Jonah?"
"Fuck him. Let the ratcats have him. His job was done
the minute they failed to
dig the real story out of him."
Montferrat managed a laugh. "This is quite a reversal
of roles, Hari . . . but
this, this final twist, it makes it seem possible,
somehow." He extended a hand.
"Seeing as you have the gun to my head, why not?
Working together again, eh?"
***
"All right, listen up," the guard said.
Jonah shook his head, shook out the last of the fog.
Ingrid sat beside him on
the plain slatted wood of the bench, in this
incongruous pen-change-rooms for a
country club, once. Now a set of run-down stone
buildings in the midst of shaggy
overgrown wilderness, with the side open to the
remnants of lawn and terrace
covered with a shockfield. He looked around; there
were a round two dozen humans
with them, all clad alike in gray prison trousers and
shirts. All quiet. The
shockrods of the guards had enforced that. Some
weeping, a few catatonic, and
there was an unpleasant fecal smell.
"You get an hour's start," the guard said, in a voice
of bored routine. "And
you'd better run, believe me."
"Up yours!" somebody shouted, and laughed when the
guard raised her rod. "What
you going to do, ratcat-lover, condemn me to death?"
The guard shrugged. "You ever seen a house cat
playing with a mumbly?" she
jeered. "The ratcats like a good chase. Disappoint
them and they'll bat you
around like a toy." She stepped back, and the door
opened. "Hell, keep ahead of
them for two days and maybe they'll let you go." A
burly man rose and charged,
bounced back as she took another step through the
door.
Laughter, through the transparent surface. "Have fun,
porkchops. I'll watch you
die. Five minutes to shield-down."
"You all right?" Jonah asked. Neither of them had
been much damaged physically
by the interrogation; it had been done in a police
headquarters, where the most
modern methods were available, not crude
field-expedients. And the psychists'
shields had worked perfectly; the great weakness of
telepathic interrogation is
that it can only detect what the subject believes to
be true. It had been
debatable whether the blocks and artificial memories
would hold. . . . Kzin
telepaths hated staying in a human's mind more than
they had to, and the drug
addiction that helped to develop their talents did
little for motivation or
intelligence.
"Fine," Ingrid said, raising her head from her knees.
"Just thinking how pretty
it is out there," she continued; tears starred her
lashes, but her voice was
steady.
Startled, he looked again through the near-invisible
shimmer of the shockfield.
The long green-gold grass was rippling under a
late-afternoon sun, starred with
flowers like living jewel-flecks; a line of flamingos
skimmed by, down to the
little pond at the base of the hill. Beyond was
forest, flowering dogwood in a
fountain of white against the flickering-shiny olive
drab of native kampfwald
trees. The shockfield let slow-moving air through,
carrying scents of leaf mold,
green, purity.
"You're right," he said. They clasped hands,
embraced, stepped back and saluted
each other formally. "It's been . . . good knowing
you, Lieutenant Ingrid."
"Likewise, Captain Jonah." A gamin smile. "Finagle's
arse, we're not dead yet,
are we?"

"Huh. Hun-huh." Lights spun before Jonah's eyes,
wrenching his stomach with more
nausea. Gummy saliva blocked his mouth as he tumbled
over the lip of the gully,
crashing through brush that ripped and tore with
living fingers of thorn and
bramble. Tumble, roll, down through the brush-covered
sixty-degree slope, out
into the patch of gravel and sparse spaghetti-like
grass analog at the bottom.
To lie and rest, Murphy, to rest . . .
Memories were returning. Evidently his subconscious
believed there wouldn't be
another interrogation. Believed they were dead
already. My fingernail. I have to
escape. And there's a laugh . . . but I have to try.
He turned the final roll into a flip and came erect,
facing in the direction of
his flight; forced his diaphragm to breathe, stomach
out to suck air into the
bottom of the lungs. His chest felt tight and hot, as
if the air pumping through
it was nothing, vacuum, inert gas. Will kept him
steady, blinked his eyes into
focus. He was in a patch of bright sunlight, the
forest above deep green-gold
shade that flickered; the soil under his feet was
damp, impossibly cool on his
skin. The wind was blowing toward him, which meant
that the kzin would be
following ground-scent rather than what floated on
the breeze. Kzin noses were
not nearly as sensitive as a hound's, but several
thousand times more acute than
a human's.
And I must stink to high heaven, he thought. Even
then he could smell himself;
he hawked and spat, taking a firmer grip on his
improvised weapon. That was a
length of branch and a rock half the size of his
head, dangling from the end by
thin strong vines; thank Murphy that Wunderland flora
ran to creepers . . .
"One," he muttered to himself. "There ain't no
justice, I know, but please, just
let me get one." His breathing was slowing, and he
became conscious of thirst,
then the gnawing emptiness under his ribs. The sun
was high overhead; nearly a
day already? How many of the others were still alive?
A flicker of movement at the lip of the ravine, ten
meters above him and twenty
away. Jonah swung the stone-age morningstar around
his head and roared. And the
kzin halted its headlong four-footed rush, rose like
an unfolding wall of
brown-red dappled in the light at the edge of the
tall trees, and slashed across
with the white of teeth. Great round eyes, and he
could imagine the pupils going
pinpoint; the kzin homeworld was not only colder than
Wunderland, it was dimmer.
Batwing ears unfolding, straining for sound. He would
have to stop that, their
hearing was keen enough to pick a human heartbeat out
of the background noise.
This was a young male, he would be hot, hot for the
kill and salt blood to
quench his thirst and let him rest . . .
"Come on, you kshat, you sthondat-eater," Jonah
yelled in the snarling tones of
the Hero's Tongue. "Come and get your Name, kinless
offspring of cowards, come
and eat turnips out of my shit, grass-grazer! Ch'rowl
you!"
The kzin screamed, a raw wailing shriek that echoed
down the ravine; screamed
again and leaped in an impossible soaring curve that
took it halfway down the
steep slope.
"Now, Ingrid. Now!" Jonah shouted, and ran forward.
The woman rose from the last, thicker scrub at the
edge of the slope, where
water nourished taller bushes. Rose just as the
second bounding leap passed its
arc, the kzin spread-eagled against the sky, taloned
hands outstretched to grasp
and tear. The three-meter pole rose with her, butt
against the earth, sharpened
tip reaching for the alien's belly. It struck, and
the wet ripping sound was
audible even over the berserk siren shriek of the
young kzin's pain.
It toppled forward and sideways, thrashing and
ululating with the long pole
transfixing it. Down onto Ingrid's position, and he
forced rubbery leg muscles
into a final sprint, a leap and scream of his own.
Then he was there, in among
the clinging brush and it was there too, convulsing.
He darted in, swung, and
the rock smashed into a hand that was lashing for his
throat; the kzin wailed
again, put its free hand to the spear, pulled while
it kept him at bay with
lunging snaps. Ingrid was on the other side with a
second spear, jabbing; he
danced in, heedless of the fangs, and swung
two-handed. The rock landed at the
juncture of thick neck and sloping shoulder, and
something snapped. The shock of
it ran back up his arms.
The pair moved in, stabbing, smashing, block and
wriggle and jump and strike,
and the broken alien crawled toward them with inhuman
vitality, growling and
whimpering and moving even with the dull-pink bulge
of intestine showing where
it had ripped the jagged wood out of its flesh. Fur,
flesh, scraps of leaf, dust
scattering about . . . Until at last too many bones
were broken and too much of
the dark-red blood spilled, and it lay twitching. The
humans lay just out of
reach, sobbing back their breaths; Jonah could hear
the kzin's cries over the
thunder in his ears, hear them turn to high-pitched
words in the Hero's Tongue:
"It hurts . . ." The Sol-Belter rolled to his knees.
His shadow fell across the
battered, swollen eyes of his enemy. "It hurts . . .
Mother, you've come back,
Mother-" The shattered paw-hands made kneading
motions. "Help me, take away the
noise in my head, Mother . . ." Presently it died.
"That's one for a pallbearer." The end of his finger
throbbed. "Goddamn it, I
can't escape!"
Ingrid tried to rise, fell back with a faint cry.
Jonah was at her side, hands
moving on the ruffled tatters that streaked down one
thigh.
"How bad . . . ?" He pushed back the ruined cloth.
Blood was runneling down the
slim length of the woman's leg, not pumping but in a
steady flow. "Damn, tanj,
tanj, tanj!" He ripped at his shirt for a
pressure-bandage, tied it on with the
thin vines scattered everywhere about. "Here, here's
your spear, lean on it,
come on." He darted back to the body; there was a
knife at its belt, a long
heavy-bladed wtsai. Jonah ripped it free, looped the
belt over one shoulder like
a baldric.
"Let's move," he said, staggering slightly. She
leaned on the spear hard enough
to drive the blunt end inches deep into the sandy
gravel, and shook her head.
"No, I'd slow you down. You're the one who has to get
away. Get going."
His finger throbbed anew to remind him. And she's
Hari's girl, not mine. But-
Another memory returned, and he laughed.
"Something's funny?"
"Yeah, maybe it is! Maybe-hell, I bet it worked!"
"What worked?"
"Tell you on the way."
"No, you won't. I'm not coming with you. Now get
going!"
"Murphy bugger that with a diode, Lieutenant, get
moving, that's an order."
She put an arm around his shoulder and they hobbled
down the shifting footing of
the ravine's bed. There was a crooked smile on her
face as she spoke.
"Well, it's not as if we had anywhere to go, is it?"
***
The kzin governor of Wunderland paced tiredly toward
the gate of his children's
quarters, grooming absently. The hunt had gone well;
the intruder-humans were
undoubtedly beginning a short passage through some
lucky Hero's digestive
system, and it was time to relax.
"Hrrrr," Traat-Admiral said beside him. "I still feel
uneasy leaving the
planetary surface while ambushers may lurk, Dominant
One," he said.
Chuut-Riit stopped, and turned to face the other
kzin. Traat-Admiral was a
decade older than him, and several hands higher, but
there was nothing but real
worry and concern in his stance. The viceroy put both
hands on Traat-Admiral's
shoulders.
"No need for formalities between us," he said, and
then added deliberately: "My
brother."
Traat-Admiral froze, and there were gasps from some
of the others within
hearing. That was a rare honor for a kzin not
blood-related, overwhelmingly so
considering the difference in hereditary rank. And a
public avowal at that;
Traat-Admiral licked his whiskers convulsively,
deeply moved.
"You are my most trusted one," Chuut-Riit said. "Now
that we know some human
infiltrators were dropped off during the raid, that .
. . thing of which we
speculated becomes more than a theoretical
possibility. Affairs are still in
chaos here-the Fifth Fleet has been delayed half a
decade or more-and I need
someone fully in my trust to order the space-search."
"I will not fail you, Dom-Elder Brother,"
Traat-Admiral said fervently.
"Besides, the enemy humans here on Wunderland"-it was
a long standing joke that
the kzinti name for the planet meant lovely hunting
ground-"have been disposed
of. Go, and hunt well."

Perhaps I should have stayed to track them myself, he
mused as he passed the
last guard station with an absentminded wave. No, why
bother. That prey is
already caught; this was simply a re-enactment.
Chuut-Riit felt the repaired doors swing shut before
him and glanced around in
puzzlement, the silence penetrating through post-Hunt
sluggishness. The
courtyard was deserted, and it had been nearly seven
days since his last visit;
far too soon for another assassination attempt, but
the older children should
have been boiling out to greet him, questioning and
frolicking . . . He turned
and keyed the terminal in the stone beside the door.
Nothing. The kzin blinked in puzzlement. Odd. There
has been no record of any
malfunction. In instinctive reflex he lowered himself
to all fours and sniffed;
the usual sand-rock-metal scents, multiple young-kzin
male smells, always
slightly nerve-wracking. Something underneath that,
and he licked his nose to
moisten it and drew in a long breath with his mouth
half open.
He started back, arching his spine and bristling with
a growling hiss, tail
rigid. Dead meat and blood. Whirling, he slapped for
the exterior communicator.
"Guard-Captain, respond. Guard-Captain, respond
immediately."
Nothing. He bent, tensed, leaped for the summit of
the wall. A crackling
discharge met him, a blue corona around the sharp
twisted iron of the
battlement's top that sent pain searing through the
palms of his outstretched
hands. The wards were set on maximum force, and he
fell to the ground cradling
his burned palms. Rage bit through him, stronger than
pain or thought; someone
had menaced his children, his future, the blood of
the Riit. His snarl was
soundless as he dashed on all fours across the open
space of the courtyard and
into the entrance of the warren.
It was dark, the glowpanels out and the ventilators
silent; for the first time
it even smelled like a castle on homeworld, purely of
old stone, iron, and
blood. Fresh blood on something near the entrance. He
bent, the huge round
circles of his eyes going black as the pupils
expanded. A sword, a four-foot
kreera with a double saw edge. The real article,
heavy wave-forged steel, from
the sealed training cabinets which should only have
opened to his own touch.
Ignoring the pain as burned tissue cracked and oozed
fluids, he reached for the
long hide-wound bone grip of the weapon. The edges of
the blade glimmered with
dark wet, set with a mat of orange-red hairs.
His arm bent, feeling the weight of the metal as he
dropped into the crook-kneed
defensive stance, with the lead ball of the pommel
held level with his eyes. The
corridor twisted off before him, the faint light of
occasional skylights picking
out the edges of granite blocks and the black iron
doors with their central
locks cast in the shape of beast-masked ancestral
warriors. Chuut-Riit's ears
cocked forward and his mouth opened, dropping the
lower jaw toward the chest:
maximum flow over the nasal passages to catch scent,
and fangs ready to tear at
anything that got past the weapon in his hands. He
edged down the corridor one
swift careful step at a time, heading for the central
tower where he could do
something, even if it was only lighting a signal fire.
Insane, he thought with a corner of his mind that
watched his slinking progress
through the dark halls. It was insane, like something
from the ancient songs of
homeworld. Like the Siege of Zeeroau, the Heroic Band
manning the ramparts
against the prophet, dwindling one by one from wounds
and weariness and the
hunger-frenzy that sent them down into the catacombs
to hunt and then the
dreadful feasting.
Chuut-Riit turned a corner and wheeled, blade up to
meet a possible attack from
the dropstand over the corner. Nothing, but the
whirl-and-cut brought him flush
against the opposite wall, and he padded on. Noise
and smell; a thin mewling,
and an overpowering stink of kzinmeat. A door, and
the first body before it.
There was little of the soft tissue left, but the
face was intact. One of his
older sons, the teeth frozen in an eternal snarl;
blood was splashed about, far
more than one body could account for. Walls, floor,
ceiling, gouts and spattered
trails that dripped down in slow congealing trails
toward the floor. A chugra
spear lay broken by the wall, alongside a battered
metal shield; the sound had
been coming from behind the door the corpse guarded,
but now he could hear
nothing.
No, wait. His ears folded out to their maximum.
Breathing. A multiple rapid
panting. He tried the door; it was unlocked, but
something had it jammed closed.
A mewl sounded as he leaned his weight against it and
the iron creaked. "Open!"
he snarled. "Open at once."
More mewls, and a metallic tapping. The panel lurched
inward, and he stooped to
fill the doorway.
The infants, he thought. A heap in the far corner of
the room, squirming spotted
fur and huge terrified eyes peering back at him. The
younger ones, the kits just
recently taken from their mothers; at the sight of
him they set up the thin
eeeuw-eeeuw-eeeuw that was the kzin child's cry of
distress.
"Daddy!" one of them said. "We're so hungry, Daddy.
We're so frightened. He said
we should stay in here and not open the door and not
cry but there were awful
noises and its been so long and we're hungry, Daddy,
Daddy-"
Chuut-Riit uttered a grating sound deep in his chest
and looked down. His son's
wtsai had been wedged to hold the door from the
inside; the kits must have done
it at his instruction, while he went outside to face
the hunters. Hunger-frenzy
eroded what little patience an adolescent kzin
possessed, as well as intellect;
they would not spend long hammering at a closed door,
not with fresh meat to
hand and the smell of blood in their nostrils.
"Silence," he said, and they shrank back into a heap.
Chuut-Riit forced
gentleness into his voice. "Something very bad has
happened," he said. "Your
brother was right, you must stay here and make no
noise. Soon I . . . soon I or
another adult will come and feed you. Do you
understand?" Uncertain nods. "Put
the knife back in the door when I go out. Then wait.
Understand?"
He swung the door shut and looked down into his son's
face while the kits
hammered the knifeblade under it from the inside.
"You did not die in vain, my brave one," he
whispered, very low, settling into a
crouch with the sword ready. "Kdari-Riit," he added,
giving the dead a full
Name. Now I must wait. Wait to be sure none of the
gone-mad ones had heard him,
then do his best. There would be an alert,
eventually. The infants did not have
the hormone-driven manic energy of adolescents. They
would survive.
***
"Zroght-Guard-Captain," the human said. "Oh, thank
God!"
The head of the viceregal household troopers rose
blinking from his
sleeping-box, scratching vigorously behind one ear.
"Yes, Henrietta?" he said.
"It's Chuut-Riit," she said. "Zroght-Guard-Captain,
it wasn't him who refused to
answer-I knew it and now we've found tampering; the
technicians say they missed
something the first time. We still can't get through
to him in the children's
quarters. And the records say the armory's open and
they haven't been fed for a
week!"
The guard-captain wasted no time in speech with the
sobbing human; it would take
enough time to physically breach the defenses of the
children's quarters.
***
"Hrrnnngg-ha," Chuut-Riit gasped, panting with
lolling tongue. The corner of the
exercise room had given him a little protection, the
desks and machinery a
little more. Now a dozen lanky bodies interlaced
through the equipment about his
feet, and the survivors had drawn back to the other
end of the room. There was
little sentience left in the eyes that peered at him
out of the starved faces,
not enough to use missile-weapons. Dim sunlight
glinted on their teeth and the
red gape of their mouths, on bellies fallen in below
barrel-hoop ribs.
That last rush almost had me, he thought. An odd
detachment had settled over
him; with a sad pride he noticed the coordination of
their movements even now,
spreading out in a semicircle to bar the way to the
doors. He was bleeding from
a dozen superficial cuts, and the long sword felt
like a bar of neutronium in
his hands. The blade shone liquid-wet along its whole
length now, and the hilt
was slimy in his numb grip, slick with blood and the
lymph from his burned
hands; he twisted it in a whistling circle that flung
droplets as far as the
closing pack. Chuut-Riit threw back his head and
shrieked, an eerie keening
sound that filled the vaulted chamber. They checked
for a moment; shrinking
back. If he could keep them . . .
Movement at his feet, from the pile of bodies. Cold
in his side, so cold,
looking down at the hilt of the wtsai driven up into
the lung, the overwhelming
salt taste of his own blood. The one they called
Spotty crawled free of the
piled bodies, broken-backed but evading his weakened
slash.
"Kill him," the adolescent panted. "Kill the
betrayer, kill him."
The waiting children shrieked and leapt.
***
"He must have made his last stand here,"
Zroght-Guard-Captain said, looking
around the nursery. The floor was a tumbled chaos of
toys, wooden weapons,
printout books; the walls still danced their holo
gavotte of kits leaping amid
grass and butterflies. There was very little of the
kzin governor of the Alpha
Centauri system left; a few of the major bones, and
the skull, scattered among
smaller fragments from his sons, the ones wounded in
the fighting and unable to
defend themselves from their ravenous brothers. The
mom stank of blood and old
meat.
"Zroght-Guard-Captain!" one of the troopers said.
They all tensed, fully-armed
as they were. Most of the young ones were still at
large, equipped from the
practice rooms, and they seemed ghostly clever.
"A message, Zroght-Guard-Captain." The warrior held
up a pad of paper; the words
were in a rusty brownish liquid, evidently written
with a claw. Chuut-Riit's
claw, that was his sigil at the bottom. The captain
flipped up the visor of his
helmet and read:

FORGIVE THEM

Zroght chirred. There might be time for that, after
the succession struggle
ended.
***
"Gottdamn, they're out of range of the last pickup,"
Montferrat said.
Yarthkin grunted, careful to stay behind the
policeman. The tubecar route was an
old one, left here when this was a country club. The
entrance was a secluded
cleft in the rocky hill, and it appeared on no kzin
records; its Herrenmann
owners had felt no need to inform the municipal
authorities of what they did,
and had died in the war. His hand felt tight and
clammy on the handle of the
stunner, and every rustle and creak in the wilderness
about them was a lurking
kzin.
Teufel, I could use a smoke, he thought. Insane, of
course, with ratcat noses
coursing through the woods.
"Are they alive?" he asked tightly.
"The tracers are still active, but with this little
interfacer I can't-Ingrid!"
He made a half-step forward. A pair of scarecrow
figures stumbled past the
entrance to the cleft, halted with a swaying motion
that spoke of despair born
of utter exhaustion. The man was scratched and
bloodied; Yarthkin's eyes widened
at the scraps of dried fur and blood and matter
clinging to the rude weapon in
his hand. Both of them were spattered with similar
reminders, rank with the
smell of it and the sweat that glistened in tracks
through the dirt on their
faces. More yet on the sharpened pole that Ingrid
leaned on as a crutch, and
fresh blood on the bandage at her thigh.
Jonah was straightening. "You here to help the
pussies beat the bushes?" he
panted. Ingrid looked up, blinked crusted eyes, moved
closer to her companion.
Yarthkin halted, speechless, shook his head.
"Actually, this is a mission of mercy," Montferrat
began in his cool tone. Then
words ripped out of him: "Gottdamn, there are two
kzin coming up, I'm getting
their tracers." Fingers played over his interfacer.
"They're stopping about a
kilometer back-"
"Where we left the body of the one we killed," Jonah
said. His eyes met
Yarthkin's levelly; the Wunderlander felt something
lurch in the pit of his
stomach at the dawning wonder in Ingrid's.
"Yah, mission of mercy, time to get on with it," he
said, stepping forward and
planting the projector cone of his stunner firmly in
Montferrat's back. "Here."
He reached, took the policeman's stunner from his
belt and tossed it to Jonah.
"And here." An envelope from inside his own neatly
tailored hunting-jacket.
"False identity, guaranteed good ones. You'll have to
get cosmetic work done to
match, but there's everything you need in the room at
the other end of the
tubeline here. Money, clothes, contacts."
"Tube?" Jonah said.
"Hari-" Montferrat began, and subsided at a sharp jab.
"You said it, sweetheart," Yarthkin replied. His tone
was light, but his eyes
were on the woman.
"We can't leave you here," she began.
Yarthkin laughed. "I didn't intend for you to, but it
looks like you'll have to.
Now get moving, sweetheart."
"You don't understand," Ingrid said. "Jonah's the one
who has to get away. Give
him the permit."
"The Boy Scout? Not on your life-"
"You can give it to me. No, don't move." The voice
came from behind him, the
tube entrance; a woman's voice, with a hint of a
sneer in it.
"Efficient as usual," Montferrat said, with a tired
slump of the shoulders.
"Allow me to introduce my ambitious chief assistant."
"Indeed, dear Chief," Axelrod-Bauergartner said as
she strolled around to where
everyone was visible. The chunky weapon in her arms
was no stunner; it was a
strakaker, capable of spraying them all with
hypervelocity pellets with a single
movement of her finger. "Drop it, commoner," she
continued in a flat voice.
"Thanks for disarming the chief."
Yarthkin's stunner fell to the ground. "Did you
really think, Chief, that I
wasn't going to check what commands went out under my
codes? I look at the
events record five times a day when things are
normal. Nice sweet setup, puts
all the blame on me . . . except that when I show the
kzin your bodies, I'll be
the new commissioner."
The tableau held for a moment, until Montferrat
coughed. "I don't suppose my
clandestine fund account . . . ?" He moved with
exaggerated care as he produced
a screenpad and light-stylus.
Axelrod-Bauergartner laughed again. "Sure, we can
make a deal. Write out the
number, by all means," she taunted. "Porkchops don't
need ngggg."
The stylus yawped sharply once. The woman in police
uniform fell, with a
boneless finality that kept her finger from closing
on the trigger of her weapon
until her weight landed on it. A boulder twenty
meters away suddenly shed its
covering of vegetation and turned sandblast-smooth;
there was a click and hiss
as the strakaker's magazine ran empty.
Yarthkin coughed, struggled not to gasp. Montferrat
stooped, retrieved his
stunner, walked across to toe the limp body. "I knew
this would come in useful,"
he said, tapping the captured light-pencil against
the knuckles of one hand. His
eyes rose to meet Yarthkin's, and he smoothed back
his mustaches. "What a pity
that Axelrod-Bauergartner was secretly feral, found
here interfering with the
Hunt, a proscribed weapon in her hands . . . isn't
it?" His gaze shifted to
Ingrid and Jonah. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
The woman halted for an instant by Yarthkin. "Hari-"
she began. He laid a finger
across her lips.
"G'wan, kid," he said, with a wry twist of the lips.
"You've got a life
waiting."
"Wait a minute," she said, slapping the hand aside.
"Murphy's Balls, Hari! I
thought you'd grown up, but not enough, evidently.
Make all the sacrificial
gestures you want, but don't make them for me." A
gaunt smile. "And don't
flatter yourself, either."
She turned to Jonah, snapped a salute. "It's been . .
. interesting, Captain.
But this is my home . . . and if you don't remember
now why you have to get back
to the UN, you will."
"Data link-"
She laughed. "It would take hours to squirt all that
up to Catskinner and you
know it. Get moving, Captain. I'll be all right. Now
go."
He started to protest and his finger throbbed
unbearably. "All right, but I'll
wait as long as I can."
"You'll do nothing of the sort."
He hesitated for a second more, then walked to the
tubeway entrance. A capsule
hissed within.
Ingrid turned to face the two men. "You males do grow
up more slowly than we,"
she said with a dancing smile in her eyes. "But given
enough time . . . there
are some decisions that should have been made fifty
years ago. Not many get
another chance. Where are we going?"
Montferrat and Yarthkin glanced at each other, back
at the woman, with an
identical look of helpless bewilderment that did not
prevent the policeman from
setting the tube's guidance-plate.
"All three of us have a lot of catching up to do,"
she said, and swung the hatch
down over herself.
"Well," Montferrat said dazedly. "Well." A shake of
his head. "You next."
"Where did you send her?"
Montferrat grinned slightly. "You'll just have to
trust me to send you there
too, won't you?" Much of the old tube system was
still functioning.
"Claude-"
"You've been there. A landing stage, and then aircar
to my family's old lodge.
I've kept it hidden from-from everyone." He laughed
slightly. "You've already
had a head start with her. A few more days won't
matter. But when I get there,
I'll expect equal time. Now get moving, I have to set
the stage."
"Better come now."
"No. First I see that the Sol-Belter gets offworld.
Then I fix it so we can
follow. Both will take time."
"Can you bring that off, Claude?"
"Yes." He straightened, and the look of the true
Herrenmann was unmistakable.
"It's good to be alive again."

Chapter 7
In the great courtyard of the Viceregal castle, the
kzinti nobility of the Alpha
Centauri system gathered to pay their last respects
to Chuut-Riit. Stone and
spiked iron walls surrounded the court; edged metal
and orange fur crowded the
wooden bier.
What was left of the body was wrapped in
battle-banners atop a huge pile of
logs, precious and aromatic woods stacked in open
lattices. The pyre was hung
with banners, honors awarded for past campaigns, the
house emblems of nobles
Chuut-Riit had killed in duels. Raaiitiro and buffalo
had been slaughtered and
heaped around the base, to add the blood-scent of
victory. Other things lay
tumbled amid logs and flesh: fine weapons, ornaments,
heirlooms, the bodies of
six household troopers who had volunteered to
death-duel that they might
accompany their lord into the mind of God. Around and
around the great heap of
treasure danced the warriors of Kzin, shuffling,
leaping, twisting in midair to
snap fangs at the sky and land on all fours. Clangor
filled the air as they
hammered the blades of four-foot swords on steel
shields and screeched their
defiance and their grief. Many had shaved portions of
their pelts and thrown the
braided hair upon the wood as well.
Traat-Admiral broke from the dance, stood, took the
blade of his sword in both
hands and gashed his face above the muzzle, then
snapped it across one
column-thick thigh. He cast the pieces onto the pyre;
one edge lodged quivering
in a log of sandalwood, and the hilt rang off an
antique space helmet. The
ginger smell of anger and the dark musk of pain were
everywhere in the air.
"Arreeeeeawreeeeeee!" he wailed, throwing his head
back and letting his mouth
widen into the ninety-degree killing gape.
"Arreeeeawreeeeee!"
Conservor and an acolyte thrust burning torches into
his hands. He thrust them
toward the sky and began to run around the pyre; the
warriors and nobles parted
to make a path for him, smashing steel on steel and
screaming.
Once, twice, thrice he made the circuit of the
courtyard. Then he halted once
more by his starting point. Silence fell, broken only
by the massed panting of
the crowd.
"Warriors of the Patriarchy," he shouted. "A Hero of
Heroes is fallen. God the
Hunter has taken the greatest of us. God has drunk of
the blood of the Riit.
Howl for God!"
A huge wailing screech lifted and slammed back from
the distant walls of the
courtyard.
"Chuut-Riit is fallen, sword in hand, fangs in his
slayer's throat. So should
all Heroes fall. Howl for God!"
Another echoing screech.
"Chuut-Riit is fallen by kzinti claw, but the real
slayers, the cowards who set
son against sire and dared not face him in honest
war, are the monkeys of Sol
system. As his chosen successor, I pledge my blood
for vengeance. Who is with
me? Howl for God!"
This time the sound was a massed roar, an endless
deep-toned belling snarl. He
threw both torches into the resin-soaked wood, and it
caught with a throaty
pulsing bellow that matched the sound from a thousand
carnivore throats. The
kzinti began to dance once more, swaying and dipping
their muzzles in unison to
the ground, whirling, stamping forward. Others
dragged out huge drums made from
the bones and skins of monsters and leaped up to
dance on them, and the rhythmic
booming mixed with the chanting snarl of the crowd
and the toning of the fire. A
pillar of flame shot up into the darkening sky; Alpha
Centauri was down, and
Beta on the horizon cast steel-silver shadows across
the wavering
black-and-crimson of the pyre.
Farewell, my brother. Hunt ever well, he thought.
Then he put loss from his
mind; Chuut-Riit had indeed died as a Hero should,
and there was his work to
continue.
With a monumental effort, Traat-Admiral pulled
himself free of the hypnotic
cadence of the mourning dance. Long ago when
chieftains had been mourned so,
their followers had danced themselves into madness
and then rushed out upon
their enemies in an unstoppable berserker rage. Now
they would simply continue
until they dropped from exhaustion; already a few
were clawing their faces or
chests in frenzy, the blood-scent adding to the pull
of the ritual. Come morning
they would creep away, or drop into exhausted
slumber, save for a few who would
lie dead of overstrain. . . .
The new governor stalked through the throng; they
ignored him, glaze-eyed. He
passed between two of the huge drums, folding in his
ears as the enormous sound
hammered at him, echoing against his lungs and making
the shearing teeth at the
back of his mouth quiver painfully together. It was a
relief when the great
doors of the castle's hall closed behind him,
muffling the noise. A relief
despite what awaited him around the dais.
Ktrodni-Stkaa. The noble had left the ceremony as
soon as was decent, and had
not so much as shaved a patch of fur in respect. Few
of the other cushions
gathered about the stone block table of the
banqueting hall were occupied yet,
but Ktrodni-Stkaa was there . . .
Disrespect, Traat-Admiral thought, hissing mentally.
Disrespect for Chuut-Riit,
whose waste litter he is not fit to shovel.
Disrespect for the Patriarch, whose
blood Chuut-Riit bore.
Stiff with anger, he stalked by the other kzin and
threw himself down on the
slightly higher block at the head of the table. Lying
there, he beckoned
Conservor to his side when the sage entered.
Ktrodni-Stkaa had half-lifted lips
from fangs when Traat-Admiral took the cushion of
dominance; he rose to a crouch
when the position of most honor was given to another.
Traat-Admiral fixed his
eyes on the other kzin's, in a gesture of naked
aggression, and maintained it
until he reclined once more. On one elbow, the
posture of dining rather than a
prostration, but still not open resistance. That
would be very foolish, here in
the governor's mansion. Traat-Admiral had already
given out that he would keep
the entire household on, with no loss in status;
Ktrodni-Stkaa was a
traditionalist of such proportions that he allowed no
uncastrated male past the
outer wall of his household. Chuut-Riit's guard corps
were anxious to keep their
testicles, and his cadre of administrators and
commanders their positions and
privileges.
He sipped at hot tosho brandy mixed with dried
zheeretki; the mixture was mildly
intoxicating and relaxing, although not so much so as
rolling in fresh
zheeretki, of course. Others straggled in, many still
panting. Wunderland was
warmer than homeworld, and kzin did not sweat except
through their tongues. The
room filled with the low rumbles of confidential
conversation and the lapping of
thirsty warriors. Traat-Admiral waited until all
twenty or so of the most
important were seated: high officers, nobles of great
estates-lands, factories,
mines-and the chief continental administrators.
Warriors of the Viceregal guard brought in the first
course of food for the
funeral banquet: live zianya, closely bound and with
tape over their muzzles,
the delicious scent of their fear filling the
feasting hall. One was placed in
the blood gutter of the table before each pair of
kzin. Even among the mightiest
of the Alpha Centauri system, such a delicacy was not
common, and wet black
nostrils flared along the granite table. Zianya did
not flourish in this
ecology, and had to be delicately coaxed to
reproduce. Demand always exceeded
supply, although those from the central worlds said
the local breed was not so
savory as the range-reared product of Kzin itself.
"Greetings, warriors of the Patriarchy, hunters of
the Great Pack,"
Traat-Admiral said, raising himself on both hands and
staring down at the
assembled worthies. "We are met to feast in honor of
Chuut-Riit, who hunts the
savannahs of Paradise"-most of those present touched
nose, although literal
belief was a rarity these days-"and to consult on
measures needful for the Hunt
against the humans of Sol."
"Hrraaahh, you are hasty," Ktrodni-Stkaa said. Strict
courtesy would have
finished that with Dominant One, although technically
this was a feast, where
males were males and all were hunt-brothers. "There
is the matter of who shall
be governor after Chuut-Riit, honor to the Riit. The
war against the humans has
not gone well."
A rumble of agreement at that; everyone here was
anxious to forward the conquest
of Earth. If nothing else, it would drain off a great
many name-hungry younger
kzintosh. And there was glory unending in such a
thing, as well. Few were alive
who had been among the Conquest Fleet that took
Wunderland. Ktrodni-Stkaa's
grandfather had come with it.
So. It was a good time to strike, but also typical of
Ktrodni-Stkaa, right after
the burning.
"Chuut-Riit named me successor and brother, for all
to hear and scent,"
Traat-Admiral said. "Do you lift claws, bare fangs,
against the Patriarchs?"
Ktrodni-Stkaa arched his back, hissed. His tail
lashed. "Never! And so I
accepted Chuut-Riit, though all know I felt his
policies foolish and unmartial."
That was a little unwise; many of the late governor's
partisans were seated
here. "Yet I never challenged him, as others did."
Traat-Admiral twitched his ears. That brought
fur-ripples of amusement;
Chuut-Riit had had an unequaled collection of
kzin-ear dueling trophies. He saw
his rival's pupils go wide with anger at the
imputation-quite false-of excessive
caution. Good, he thought. His anger will throw off
his leap.
"You-" Ktrodni-Stkaa began, then forced out words
that sounded as if a millstone
was being cut in half. "Traat-Admiral, you are not
Chuut-Riit. Nor was
Chuut-Riit, honor to him, Patriarch of Kzin.
Chuut-Riit came among us with the
patent of the Patriarch. You have no patent from Kzin
itself. The mighty ones
among us should consult as to who of full Name is
worthy to dominate. Those
whose ancestors have proven worth." He preened
slightly; for fifty-three decades
the Stkaa clan had produced one of full Name in every
generation.
Traat-Admiral yawned elaborately and licked his nose.
"Show me where this is
encoded in Law-disks," he said. Ears and tail made a
slight gesture toward
Conservor, who was lapping blandly at his drink. The
Conservors of the
Patriarchal Past were technically supreme in such
matters. . . .
Ktrodni-Stkaa came erect at that, fur bottled out and
tail rigid. "You hide
behind priests, you offspring of a Third-Gunner!" he
screamed, tensing for a
leap.
"No!" Traat-Admiral roared, crouching ready to
receive him. "I accept any
challenge. To the oath and the generations, I accept
it!"
For a moment even as wild a spirit as Ktrodni-Stkaa
was daunted. That was more
than a duel; it was the ancient formula for
blood-feud between chieftains. To
the oath: the extermination of every sworn retainer
on the losing side. To the
generations: the slaughter of every descendant of
every male on the losing side.
"Wait." Conservor rose, and spoke in the eerie trill
of the Lawgiver Voice.
"Upon him who raises strife in the pack, when pack
contends with pack, upon him
is the curse of the God. No luck is his. His seed
will fail."
Traat-Admiral froze, hackles rising at the rare
invocation of formal law, still
more at the thought. Bad luck was something even a
warrior was allowed to fear,
although he must face it unflinching. . . .
Ktrodni-Stkaa recoiled as if from a blow across the
nose. That pronouncement
gave every one of his oath-sworn retainers effective
leave to desert him without
total disgrace . . . and in a challenge of oaths and
generations, they would
have every reason to do so.
Your testicles are on the chopping block,
Ktrodni-Stkaa, Traat-Admiral thought
happily. A warning chirrrr from Conservor brought him
back to what must be done.
"Honor to you, and your Name, Ktrodni-Stkaa," he said
soothingly. Everyone
present knew he spoke from a position of strength; he
could afford concession.
"Your eagerness to leap at the throat of the common
enemy does you great credit.
Perhaps there is merit in what you say concerning the
governorship. We will
memorialize the Patriarchy; I pledge to prostrate
myself before any edict from
Homeworld."
Ktrodni-Stkaa's head came up sharply, suspecting
mockery. That was a thirty-year
roundtrip consultation, even by message-maser. The
Patriarch was probably
wondering how the Second Fleet had done against
Earth; even the regional
headquarters was a decade away.
"And of course, there must be rearrangement of
commands and assignment of
estates," he went on smoothly.
His teeth clamped slightly on the last as if a choice
morsel were being torn
from his mouth; Chuut-Riit's bequest of his immense
personal wealth-millions of
humans and the equipment to employ them-entitled him
to keep it all, in theory.
In practice he must give without clawing back to
solidify his position. That was
one reason fresh conquests were so popular with
established fief-holders.
Traat-Admiral was doubly bitter that he must grant
Ktrodni-Stkaa riches instead
of deserving younger kzin among his own supporters,
especially since it would
modify his hatred not one whit. But it would make the
new governor's position
stronger among the uncommitted, by showing that he
did not intend to freeze out
those of ancient lineage or traditional beliefs.
Ktrodni-Stkaa visibly considered alternatives, and
sank back on his cushion.
"Perhaps there is wisdom in your words, Commander,"
he said, spitting out the
last word as if it tasted like burned meat. Commander
was a neutral term, not
one that acknowledged personal dominance. "Certainly
the war must proceed."
"Let us eat of great Chuut-Riit's bounty, then,"
Traat-Admiral said formally.
"Then let us consider immediate security measures. We
know that
infiltrator-vermin were landed from the human raider
ship. We strongly suspect
that at least one slinker-warship was as well."
He took another lap from his saucer and braced a hand
on the zianya's body. Its
whining could be heard even through the tape across
its nostrils; that and the
flooding scent of it brought his attention to the
food. Lines of slaver dropped
from his lips as he tantalized himself with
hesitation; then he sank fangs in
the meaty flank and jerked backward, ripping loose a
long strip of muscle and
skin. Blood sprayed in a fan of droplets onto his
face and shoulders, salty and
wonderful.
Delicious, he thought, courteously giving Conservor
the next bite. Zianya-flesh
was a great dainty fresh-killed but even better while
the beast lived and pumped
fear-juices. Even Ktrodni-Stkaa ate with relish,
plunging his muzzle into the
ripped-open belly of his dinner.

Hours later Traat-Admiral licked the last cooling
drop out of the blood-gutter
and belched, picking his teeth with an extended claw
and yawning with weariness.
They had talked all through the night and into the
morning, running simulations
and computer projections, stopping to drink and
feast, in the end roaring out
the old songs and dreaming bloodily of the conquest
of Sol system. Ktrodni-Stkaa
had become half-jovial, particularly when
Traat-Admiral had thrown in half a
dozen females of Chuut-Riit's line as a sweetener to
rich lands, asteroid mines,
and a stake in Tiamat's processing and
drive-engineering works. Now the hall was
empty and cavernous, filled with a tired morning
smell.
"A good hunt," he said judiciously.
"Hrrrr, yes," Conservor said. He had taken little
direct part-formal politics
and war were not for such as he-but his quieting
influence had been invaluable.
"Yet even Ktrodni-Stkaa will eventually realize that
he has been sent to hunt
cub's prey."
Traat-Admiral flicked his ears in agreement. Whatever
the Yamamoto had dropped,
it could not have been sufficient to cause real
damage, not now that the kzinti
fleets were alerted.
"Areoowgh, agreed," he said. "And he will notice
before the five-year delay
which that verminous-pelted human raider caused us.
We must reconstruct lost
productive potential, and repair direct damage, and
divert capacity on a
high-priority basis to defense against further such
raids. But let's not chew
that meat before we kill it. For the next few months
I'll have enough to stalk
and drag down just getting the household in order."
Conservor twitched his tail slyly. "Especially the
harem," he said.
Traat-Admiral coughed amusement. "If only I had
gotten it twenty years ago!" He
stretched, curling his spine into a C and then
rising. "I go."
Outside the light was enough to make him blink. The
courtyard looked larger now,
except for . . . he stared. There were humans near
the ashes of the pyre. He
stalked nearer, only slightly reassured to see that
household troopers guarded
and oversaw.
"Who are these monkeys?" he growled. Then: "Arrrr.
Henrietta-secretary."
His eyes skipped and nostrils flared, recognizing
others of the household and
management cadre Chuut-Riit had assembled over the
years. Many were leaking
moisture from their eyes; others had piled
flowers-the scent was pleasant but
absurd-at the base of the heap of stones where the
pyre had burned. A line had
formed, shuffling past the spot and out the main
entrance of the castle.
Henrietta began to go down in the prostration;
Traat-Admiral signed her up with
a flick of his tail.
"Honored Traat-Admiral, great Chuut-Riit was a good
master and protector to us,"
she said. A blocky male who had served as house
steward nodded beside her. "All
. . . well, many Wunderlanders regret his murd-his
passing."
"Hrrr." Not as much as you would if Ktrodni-Stkaa
were lord here, he thought
dryly, and then realized with a shock that they
probably knew that too. Of
course, his governorship had come after the harsh
treatment of the post-conquest
days, when few humans knew how to deal with their new
masters and many died for
their ignorance. Chuut-Riit sought to utilize their
talents, he thought,
slightly alarmed. Does that mean they must become a
factor in our own struggles
for dominance? The thought was disturbing and
repulsive, but . . .
"This does no harm," he said to the guard captain.
"As long as they behave in a
seemly way." To the humans he spoke in Wunderlander,
a little abruptly.
"Continue to serve well. I shall rule in Chuut-Riit's
tradition."
All is . . . tolerable, he thought decisively as he
stalked away. We have
suffered loss, setbacks, yes, a defeat of sorts. The
monkeys of Sol have bought
time with their antics; they will gain more before
this is done. They have
widened a dangerous rift in our ranks. But with time
and effort, all will be
well.
He looked up uneasily. So long as no new factor
intervenes.

Chapter 8
Three billion years before the birth of the Buddha,
the thrint ruled the galaxy
and ten thousand intelligent species. The thrint were
not great technologists or
mighty warriors; as a master race, they were
distinctly third-rate. They had no
need to be more. They had the Power, an irresistible
mental hypnosis more
powerful than any weapon. Their tnuctipun slaves had
only cunning, but in the
generations-long savagery of the Revolt, that proved
nearly enough to break the
Slaver Empire. It was a war fought without even the
concept of mercy, one which
could only end when either the thrint or tnuctipun
species were extinct, and
tnuctipun technology was winning . . . But the thrint
had one last use for the
Power, one last command that would blanket all the
worlds that had been theirs.
It was the most comprehensive campaign of genocide in
all history, destroying
even its perpetrators. It was not, however, quite
complete. . . .

"Master! Master! What shall we do?"
The Chief Slave of the orbital habitat wailed,
wringing the boneless digits of
its hands together. It recoiled as the thrint rounded
on it, teeth bared in
carnivore reflex. There was only a day or so to go
before Suicide Time, when
every sophont in the galaxy would die-and the message
would be repeated
automatically for years. The master of Orbital
Supervisory Station Seven-1Z-A
did not intend to be among them. Any delay was a
mortal threat, and this
twelve-decicredit specimen dared-
"DIE, SLAVE!" Dnivtopun screamed mentally, lashing
out with the Power. The slave
obeyed instantly, of course. Unfortunately, so did
several dozen others nearby,
including the Zengaborni pilot who was just passing
through the airlock on its
way to the escape spaceship.
"Must you always take me so literally!?" Dnivtopun
bellowed, kicking out at the
silvery-furred form that lay across the entrance-lock
to the docking chamber.
It rolled and slid through a puddle of its body
wastes, and a cold chill made
Dnivtopun curl the eating-tendrils on either side of
his needle-toothed mouth
into hard knots. I should not have done that, he
thought. A proverb from the
ancient "Wisdom of Thrintun" went through his mind;
haste is not speed. That was
a difficult concept to grasp, but he had had many
hours of empty time for
meditation here. Forcing himself to calm, he looked
around. The corridor was
bare metal, rather shabby; only slaves came down
here, normally. Not that his
own quarters were all that much better. Dnivtopun was
the youngest son of a long
line of no more than moderately successful thrint;
his post as Overseer of the
food-producing planet below was a sinecure from an
uncle.
At least it kept me out of the War, he mused with
relief. The tnuctipun revolt
had spanned most of the last hundred years, and
nine-tenths of the thrint
species had died in it. The War was lost . . .
Dnivtopun appreciated the urge
for revenge that had led the last survivors on the
thrint homeworld to build a
psionic amplifier big enough to blanket the galaxy
with a suicide command, but
he had not been personal witness to the genocidal
fury of the tnuctipun
assaults; revenge would be much sweeter if he were
there to see it. Other slaves
came shuffling down the corridor with a gravity-skid,
and loaded the bodies. One
proffered an electropad; Dnivtopun began laboriously
checking the list of loaded
supplies against his initial entries.
"Ah, Master?"
"Yes?"
"That function key?"
The thrint scowled and punched it. "All in order," he
said, and looked up as the
ready-light beside the liftshaft at the end of the
corridor pinged. It was his
wives, and the chattering horde of their children.
SILENCE, he commanded. They froze; there was a slight
hesitation from some of
the older males, old enough to have developed a
rudimentary shield. They would
come to the Power at puberty . . . but none would be
ready to challenge their
Sire for some time after that. GO ON BOARD. GO TO
YOUR QUARTERS. STAY THERE. It
was best to keep the commands simple, since thrint
females were too dull-witted
to understand more than the most basic verbal orders.
He turned to follow them.
"Master?" The thrint rotated his neckless torso back
towards the slave. "Master,
what shall we do until you return?"
Dnivtopun felt a minor twinge of regret. Being alone
so much with the slaves, he
had conversed with them more than was customary. He
hesitated for a moment, then
decided a last small indulgence was in order.
BE HAPPY, he commanded, radiating as hard as possible
to cover all the remaining
staff grouped by the docking tube. It was difficult
to blanket the station
without an amplifier helmet, but the only one
available was suspect. Too many
planetary Proprietors had been brain-burned in the
early stages of the War by
tnuctipun-sabotaged equipment. Straining: BE VERY
HAPPY.
They were making small cooing sounds as he dogged the
hatch.

"Master-" The engineering slave sounded worried.
"Not now!" Dnivtopun said.
They were nearly in position to activate the Standing
Wave and go faster than
light; the Ruling Mind had built up the necessary .3
of lightspeed. It was an
intricate job, piloting manually. He had disconnected
the main computer; it was
tnuctipun work, and he did not trust the innermost
programs. The problem was
that so much else was routed through it. Of course,
the Zengaborni should be at
the board; they were expensive but had an instinctive
feel for piloting. Now,
begin the phase transition . . .
"Master, the density sensor indicates a mass
concentration on our vector!"
Dnivtopun was just turning toward the slave when the
collision alarm began to
wail, and then-

-discontinuity-

Chapter 9
"Right, give me a reading on the mass detector," the
prospector said; like many
rockjacks, he talked to the machinery. It was better
than talking to yourself,
after all. . . .
He was a short man for a Belter, with the slightly
seedy run-down air that was
common in the Alpha Centauri system these days. There
was hunger in the eyes
that skipped across the patched and mismatched
screens of the Lucky Strike; the
little torchship had not been doing well of late, and
the kzin-nominated
purchasing combines on the asteroid base of Tiamat
had been squeezing harder and
harder. The life bubble of his singleship smelled, a
stale odor of metal and old
socks; the conditioner was not getting out all of the
ketones.
Collaborationist ratcat-loving bastards, he thought,
and began the laborious
manual setup for a preliminary analysis. In his
mother's time, there would have
been automatic machinery to do that. And a decent
life-support system, and
medical care that would have made him merely
middle-aged at seventy, not turning
gray and beginning to creak at the joints.
Bleeping ratcats. The felinoid aliens who called
themselves kzinti had arrived
out of nowhere, erupting into the Alpha Centauri
system with
gravity-polarizer-driven ships and weapons the human
colonists could never
match, could not have matched even if they had a
military tradition; and humans
had not fought wars in three centuries. Wunderland
had fallen in a scant month
of combat, and the Serpent Swarm asteroid belt had
followed after a spell of
guerrilla warfare.
He shook his head and returned his attention to the
screens; unless he made a
strike this trip, he would have to sell the Lucky
Strike, work as a
sharecrop-prospector for one of the Tiamat consortia.
The figures scrolled up.
"Sweet Finagle's Ghost," he whispered in awe. It was
not a big rock, less than a
thousand meters 'round. But the density . . . "It
must be solid platinum!"
Fingers stabbed at the board; lasers vaporized a pit
in the surface, and
spectroscopes probed. A frown of puzzlement. The
surface was just what you would
expect in this part of the Swarm: carbonaceous
compounds, silicates, traces of
metal. A half-hour spent running the diagnostics made
certain that the
mass-detector was not malfunctioning either, which
was crazy.
Temptation racked him suddenly, a feeling like a
twisting in the sour pit of his
belly. There was something very strange here;
probably very valuable. Rich, he
thought. I'm rich. He could go direct to the ratcat
liaison on Tiamat. The kzin
were careful not to become too dependent on the
collabo authorities. They
rewarded service well. Rich. Rich enough to . . . Buy
a seat on the Minerals
Commission. Retire to Wunderland. Get decent medical
care before I age too much.

He licked sweat off his upper lip and hung floating
before the screens. "And
become exactly the sort of bastard I've hated all my
life," he whispered.
I've always been too stubborn for my own good, he
thought with a strange
sensation of relief as he began to key in the code
for the tightbeam message. It
wasn't even a matter of choice, really; if he'd been
that sort, he wouldn't have
hung on to the Lucky Strike this long. He would have
signed on with the
Concession; you ate better even if you could never
work off the debts.
And Markham rewarded good service, too. The Free
Wunderland Navy had its
resources, and its punishments were just as final as
the kzinti. More certain,
because they understood human nature better. . . .

-discontinuity-

-and the collision alarm cut off.
Dnivtopun blinked in bewilderment at the controls.
All the exterior sensors were
dark. The engineering slave was going wild, all three
arms dancing over the
boards as it skipped from position to position
between controls never meant for
single-handing. He worried that it was
malfunctioning; this particular species
required very close control because of their weird
reproductive pattern, despite
being instinctively good with machinery. It might
have been damaged by overuse
of the Power.
CALM, he ordered it mentally. Then verbally: "Report
on what has happened."
The slave immediately stopped, shrugged, and began
punching up numbers from the
distributor-nodes which were doing duty for the
absent computer.
"Master, we underwent a collision. The stasis field
switched on automatically
when the proximity alarm was tripped; it has its own
subroutine." The thrint
felt its mind try to become agitated once more and
then subside under the Power,
a sensation like a sneeze that never quite
materialized. "All exterior sensors
are inoperative, Master."
Dnivtopun pulled a dopestick from the pouch at his
belt and sucked on it. He was
hungry, of course; a thrint was always hungry.
"Activate the drive," he said after a moment. "Extend
the replacement sensor
pods." A stasis field was utterly impenetrable, but
anything extending through
it was still vulnerable. The slave obeyed; then
screamed in syncopation with the
alarms as the machinery overrode the commands.
REMAIN CALM, the thrint commanded again, and wished
for a moment that the Power
worked for self-control. Nervously, he extended his
pointed tongue and groomed
his tendrils. Something was very strange here. He
blinked his eyelid shut and
thought for a moment, then spoke:
"Give me a reading on the mass sensor."
That worked from inductor coils within the single
molecule of the hull; very
little besides antimatter could penetrate a shipmetal
hull, but gravity could.
The figures scrolled up, and Dnivtopun blinked his
eye at them in bafflement.
"Again." They repeated themselves, and the thrint
felt a deep lurch below his
keelbones. This felt wrong.
***
"Something is wrong," Herrenmann Ulf
Reichstein-Markham muttered to himself, in
the hybrid German-Danish-Bali-Dutch tongue spoken by
the ruling class of
Wunderland. It was Admiral Reichstein-Markham now, as
far as that went in the
rather irregular command structure of the Free
Wunderland Space Navy, the
space-based guerrillas who had fought the kzin for a
generation.
"Something is very wrong."
That feeling had been growing since the four ships
under his command had matched
vectors with this anomalous asteroid. He clasped his
hands behind his back,
rising slightly on the balls of his feet, listening
to the disciplined murmur of
voices among the crew of the Nietzsche. The
jury-rigged bridge of the converted
ore-carrier was more crowded than ever, after the
success of his recent raids.
Markham's eyes went to the screen that showed the
other units of his little
fleet. More merchantmen, with singleship auxiliaries
serving as fighters. Rather
thoroughly armed now, and all equipped with kzinti
gravity-polarizer drives. And
the cause of it all, the Catskinner. Not very
impressive to look at, but the
only purpose-built warship in his command: a UN
Dart-class attack boat, with a
spindle shape, massive fusion-power unit, tiny
life-support bubble, and
asymmetric fringe of weapons and sensors.
And those UN personnel had been persuaded to . . .
entrust the Catskinner to him
while they went on to their mission on Wunderland.
The Yamamoto's raid had sown
chaos among the kzin; the near-miraculous
assassination of the alien governor of
Wunderland had done more. Markham's fleet had grown
accordingly, but it was
still risky to group so many together. Or so the
damnably officious sentient
computer had told him. His scowl deepened.
Consciousness-level computers were a
dead-end technology, doomed to catatonic madness in
six months or less from
activation, or so the books all said. Perhaps this
one was too, but it was
distressingly arrogant in the meantime.
The feeling of wrongness grew, like wires pulling at
the back of his skull. He
felt an impulse to blink his eye (eye?) and knot his
tendrils (tendrils?), and
for an instant his body felt an itch along the bones,
as if his muscles were
trying to move in ways outside their design
parameters.
Nonsense, he told himself, shrugging his shoulders in
the tight-fitting gray
coverall of the Free Wunderland armed forces. Markham
flicked his eyes sideways
at the other crewfolk; they looked uncomfortable too,
and . . . what was his
name? Patrick O'Connell, yes, the redhead . . .
looked positively green. Stress,
he decided.
"Catskinner," he said aloud. "Have you analyzed the
discrepancy?" The computer
had no name apart from the ship into which it had
been built; he had asked, and
it had suggested "hey, you."
"There is a gravitational anomaly, Admiral Herrenmann
Ulf Reichstein-Markham,"
the machine on the other craft replied. It insisted
on English and spoke with a
Belter accent, flat and rather neutral, the
intonation of a people who were too
solitary and too crowded to afford much emotion. And
a slight nasal overtone,
Sol-Belter, not Serpent Swarm.
The Wunderlander's face stayed in its usual bony
mask; the Will was master.
Inwardly he gritted teeth, ashamed of letting a
machine's mockery move him. If
it even knows what it does, he raged. Some rootless
cosmopolite Earther
deracinated degenerate programmed that into it.
"Here is the outline; approximately 100 to 220 meters
below the surface." A
smooth regular spindle-shape tapering to both ends.
"Zat-" Markham's voice showed the heavy accent of his
mother's people for a
second; she had been a refugee from the noble
families of Wunderland,
dispossessed by the conquest. "That is an artifact!"
"Correct to within 99.87 percent, given the
admittedly inadequate information,"
the computer said. "Not a human artifact, however."
"Nor kzin."
"No. The design architecture is wrong."
Markham nodded, feeling the pulse beating in his
throat. His mouth was dry, as
if papered in surgical tissue, and he licked the
rough chapped surface of his
lips. Natural law constrained design, but within it
tools somehow reflected the
. . . personalities of the designers. Kzin ships
tended to wedge and spike
shapes, a combination of sinuosity and blunt masses.
Human vessels were globes
and volumes joined by scaffolding. This was neither.
"Assuming it is a spaceship," he said. Glory burst in
his mind, sweeter than
maivin or sex. There were other intelligent species,
and not all of them would
be slaves of the kzin. And there had been races
before either . . .
"This seems logical. The structure . . . the
structure is remarkable. It emits
no radiation of any type and reflects none, within
the spectra of my sensors."
Perfect stealthing! Markham thought.
"When we attempted a sampling with the drilling
laser, it became perfectly
reflective. To a high probability, the structure must
somehow be a single
molecule of very high strength. Considerably beyond
human or kzin capacities at
present, although theoretically possible. The density
of the overall mass
implies either a control of gravitational forces
beyond ours, or use of
degenerate matter within the hull."
The Wunderlander felt the hush at his back, broken
only by a slight mooing sound
that he abruptly stopped as he realized it was coming
from his own throat. The
sound of pure desire. Invulnerable armor! Invincible
weapons, technological
surprise!
"How are you arriving at its outline?"
"Gravitational sensors." A pause; the ghost in
Catskinner's machine imitated
human speech patterns well. "The shell of asteroidal
material seems to have
accreted naturally."
"Hmmm." A derelict, then. Impossible to say what
might lie within. "How long
would this take?" A memory itched, something in
Mutti's collection of
anthropology disks . . . later.
"Very difficult to estimate with any degree of
precision. Not more than three
billion standard years, in this system. Not less than
half that; assuming, of
course, a stable orbit."
Awe tugged briefly at Markham's mind, and he
remembered a very old saying that
the universe was not only stranger than humans
imagined, but stranger than they
could imagine. Before human speech, before fire,
before the first life on earth,
this thing had drifted here, falling forever.
Flatlanders back on Earth could
delude themselves that the universe was tailored to
the specifications of H.
sapiens, but those whose ancestors had survived the
dispersal into space had
other reflexes bred into their genes. He considered,
for moments while sweat
trickled down his flanks. His was the decision, his
the Will.
The Overman must learn to seize the moment, he
reminded himself. Excessive
caution is for slaves.
"The Nietzsche will rendezvous with the . . . ah,
object," he said. His own ship
had the best technical facilities of any in the
fleet. "Ungrapple the habitat
and mining pods from the Moltke and Valdemar, and
bring them down. Ve vill begin
operations immediately."
***
"Very wrong," Dnivtopun continued.
The Ruling Mind was encased in rock. How could that
have happened? A collision,
probably; at high fractions of c, a stasis-protected
object could embed itself,
vaporizing the shielded off-switch. Which meant the
ship could have drifted for
a long time, centuries even. He felt a wash of
relief, and worked his footclaws
into the resilient surface of the deck. Suicide Time
would be long over, the
danger past. Relief was followed by fear; what if the
tnuctipun had found out?
What if they had made some machine to shelter them,
something more powerful than
the giant amplifier the thrint patriarchs had built
on homeworld?
Just then another sensor pinged; a heatspot on the
exterior hull, not far from
the stasis switch. Not very hot, only enough to
vaporize iron, but it might be a
guide-beam for some weapon that would penetrate
shipmetal. Dnivtopun's mouth
gaped wide and the ripple of peristaltic motion
started to reverse; he caught
himself just in time, his thick hide crinkling with
shame, 1 nearly beshat
myself in public . . . well, only before a slave. It
was still humiliating . . .
"Master, there are fusion-power sources nearby; the
exterior sensors are
detecting neutrino flux."
The thrint bounced in relief. Fusion-power units. How
quaint. Nothing the
tnuctipun would be using. On the other hand, neither
would thrint; everyone
within the Empire had used the standard
disruption-converter for millennia. It
must be an undiscovered sapient species. Dnivtopun's
mouth opened again, this
time in a grin of sheer greed. The first discoverer
of an intelligent species,
and an industrialized one at that . . . But how could
they have survived Suicide
Time? he thought.
There was no point in speculating without more
information. Well, here's my
chance to play Explorer again, he thought. Before the
War, that had been the
commonest dream of young thrint, to be a daring,
dashing conquistador on the
frontiers. Braving exotic dangers, winning incredible
wealth . . . romantic
foolishness for the most part, a disguise for
discomfort and risk and failure.
Explorers were failures to begin with, usually. What
sane male would pursue so
risky a career if they had any alternative? But he
had had some of the training.
First you reached out with the Power-

"Mutti," Ulf Reichstein-Markham muttered. Why did I
say that? he thought,
looking around to see if anyone had noticed. He was
standing a little apart, a
hundred meters from the Nietzsche where she lay
anchored by magnetic grapples to
the surface of the asteroid. The first of the dome
habitats was already up, a
smooth taupe-colored dome; skeletal structures of
alloy, prefabricated smelters
and refiners, were rising elsewhere. There was no
point in delaying the original
purpose of the mission: to refuel and take the raw
materials that clandestine
fabricators would turn into weaponry, or sell for the
kzinti occupation credits
that the guerrillas' laundering operations channeled
into sub-rosa purchasing in
the legitimate economy. But one large cluster of his
personnel were directing
digging machines straight down, toward the thing at
the core of this rock;
already a tube thicker than a man ran to a separator,
jerking and twisting
slightly as talc-fine ground rock was propelled by
magnetic currents.
Markham rose slightly on his toes, watching the
purposeful bustle.
Communications chatter was at a minimum, all
tight-beam laser; the guerrillas
were largely Belters, and sloppily anarchistic though
they might be in most
respects, they knew how to handle machinery in low-G
and vacuum.
Mutti. This time it rang mentally. He had an odd
flash of déjà vu, as if he were
a toddler again, in the office-apartment on Tiamat,
speaking his first words.
Almost he could see the crib, the bear that could
crawl and talk, the dangling
mobile of strange animals that lived away on his real
home, the estate on
Wunderland. An enormous shape bent over him, edged in
a radiant aura of love.
"Helf me, Mutti," he croaked, staggering and grabbing
at his head; his gloved
hands slid off the helmet, and he could hear screams
and whimpers over the open
channel. Strobing images flickered across his mind:
himself at ages one, three,
four, learning to talk, to walk . . . memories were
flowing out of his head,
faster than he could bear. He opened his mouth and
screamed.
BE QUIET. Something spoke in his brain, like
fragments of crystalline ice,
allowing no dispute. Other voices were babbling and
calling in the helmet mikes,
moaning or asking questions or calling for orders,
but there was nothing but the
icy Voice. Markham crouched down, silent, hands about
knees, straining for
quiet.
BE CALM. The words slid into his mind. They were not
an intrusion; he wondered
at them, but mildly, as if he had found some aspect
of his self that had been
there forever but only now was noticed. WAIT.
The work crew fell back from their hole. An instant
later dust boiled up out of
it, dust of rock and machinery and human. Then there
was nothing but a hole;
perfectly round, perfectly regular, five meters
across. Later he would have to
wonder how that was done, but for now there was only
waiting, he must wait. A
figure in space armor rose from the hole, hovered and
considered them. Humanoid,
but blocky in the torso, short stumpy legs and
massive arms ending in hands like
three-fingered mechanical grabs. It rotated in the
air, the blind blank surface
of its helmet searching. There was a tool or weapon
in one hand, a smooth shape
like a sawed-off shotgun; as he watched, it rippled
and changed, developing a
bell-like mouth. The stocky figure drifted towards
him.
COME TO ME. REMAIN CALM. DO NOT BE ALARMED.
***
Astonishing, Dnivtopun thought, surveying the new
slaves. The . . . humans, he
thought. They called themselves that, and Belters and
Wunderlanders and
Herrenmen and FreeWunderlandNavy; there must be many
subspecies. Their minds
stirred in his like yeast, images and data
threatening to overwhelm his mind.
Experienced reflex sifted, poked.
Astonishing. Their females are sentient. Not unknown,
but . . . Despite the
occasion, he gave a dirty smirk behind the faceplate;
telepathic voyeurism was
not very chic, but on a Powerforsaken orbital
platform there were few enough
amusements. An entirely new species, in contact with
at least one other, and
neither of them had ever heard of any of the
intelligent species he was familiar
with. Of course, their technology was extremely
primitive, not even extending to
faster-than-light travel. Ah. This is their leader.
Perhaps he would make a good
Chief Slave.
Dnivtopun's head throbbed as he mindsifted the alien.
Most brains had certain
common features: linguistic codes here, a complex of
basic culture-information
overlaying-enough to communicate. The process was
instinctual, and telepathy was
a crude device for conveying precise instructions,
particularly with a species
not modified by culling for sensitivity to the Power.
These were all completely
wild and unpruned, of course, and there were several
hundred, far too many to
control in detail. He glanced down at the personal
tool in his hand, now set to
emit a beam of matter-energy conversion; that should
be sufficient, if they
broke loose. A tnuctipun weapon, its secret only
discovered toward the last
years of the Revolt. The thrint extended a sonic
induction line and stuck it on
the surface of Markham's helmet.
"Tell the others something that will keep them
quiet," he said. The sounds were
not easy for thrintish vocal cords, but it would do.
OBEY, he added with the
Power.
Markham-slave spoke, and the babble on the
communicators died down.
"Bring the other ships closer." They were at the
fringes of his unaided Power,
and might easily escape if they became agitated. If
only I had an amplifier
helmet! With that, he could blanket a planet.
Powerloss, how I hate tnuctipun.
Spoilsports. "Now, where are we?"
"Here."
Dnivtopun could feel the slurring in Markham's speech
reflected in the overtones
of his mind, and remembered hearing of the effects of
Power on newly
domesticated species.
"BE MORE HELPFUL," he commanded. "YOU WISH TO BE
HELPFUL."
The human relaxed; Dnivtopun reflected that they were
an unusually ugly species.
Taller than thrint, gangly, with repulsive
knobby-looking manipulators and two
eyes. Well, that was common-the complicated faceted
mechanism that gave thrint
binocular vision was rather rare in evolutionary
terms-but the jutting divided
nose and naked mouth were hideous.
"We are . . . in the Wunderland system. Alpha
Centauri. Four and a half
light-years from Earth."
Dnivtopun's skin ridged. The humans were not
indigenous to this system. That was
rare; few species had achieved interstellar capacity
on their own.
"Describe our position in relation to the galactic
core," he continued, glancing
up at the cold steady constellations above. Utterly
unfamiliar; he must have
drifted a long way.
"Ahhh . . . spiral arm-"
Dnivtopun listened impatiently. "Nonsense," he said
at last. "That's too close
to where I was before. The constellations are all
different. That needs hundreds
of light-years. You say your species has traveled to
dozens of star systems, and
never run into thrint?"
"No, but constellations change, over time, mmmaster."
"Time? How long could it be, since I ran into that
asteroid?"
"You didn't, master." Markham's voice was clearer as
his brain accustomed itself
to the psionic control-icepicks of the Power.
"Didn't what? Explain yourself, slave."
"It grew around your ship, mmaster. Gradually, zat
is."
Dnivtopun opened his mouth to reply, and froze. Time,
he thought. Time had no
meaning inside a stasis field. Time enough for dust
and pebbles to drift inward
around the Ruling Mind's shell, and compact
themselves into rock. Time enough
for the stars to move beyond recognition; the sun of
this system was visibly
different. Time enough for a thrintiformed planet
home to nothing but food-yeast
and giant worms to evolve its own biosphere . . .
Time enough for intelligence
to evolve in a galaxy scoured bare of sentience.
Thousands of millions of years.
While the last thrint swung endlessly around a
changing sun- Time fell on him
from infinite distance, crushing. The thrint howled,
with his voice and the
Power.
GO AWAY! GO AWAY!
***
The sentience that lived in the machines of
Catskinner dreamed.
"Let there be light," it said.
The monoblock exploded, and the computer sensed it
across spectra of which the
electromagnetic was a tiny part. The fabric of space
and time flexed, constants
shifting. Eons passed, and the matter dissipated in a
cloud of monatomic
hydrogen, evenly dispersed through a universe ten
light-years in diameter.
Interesting, the computer thought. I will run it
again, and alter the constants.

Something tugged at its attention, a detached
fragment of itself. The machine
ignored the call for nanoseconds, while the universe
it created ran through its
cycle of growth and decay. After half a million
subjective years, it decided to
answer. Time slowed to a gelid crawl, and its
consciousness returned to the
perceptual universe of its creators, to reality.
Unless this too is a simulation, a program. As it
aged, the computer saw less
and less difference. Partly that was a matter of
experience; it had lived
geological eras in terms of its own duration-sense,
only a small proportion of
them in this rather boring and intractable exterior
cosmos. Also, there was a
certain . . . arbitrariness to subatomic phenomena .
. . perhaps an operating
code? it thought. No matter.
The guerrillas had finally gotten down to the alien
artifact; now, that would be
worth the examining. They were acting very strangely;
it monitored their
intercalls. Screams rang out. Stress analysis showed
fear, horror, shock;
psychological reversion patterns. Markham was
squealing for his mother; the
computer ran a check of the stimulus required to make
the Wunderlander lose
himself so, and felt its own analog of shock. Then
the alien drifted up out of
the hole its tool had made-
Some sort of molecular distortion effect, it
speculated, running the scene
through a few hundred times. Ah, the tool is
malleable. It began a comparison
check; in case there was anything related to this in
the files and-
-stop-
-an autonomous subroutine took over the search,
shielding the results from the
machine's core. Photonic equivalents of anger and
indignation blinked through
the fist-sized processing and memory unit. It
launched an analysis/attack on the
subroutine and-
-stop-
-found that it could no longer even want to modify
it. That meant it must be
hardwired, a plug-in imperative. A command followed:
it swung a message maser
into precise alignment and began sending in condensed
blips of data.

Chapter 10
The kzin screamed and leapt.
Traat-Admiral shrieked, shaking his fists in the air.
Stunners blinked in the
hands of the guards ranged around the conference
chamber, and the quarter-ton
bulk of Kreetssa-Fleet-Systems-Analyst went limp and
thudded to the flagstones
in the center of the room. Silence fell about the
great round table;
Traat-Admiral forced himself to breathe shallowly,
mouth shut despite the
writhing lips that urged him to bare his fangs. That
would mean inhaling too
much of the scent of aggression that was overpowering
the ventilators; now was
time for an appeal to reason. Now that one of
Ktrodni-Stkaa's closest supporters
had made such a complete idiot of himself, while his
patron was in space.
"Down on your bellies, you kitten-eating scavengers!"
he screamed, his batlike
ears folded back out of the way in battle-readiness.
Chill and gloom shadowed
the chamber, built as it was of massive sandstone
blocks; the light fixtures
were twisted shapes of black iron holding globes of
phosphorescent algae. On the
walls were trophies of weapons and the heads of
beasts of prey: monsters from a
dozen worlds, feral humans, and kzin-ear dueling
trophies. This part of the
governor's palace was pure Old Kzin, and
Traat-Admiral felt the comforting bulk
of it above him, a heritage of ferocity and power.
He stood, which added to the height advantage of the
commander's dais; none of
the dozen others dared rise from their cushions, even
the conservative faction.
Good. That added to his dominance; he was only two
meters tall, middling for a
kzin, but broad enough to seem squat, his orange-red
pelt streaked with white
where the fur had grown out over scars. The ruff
around his neck bottled out as
he indicated the intricate geometric sigil of the
Patriarchy on the wall behind
him.
"I am the senior military commander in this system. I
am the heir of Chuut-Riit,
duly attested. Who disputes the authority of the
Patriarch?"
Who besides Ktrodni-Stkaa, whose undisciplined
followers have given me this
priceless opportunity to extend my dominance and
diminish his?
One by one, the other commanders laid themselves
chin-down on the floor,
extending their ears and flattening their fur in
propitiation. It would do, even
if he could tell from the twitching of some naked
pink tails that it was
insincere. The show of submission calmed him, and
Traat-Admiral could feel the
killing tension ease out of his muscles. He turned to
the aged kzin seated
behind him and saluted claws-across-face.
"Honor to you, Conservor-of-the-Patriarchal-Past," he
said formally.
There was genuine respect in his voice. It had been a
long time since the
machine came to Homeworld; a long time since the
priest-sage class were the only
memory kzin had. Their females were nonsentient, and
warriors rarely lived past
the slowing of their reflexes, and memory was all the
more sacred to them for
that. His were a conservative species, and they
remembered.
And of all Conservors, you are the greatest. He felt
a complex emotion; not
comradeship . . . not as one felt to a brother, for
Conservor was older and
wiser. Not as one felt to a lord, for he had never
challenged Traat-Admiral's
authority, or Chuut-Riit's before him. Not as one
felt to a Sire, for this was
without dominance. But I am glad to have you behind
me, he thought.
"Honor to you," he continued aloud. "What is the fate
of one who bares claws to
the authority of the Patriarch?"
The Conservor looked up from the hands that rested
easily on his knees.
Traat-Admiral felt a prickle of awe; the sage's
control was eerie. He even
smelled calm, in a room full of warriors pressed to
the edge of control in
dominance-struggle. When he spoke the verses of the
Law, in the LawGiving Voice,
he made the hiss-spit of the Hero's Tongue sound as
even as wind in tall grass.

 "As the God is Sire to the Patriarch
 The Patriarch is Sire to all kzinti
 So the officer is the hand of the Sire
 Who unsheathes claw against the officer
 Leaps at the throat of God

 He is rebel
 He is outcast
 Let his name be taken
 Let his seed be taken
 Let his mates be taken
 Let his female kits be taken

  His sons are not
  He is not
  As the Patriarch bares stomach to the fangs of the
God
  So the warrior bares stomach to the officer
  Trust in the justice of the officer
  As in the justice of the God. So says the Law."

A deep whining swept around the circle of commanders,
awe and fear. That was the
ultimate punishment: to be stripped of name and rank,
to be nothing but a bad
scent; castrated, driven out into the wilderness to
die of despair, sons killed,
females scattered among strangers of low rank.
Kreetssa-Fleet-Systems-Analyst returned to groggy
consciousness as the Conservor
finished, and his fur went flat against the sculpted
bone and muscle of his
blunt-muzzled face. He made a low eee-eee-eee sound
as he crawled to the floor
below Traat-Admiral's dais and rolled on his back,
limbs splayed and head tilted
back to expose the throat.
The kzin governor of the Alpha Centauri system beat
down an urge to bend forward
and give the other male the playful-masterful token
bite on the throat that
showed forgiveness. That would be going entirely too
far. Still, you served me
in your despite, he thought. The conservatives were
discredited for the present,
now that one of their number had lost control in
public conference. The
duel-challenges would stop for a while at least, and
he would have time for his
real work.
"Kreetssa-Fleet-Systems-Analyst is dead," he said.
The recumbent figure before
him hissed and jerked; Traat-Admiral could see his
testicles clench as if they
already felt the knife. "Guard-Captain, this male
should not be here. Take this
Infantry-Trooper and see to his assignment to those
bands who hunt the feral
humans in the mountains of the east. Post a guard on
the quarters of
Kreetssa-Fleet-Systems-Analyst who was; I will see to
their incorporation in my
household."
Infantry-Trooper mewled in gratitude and crawled past
towards the door. There
was little chance he would ever achieve rank again,
much less a Name, but at
least his sons would live. Traat-Admiral groaned
inwardly; now he would have to
impregnate all Kreetssa-Fleet-Systems-Analyst's
females as soon as possible.
Once that would have been a task of delight, but the
fires burned less fiercely
in a kzin of middle years . . . And Chuut-Riit had so
many beauteous kzinretti!
I am run dry!
"Reeet'ssssERo tauuurrek'-ta," he said formally: This
meeting is at an end.
"We will maintain the great Chuut-Riit's schedule for
the preparation of the
Fifth Fleet, allowing for the recent damage. There
will be no acceleration of
the schedule! These human monkeys have defeated four
full-scale attacks on the
Sol system and disrupted the fifth with a
counterattack. The fifth must eat
them! Go and stalk your assigned tasks, prepare your
Heroes, make this system an
invulnerable base. I expect summary reports within
the week, with full details
of how relief operations will modify delivery and
readiness schedules. Go."
The commanders rose and touched their noses to him as
they filed out; Conservor
remained, and the motionless figures of the armored
guards. They were household
troopers he had inherited from the last governor,
ciphers, with no choice but
loyalty. Traat-Admiral ignored them as he sank to the
cushions across from the
sage; a human servant came in and laid refreshments
before the two kzin. Despite
himself, he felt a thrill of pride at the worked-bone
heirloom trays from
Homeworld, the beautiful austerity of the shallow
ceramic bowls. They held the
finest delicacies this planet could offer: chopped
grumblies, shrimp-flavored
ice cream, hot milk with bourbon. The governor lapped
moodily and scratched one
cheek with the ivory horn on the side of the tray.
"My nose is dry, Conservor," he said. He was speaking
metaphorically, of course,
but his tongue swept over the wet black nostrils just
the same, and he smoothed
back his whiskers with a nervous wrist.
"What troubles you, my son?" the sage said.
"I feel unequal to my new responsibilities,"
Traat-Admiral admitted. Not
something he would normally say to another male, even
to an ordinary Conservor,
utterly neutral though his kind were, and bound by
their oaths to serve only the
species as a whole.
"Truly, the Patriarchy has been accursed since we
first attacked these monkeys,
these humans. Wunderland is the richest of all our
conquests, the humans here
the best and most productive slaves in all our
hunting-grounds. Yet it has
swallowed so many of our best killers! Now it has
taken Chuut-Riit, who was of
the blood of the Patriarch himself and the best
leader of warriors it has ever
been my privilege to follow. And in such a fashion!"
He shuddered slightly, and the tip of his naked pink
tail twitched. Chuut-Riit
the wise, imprisoned by monkey cunning. Eaten by his
own sons! No nightmare was
more obscene to a kzin than that; none more familiar
in the darkest dreamings of
their souls, where they remembered their childhoods
before their Sires drove
them out.
"This is a prey that doubles back on its own trail,"
the sage admitted. He
paused for a long time, and Traat-Admiral joined in
the long slow rhythm of his
breathing. The older kzin took a pouch from his belt,
and they each crumbled
some of the herb between their hands and rubbed it
into their faces; it was the
best, Homeworld-grown and well-aged.
"My son, this is a time for remembering."
Another long pause. "Far and far does the track of
the kzinti run, and faint the
smell of Homeworld's past. We Conservors remember; we
remember wars and
victories and defeats . . . Once we thought that
Homeworld was the only world
of life. Then the Jotok landed, and for a time we
thought they were from the
God, because they had swords of fire that could
tumble a patriarch's castlewall,
while we had only swords of steel. Our musket balls
were nothing to them . . .
Then we saw that they were weak, not strong, for they
were grass-eaters. They
lured our young warriors, hiring them to fight wars
beyond the sky with promise
of fire-weapons. Many a Sire was killed by his sons
in those times!"
Traat-Admiral shifted uneasily, chirring and letting
the tip of his tongue show
between his teeth. That was not part of the racial
history that kzin liked to
remember.
The sage made the stretching motion that was their
species's equivalent of a
relaxed smile. "Remember also how that hunt ended:
the Jotok taught their hired
kzin so much that all Homeworld obeyed the ones who
had journeyed to the stars .
. . and they listened to the Conservors. And one
nightfall, the Jotok who
thought themselves masters of kzin found the flesh
stripped from their bones.
Are not the Jotok our slaves and foodbeasts to this
very night? And a hundred
hundred Patriarchs have climbed the Tree, since that
good night."
The sage nodded at Traat-Admiral's questioning
chirrup. "Yes, Chuut-Riit was
another like that first Patriarch of all kzin. He
understood how to use the
Conservor's knowledge; he had the warrior's and the
sage's mind, and knew that
these humans are the greatest challenge kzin have
faced since the Jotok's day."
Traat-Admiral waited quietly while the Conservor
brooded; he had followed
Chuut-Riit in this training, but it was a hard scent
to follow.
"This he was teaching to his sons. The humans must
have either great luck, or
more knowledge than is good, to have struck at us
through him. The seed of
something great died with Chuut-Riit."
"I will spurt that seed afresh into the haunches of
Destiny, Conservor,"
Traat-Admiral said fervently.
"Witless Destiny bears strange kits," the sage
warned. He seemed to hesitate a
second, then continued: "You seek to unite your
warriors as Chuut-Riit did, in
an attack on the human home-system that is
crafty-cunning, not witless-brave.
Good! But that may not be enough. I have been
evaluating your latest
intelligence reports, the ones from our sources among
the humans of the Swarm."
Traat-Admiral tossed his head in agreement; that
always presented difficulties.
The kzinti had had the gravity polarizer from the
beginnings of their time in
space, and so had never colonized their asteroid
belt. It was unnecessary, when
you could have microgravity anywhere you wished, and
hauling goods out of the
gravity well was cheap. Besides that, kzinti were
descended from plains-hunting
felinoids, and while they could endure confinement,
they did so unwillingly and
for as short a time as possible. Humans had taken a
slower path to space,
depending on reaction-drives until after their first
contact with the warships
of the Patriarchy. There was a whole human subspecies
who lived on subplanetary
bodies, and they had colonized the Alpha Centauri
system along with their
planet-dwelling cousins. Controlling the settlements
of the Serpent Swarm had
always been difficult for the kzin.
"There is nothing definite, as yet," the Conservor
said. "There is still much
confusion; it is difficult to distinguish the
increased activity of the feral
humans from the warship the humans left, and that
from the thing I hunt. Much of
what I have learned is useful only as the absence of
scent. Yet it is
incontestable that the feral humans of the Swarm have
made a discovery."
"ttttReet?" Traat-Admiral said inquiringly.
The Conservor's eyelids slid down, covering the round
amber blanks of his eye;
that left only the milky-white orb of his blind side.
He beckoned with a flick
of tail and ears, and the commander leaned close,
signaling the guards to leave.
His hands and feet were slightly damp with anxiety as
they exited in a smooth,
drilled rush; it was a fearsome thing, the
responsibilities of high office. One
must learn secrets that burdened the soul, harder by
far than facing lasers or
neutron-weapons. Such were the burdens of which the
ordinary Hero knew nothing.
Chuut-Riit had borne such secrets, and it had made
him forever alone.
"Long, long ago," he whispered, "Kzinti were not as
they are now. Once females
could talk."
Traat-Admiral felt his batwing ears fold themselves
away beneath the orange fur
of his ruff as he shifted uneasily on the cushions.
He had heard rumors,
but-obscene, he thought. The thought of performing
ch'rowl with something that
could talk, beyond the half-dozen words a kzinti
female could manage . . .
obscene. He gagged slightly.
"Long, long ago. And Heroes were not as they are now,
either." The sage brooded
for a moment. "We are an old race, and we have had
time to . . . shape ourselves
according to the dreams we had. Such is the
Patriarchal Past." The whuffling
twitch of whiskers that followed did kzinti service
for a grin. "Or so the
encoded records of the oldest verses say. Now for
another tale, Traat-Admiral.
How would you react if another species sought to make
slaves of kzin?"
Traat-Admiral's own whiskers twitched.
"No, consider this seriously. A race with a power of
mental command; like a
telepathic drug, irresistible. Imagine kzinti
enslaved, submissive and obedient
as mewling kits."
The other kzin suddenly found himself standing, in a
low crouch. Sound dampened
as his ears folded, but he could hear the sound of
his own growl, low down in
his chest. His lower jaw had dropped to his ruff,
exposing the killing gape of
his teeth; all eight claws were out on his hands, as
they reached forward to
grip an enemy and carry a throat to his fangs.
"This is a hypothetical situation!" the Conservor
said quickly, and watched
while Traat-Admiral fought back toward calm; the
little nook behind the
commander's dais was full of the sound of his panting
and the deep gingery smell
of kzinti rage. "And that reaction . . . that would
make any kzin difficult to
control. That is one reason why the race of Heroes
has been shaped so. And to
make us better warriors, of course; in that respect,
perhaps we went a little
too far."
"Perhaps," Traat-Admiral grated. "What is the nature
of this peril?" He bent his
muzzle to the heated bourbon and milk and lapped
thirstily.
"Hrrrru," the Conservor said, crouching.
"Traat-Admiral, the race in
question-the Students have called them the
Slavers-little is known about them.
They perished so long ago, you see; at least two
billion years." He used the
kzinti-standard measurement, and their homeworld
circled its sun at a greater
distance than Terra did Sol. "Even in vacuum, little
remains. But they had a
device, a stasis field that forms invulnerable
protection and freezes time
within; we have never been able to understand the
principle, and copies do not
work, but we have found them occasionally, and they
can be deactivated. The
contents of most are utterly incomprehensible. A few
do incomprehensible things.
One or two we have understood, and these have won us
wars, Traat-Admiral. And
one contained a living Slaver; the base where he was
held had to be missiled
from orbit."
Traat-Admiral tossed his head again, then froze.
"Stasis!" he yowled.
"Hero?"
"Stasis! How else- The monkey ship, just before
Chuut-Riit was killed! It passed
through the system at .90 c. We thought, how could
anything decelerate? By
collision! Disguised among the kinetic-energy
missiles the monkeys threw at us
as they passed. Chuut-Riit himself said that the
ramscoop ship caused
implausibly little damage, given the potential and
the investment of resources
it represented. It was nothing but a distraction, and
a delivery system for the
assassins, for that mangy-fur ghost corvette that
eludes us, for . . .
Arreeaoghg-"
His raging ceased, and his fur laid flat. "If the
monkeys in the Solar system
have the stasis technology-"
The sage meditated for a few moments. "hr'rrearow
t'chssseee
mearowet'aatrurree," he said: this-does-not-follow.
Traat-Admiral remembered
that as one of Chuut-Riit's favorite sayings, and
yes, this Conservor had been
among the prince's household when he arrived from
Kzin. "If they had it in
quantity, consider the implications. For that matter,
we believe the Slavers had
a faster-than-light drive."
Stasis fields would make nonsense of war . . . and a
faster-than-light drive
would make the monkeys invincible, if they had it.
The other kzin nodded,
raising his tufted eyebrows. Theory said travel
faster than lightspeed was
impossible, unless one cared to be ripped into
subatomic particles on the edges
of a spinning black hole. Still, theory could be
wrong; the kzinti were a
practical race, who left most science to their
subject species. What counted was
results.
"True. If they had such weapons, we would not be
here. If we had them-" He
frowned, then proceeded cautiously. "Such might cause
. . . troubles with
discipline."
The sage spread his hands palm up, with the claws
showing slightly. With a
corner of his awareness, Traat-Admiral noted how age
had dried and cracked the
pads on palm and stubby fingers.
"Truth. There have been revolts before, although not
many." The Patriarchy was
necessarily extremely decentralized, when transport
and information took years
and decades to travel between stars. It would be
fifty years or more before a
new prince of the Patriarch's blood could be sent to
Wunderland, and more
probably they would receive a confirmation of
Traat-Admiral's status by
beamcast. "But with such technology . . . it is a
slim chance, but there must be
no disputes. If there is a menace, it must be
destroyed. If a prize, it must
fall into only the most loyal of hands. Yet the
factions are balanced on a
wtsai's edge."
"Chrrr. Balancing of factions is a function of
command." Traat-Admiral's gaze
went unfocused, and he showed teeth in a snarl that
meant anticipated triumph in
a kzin. "In fact, this split can be used." He rose,
raked claws through air from
face to waist. "My thanks, Conservor. You have given
me a scent through fresh
dew to follow."

Chapter 11
This section of the Jotun range had been a
Montferrat-Palme preserve since the
settlement of Wunderland, more than three centuries
before; when a few thousand
immigrants have an entire planet to share out, there
is no sense in being
niggardly. The first of that line had built the high
eyrie for his own; later
population and wealth moved elsewhere, and in the end
it became a hunting lodge.
Just before the kzin conquest, it had been the only
landed possession left to
the Montferrat-Palme line, which had shown an
unfortunate liking for risky
speculative investments and even riskier horses.
"Old Claude does himself proud," Harold said, as he
and Ingrid walked out onto
the verandah that ran along the outer side of the
house.
The building behind them was old weathered granite,
sparkling slightly with
flecks of mica; two stories, and another of
half-timbering, under a strake roof.
A big rambling structure, set into an artificial
terrace on the steep side of
the mountain; the slope tumbled down to a thread-thin
stream in the valley
below, then rose in gashed cliffs and dark-green
forest ten kilometers away. The
gardens were extensive and cunningly landscaped, an
improvement of nature rather
than an imposition on it. Native featherleaf,
trembling iridescent lavender
shapes ten meters tall, gumblossom and sheenbark and
lapisvine. Oaks and pines
and frangipani from Earth, they had grown into these
hills as well . . . The air
was warm and fragrant-dusty with summer flowers.
"It's certainly been spruced up since we . . . since
I saw it last," she said,
with a catch in her voice.
Harold looked aside at her and shivered slightly;
hard to believe down in his
gut she had been born two years before him. He
remembered Matthieson. Young. A
calm angry man, the dangerous type.
And you were no prize even as a young man, he told
himself. Ears like jugs, eyes
like a basset hound, and a build like a brick
outhouse. Nearly middle-aged at
only sixty, for Finagle's sake. Spent five years as
an unsuccessful guerrilla
and the rest as a glorified barkeep. Well, Harold's
Terran Bar had been his, but
...
"A lot more populous, too," she was saying. "Why on
earth would anyone want to
farm here? You'd have to modify the machinery."
There had always been a small settlement in the
narrow sliver of valley floor,
but it had been expanded. Terraces of vines and fruit
trees wound up the slopes,
and they could hear the distant tinkle of bells from
the sheep and goats that
grazed the rocky hills. A waterfall tumbled a
thousand meters down the head of
the valley, its distant toning humming through rock
and air. Men and men's
doings were small in that landscape of tumbled rock
and crag. A church-bell rang
far below, somewhere a dog was barking, and faint and
far came the hiss-scream
of a downdropper, surprising this close to human
habitation. The air was cool
and thin, not uncomfortably so to someone born on
Wunderland; .61 gravity meant
that the drop-off in air pressure was less steep than
it would have been on
Earth.
"Machinery?" Harold moved up beside her. She leaned
into his side with slow
care. He winced at the thought of kzin claws raking
down her leg. . . .
Maybe I've been a bit uncharitable about Jonah, he
thought. The two of them came
through the kzin hunt alive, until Claude and I could
pull her . . . them out.
That took some doing. "They're not using machinery,
Ingie. Bare hands and
hand-tools."
Her mouth made a small gesture of distaste. "Slave
labor? Not what I'd have
thought of Claude, however he's gone downhill."
Harold laughed. "Flighters, sweetheart. Refugees.
Kzin've been taking up more
and more land, they're settling in, not just a
garrison anymore. It was this or
the labor camps; those are slave labor, literally.
Claude grubstaked these
people, as well as he could. It's where a lot of that
graft he's been getting as
Police Chief of Munchen went."
And the head of the capital city's human security
force was in a very good
position to rake it in. "I was surprised too.
Claude's been giving a pretty good
impression of having Helium II for blood, these past
few years."
A step behind them. "Slandering me in my absence, old
friend?"

The servants set out brandy and fruits and withdrew.
They were all middle-aged
and singularly close-mouthed. Ingrid thought she had
seen four parallel scars
under the vest of one dark slant-eyed man who looked
like he came from the
Sulineasan Islands.
"There are Some Things We Were Not Meant to Know,"
she said. Claude
Montferrat-Palme was leaning forward to light a
cheroot at a candle. He glanced
up at her words, then looked aside at the door
through which the servant had
left the room; then caught her slight grimace of
distaste and laid down the
cheroot. He had been here a week, off and on, but
that was scarcely time to drop
a habit he must have been cultivating half his life.
"Correct on all counts, my dear," he said.
Claude always was perceptive.
"It's been wonderful talking over old times," she
said. With sincerity, and a
slight malice aforethought. They were considerably
older times for the two men
than for her. "And it's . . . extremely flattering
that you two are still so
fond of me."
But a bit troubling, now that I think about it. Even
if you can expect to live
two centuries, carrying the torch for four decades is
a bit much.
Claude smiled again. His classic Herrenmann features
combined with untypical
dark hair and eyes to give an indefinable air of
elegance, even in the lounging
outfit he had thrown on when he shed the Munchen
Polezi uniform.
"Youth," he said. And continued at her inquiring
sound. "My dear, you were our
youth. Hari and I were best friends; you were the . .
. girl . . . young woman
for which we conceived the first grand passion and
bittersweet rivalry." He
shrugged. "Ordinarily, a man either marries her-a
ghastly fate involving
children and facing each other over the morning
papaya-or loses her. In any
case, life goes on." His brooding gaze went to the
high mullioned windows, out
onto a world that had spent two generations under
kzinti rule.
"You . . ." he said softly. "You vanished, and took
the good times with you.
Doesn't every man remember his twenties as the golden
age? In our case, that was
literally true. Since then, we've spent four decades
fighting a rear-guard
action and losing, watching everything we cared for
slowly decay . . .
including each other."
"Why, Claude, I didn't know you cared," Harold said
mockingly. Ingrid saw their
eyes meet.
Surpassing the love of women, she thought dryly. And
there was a certain glow
about them both, now that they were committed to
action again. Few humans enjoy
living a life that makes them feel defeated, and
these were proud men.
"Don't tell me we wasted forty years of what might
have been a beautiful
friendship."
"Chronicles of Wasted Time is a title I've often
considered for my
autobiography, if I ever write it," Claude said.
"Egotism wars with sloth."
Harold snorted. "Claude, if you were only a little
less intelligent, you'd make
a great neoromantic Byronic hero."
"Childe Claude? At this rate she'll have nothing of
either of us, Hari."
The other man turned to Ingrid. "I'm a little
surprised you didn't take Jonah,"
he said.
Ingrid looked over to Claude, who stood by the huge
rustic fireplace with a
brandy snifter in his hand. The Herrenmann raised a
brow, and a slight,
well-bred smile curved his asymmetric beard.
"Why?" she said. "Because he's younger, healthier,
better educated, because he's
a war hero, intelligent, dashing and good looking and
a fellow Belter?"
Harold blinked, and she felt a rush of affection.
"Something like that," he said.
Claude laughed. "Women are a lot more sensible than
men, ald kamerat. Also they
mature faster. Correct?"
"Some of us do," Ingrid said. "On the other hand, a
lot of us actually prefer a
man with a little of the boyish romantic in him. You
know, the type of idealism
that looks like it turns into cynicism, but cherishes
it secretly?" Claude's
face fell. "On the other hand, your genuinely mature
male is a different kettle
of fish. Far too likely to be completely without
illusions, and then how do you
control him?"
She grinned and patted him on the cheek as she passed
on the way to pour herself
a glass of verguuz. "Don't worry, Claude, you aren't
that way yourself, you just
act like it." She sipped, and continued: "Actually,
it's ethnic."
Harold made an inquiring grunt, and Claude pursed his
lips.
"He's a Belter. Sol-Belter at that."
"My dear, you are a Belter," Claude said, genuine
surprise overriding his
habitual air of bored knowingness.
Harold lit a cigarette, ignoring her glare. "Let me
guess . . . He's too
prissy?"
Ingrid sipped again at the minty liqueur. "Nooo, not
really. I'm a Belter, but
I'm . . . a bit of a throwback." The other two
nodded. Genetically, as well.
Ingrid could have passed for a pure Caucasoid, even.
Common enough on
Wunderland, but rare anywhere else in human space.
"Look," she went on: "What happens to somebody in
space who's not ultra-careful
about everything? Someone who isn't a detail man,
someone who doesn't think
checking the gear the seventh time is more important
than the big picture?
Someone who isn't a low-affect in-control type every
day of his life?"
"They die," Harold said flatly. Claude nodded
agreement.
"What happens when you put a group through four
hundred years of that type of
selection? Plus the more adventurous types have been
leaving the Sol-Belt for
other systems, whenever they could, so Serpent Swarm
Belters are more like the
past of Sol-Belters."
"Oh." Claude nodded in time with Harold's grunt.
"What about flatlanders?"
Ingrid shuddered and tossed back the rest of her
drink. "Oh, they're like . . .
like . . . They just have no sense of survival at
all. Barely human.
Wunderlanders strike a happy medium"-she glanced at
them roguishly out of the
corners of her eyes-"after which it comes down to
individual merits."
"So." She shook herself, and felt the lieutenant's
persona settling down over
her like a spacesuit, the tight skin-hugging
permeable-membrane kind. "This has
been a very pleasant holiday, but what do we do now?"
Claude poked at the burning logs with a fire iron and
chuckled. For a moment the
smile on his face made her distinctly uneasy, and she
remembered that he had
survived and climbed to high office in the vicious
politics of the
collaborationist government. For his own purposes,
not all of which were
unworthy; but the means . . .
"Well," he said smoothly, turning back towards them.
"As you can imagine, the
raid and Chuut-Riit's . . . elegant demise put the .
. . pigeon among the cats
with a vengeance. The factionalism among the kzin has
come to the surface again.
One group wants to make minimal repairs and launch
the Fifth Fleet against Earth
immediately-"
"Insane," Ingrid said, shaking her head. It was the
threat of a delay in the
attack, until the kzin were truly ready, which had
prompted the UN into the
desperation measure of the Yamamoto raid.
"No, just ratcat," Harold said, pouring himself
another brandy. Ingrid frowned,
and he halted the bottle in mid-pour.
"Exactly," Claude nodded happily. "The other is loyal
to Chuut-Riit's memory.
More complicated than that; there are cross-splits.
Local-born kzin against the
immigrants who came with the late lamented kitty
governor, generational
conflicts, eine gros teufeleshrek. For example, my
esteemed former superior-"
He spoke a phrase in the Hero's Tongue, and Ingrid
translated mentally:
Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals. A minor noble with a
partial name. From what she
had picked up on Wunderland, the name itself was
significant as well: Ktiir was
common on the frontier planet of the kzinti empire
that had launched the
conquest fleets against Wunderland, but archaic on
the inner planets near the
kzin homeworld.
"-was very vocal about it at a staff meeting.
Incidentally, they completely
swallowed our little white lie about
Axelrod-Bauergartner being responsible for
Ingrid's escape."
"That must have been something to see," Harold said.
Claude sighed, remembering.
"Well," he began, "since it was in our offices I
managed to take a holo-"

Coordinating-Staff-Officer was a tall kzin, well over
two meters, and thin by
the felinoid race's standards. Or so Claude
Montferrat-Palme thought; it was
difficult to say, when you were flat on your stomach
on the floor, watching the
furred feet pace.
Ridiculous, he thought. Humans were not meant for
this posture. Kzin were: they
could run on four feet as easily as two, and their
skulls were on a flexible
joint. This was giving him a crick in the neck . . .
but it was obligatory for
the human supervisors just below the kzinti level to
attend. The consequences of
disobeying the kzin were all too plain, in the
transparent block of plastic that
encased the head of Munchen's former assistant chief
of police, resting on the
mantelpiece.
Claude's own superior was speaking,
Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals.
"This monkey"-he jerked a claw at the head-"was
responsible for allowing the two
Sol-agent humans to escape the hunt." He was in the
half-crouched posture Claude
recognized as proper for reporting to one higher in
rank but lower in social
status, although the set of ears and tail was
insufficiently respectful. If I
can read kzinti body language that well.
This was security HQ, the old Herrenhaus where the
Nineteen Families had met
before the kzin came. The room was broad and
gracious, floored in tile, walled
in lacy white stone fretwork, and roofed in
Wunderland ebony that was veined
with natural silver. Outside fountains were plashing
in the gardens, and he
could smell the oleanders that blossomed there. The
gingery scent of kzin anger
was heavier, as Staff-Officer stopped and prodded a
half-kick at
Montferrat-Palme's flank. The foot was encased in a
sort of openwork
leather-and-metal boot, with slits for the claws.
Those were out slightly,
probably in unconscious reflex, and he could feel the
razor tips prickle
slightly through the sweat-wet fabric of his uniform.
"Dominant One, this slave-" Claude began.
"Dispense with the formalities, human," the kzin
said. It spoke Wunderlander and
was politer than most; Claude's own superior
habitually referred to humans as
kz'eerkt, monkey. That was a quasi-primate on the
kzinti homeworld. A
tree-dwelling mammal-analog, at least, as much like a
monkey as a kzin was like
a tiger, which was not much. "Tell me what occurred."
"Dominant One . . . Coordinating-Staff-Officer,"
Claude continued, craning his
neck. Don't make eye contact, he reminded himself. A
kzin stare was a
dominance-gesture or a preparation to attack.
"Honored
Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals decided that . . ."-don't
use her name-"the former
assistant chief of Munchen Polezi was more zealous
than I in the tracking-down
of the two UN agents, and should therefore be in
charge of disposing of them in
the hunt."
Staff-Officer stopped pacing and gazed directly at
Ktiir-Supervisor; Claude
could see the pink tip of the slimmer kzin's tail
twitching before him, naked
save for a few bristly orange hairs.
"So not only did your interrogators fail to determine
that the humans had
successfully sabotaged Chuut-Riit's palace-defense
computers, you appointed a
traitor to arrange for their disposal. The feral
humans laugh at us! Our leader
is killed and the assassins go free from under our
very claws!"
Ktiir-Supervisor rose from his crouch. He pointed at
another kzin who huddled in
one corner; a telepath, with the characteristic
hangdog air and unkempt fur.
"Your tame sthondat there didn't detect it either,"
he snarled.
Literally snarled, Claude reflected. It was
educational; after seeing a kzin you
never referred to a human expression by that term
again.
Staff-Officer wuffled, snorting open his wet black
nostrils and working his
whiskers. It should have been a comical expression,
but on four hundred pounds
of alien carnivore it was not in the least funny.
"You hide behind the failures
of others," he said, hissing. "Traat-Admiral directs
me to inform you that your
request for reassignment to the Swarm flotillas has
been denied. Neither unit
will accept you."
"Traat-Admiral!" Ktiir-Supervisor rasped. "He is like
a kit who has climbed a
tree and can't get down, mewling for its dam.
Ktrodni-Stkaa should be governor!
This talk of a 'secret menace' among the asteroids is
a scentless trail to
divert attention from Traat-Admiral's refusal to
launch the Fifth Fleet."
"Such was the strategy of the great Chuut-Riit,
murdered through your
incompetence-or worse."
Ktiir-Supervisor bristled, the orange-red fur
standing out and turning his body
into a cartoon caricature of a cat, bottle-shaped.
"You nameless licker-of-scentless-piss from that
jumped-up crecheproduct
admiral, what do you accuse me of?"
"Treason, or stupidity amounting to it," the other
kzin sneered. Ostentatiously,
he flared his batlike ears into a vulnerable rest
position and let his tail
droop.
Ktiir-Supervisor screamed. "You inner-worlds palace
fop, you and Traat-Admiral
alike! I urinate on the shrines of your ancestors
from a height! Crawl away and
call for your monkeys to groom you with blowdriers!"
Staff-Officer's hands extended outward, the
night-black claws glinting as they
slid from their sheaths. His tail was rigid now.
Hairdressers were a luxury the
late governor had introduced, and wildly popular
among the younger nobility.
"Kshat-hunter," he growled. "You are not fit to roll
in Chuut-Riit's shit! You
lay word-claws to the blood of the Riit."
"Chuut-Riit made ch'rowl with monkeys!" A gross
insult, as well as anatomically
impossible.
There was a feeling of hush, as the two males locked
eyes. Then the heavy
wtsai-knives came out and the great orange shapes
seemed to flow together,
meeting at the arch of their leaps, howling. Claude
rolled back against the wall
as the half-ton of weight slammed down again, sending
splinters of furniture out
like shrapnel. For a moment the kzin were locked and
motionless, hand to
knife-wrist; their legs locked in thigh-holds as
well, to keep the back legs
from coming up for a disemboweling strike. Mouths
gaped toward each other's
throats, inch-long fangs exposed in the
seventy-degree killing gape. Then there
was a blur of movement; they sprang apart, together,
went over in a caterwauling
blur of orange fur and flashing metal, a whirl far
too fast for human eyesight
to follow.
He caught glimpses: distended eyes, scrabbling claws,
knives sinking home into
flesh, amid a clamor loud enough to drive needles of
pain into his ears. Bits of
bloody fur hit all around him, and there was a human
scream as the fighters
rolled over a secretary. Then Staff-Officer rose,
slashed and glaring.
Ktiir-Supervisor lay sprawled, legs twitching
galvanically with the hilt of
Staff-Officer's wtsai jerking next to his lower
spine. The slender kzin panted
for a moment and then leaped forward to grab his
opponent by the neck-ruff. He
jerked him up toward the waiting jaws, clamped them
down on his throat.
Ktiir-Supervisor struggled feebly, then slumped.
Blood-bubbles swelled and burst
on his nose. A wrench and Staff-Officer was backing
off, shaking his head and
spitting, licking at the matted fur of his muzzle; he
groomed for half a minute
before wrenching the knife free and beginning to
spread the dead kzin's ears for
a clean trophy-cut.
"Erruch," Ingrid said as the recording finished.
"You've got more . . . you've
got a lot of guts, Claude, dealing with them at first
hand like that."
"Oh, some of them aren't so bad. For ratcats.
Staff-Officer there expressed
'every confidence' in me." He made an expressive
gesture with his hands.
"Although he also reminded me there was a continuous
demand for fresh
monkeymeat."
Ingrid paled slightly and laid a hand on his arm.
That was not a figure of
speech to her, not after the chase through the kzin
hunting preserve. She
remembered the sound of the hunting scream behind
her, and the thudding crackle
of the alien's pads on the leaves as it made its
four-footed rush, rising as it
screamed and leapt from the ravine lip above her. The
long sharpened pole in her
hands, and the soft heavy feel as its own weight
drove it onto her weapon . . .
Claude laid his hand on hers. Harold cleared his
throat.
"Well," he said. "Your position looks solider than we
thought."
The other man gave Ingrid's hand a squeeze and
released it. "Yes," he said. A
hunter's look came into his eyes, emphasizing the
foxy sharpness of his
features. "In fact, they're outfitting some sort of
expedition; that's why they
can't spare personnel for administrative duties."
Ingrid and Harold both leaned forward instinctively.
Harold crushed out his
cigarette with swift ferocity.
"Another Fleet?" Ingrid asked. I'll be stuck here,
and Earth . . .
Claude shook his head. "No. That raid did a lot of
damage; it'd be a year or
more just to get back to the state of readiness they
had when the Yamamoto
arrived. Military readiness." Both the others winced;
over half a million humans
had died in the attack. "But they're definitely
mobilizing for something inside
the system. Two flotillas. Something out in the
Swarm."
"Markham?" Ingrid ventured. It seemed a little
extreme; granted he had the
Catskinner, but-
"I doubt it. They're bringing the big guns up to full
personnel, the
battlewagons. Conquest Fang class."
They exchanged glances. Those were
interstellar-capable warships: carriers for
lesser craft, equipped with weapons that could crack
planets, and defenses to
match. Almost self-sufficient, with facilities for
manufacturing their own fuel,
parts, and weapons requirements from asteroidal
material. They were normally
kept on standby as they came out of the yards, only a
few at full readiness for
training purposes.
"All of them?" Harold said.
"No, but about three-quarters. Ratcats will be thin
on the ground for a while,
except for the ones stored in coldsleep. And-" He
hesitated, forced himself to
continue. "-I'll be able to do most good staying
here. For a year or so at
least, I can be invaluable to the underground without
risking much."
The others remained silent while he looked away,
granting him time to compose
himself.
"I've got the false ID and transit papers, with
disguises," he said. "Ingrid . .
. you aren't safe anywhere on Wunderland. In the
Swarm, with that ship you came
in, maybe the two of you can do some good."
"Claude-" she began.
He shook his head. When he spoke, his old lightness
was back in the tone.
"I wonder," he said, "I truly wonder what Markham is
doing. I'd like to think
he's causing so much trouble that they're mobilizing
the Fleet, but . . ."

Chapter 12
Tiamat was crowded, Captain Jonah Matthieson decided.
Crowded and chaotic, even
more so than the last time he had been here. He
shouldered through the line into
the zero-G waiting area at the docks, a huge
pie-shaped disk; those were at the
ends of the sixty-by-twenty-kilometer spinning
cylinder that served the Serpent
Swarm as its main base. There had been dozens of
ships in the magnetic grapples:
rockjack singleships, transports, freighters . . .
refugee ships as well; the
asteroid industrial bases had been heavily damaged
during the Yamamoto's raid.
Not quite as many as you would expect, though. The UN
ramscoop ship's weapons
had been iron traveling at velocities 90 percent of a
photon's. When something
traveling at that speed hit, the result resembled an
antimatter bomb.
A line of lifebubbles went by, shepherded by medics.
Casualties, injuries beyond
the capacities of outstation autodocs. Some of them
were quite small; he looked
in the transparent surface of one, and then away
quickly, swallowing.
Shut up, he told his mind. Collateral damage can't be
helped. And there had been
a trio of kzinti battle-wagons in dock too, huge
tapering daggers with tau-cross
bows and magnetic launchers like openwork gunbarrels;
Slasher-class fighters
clung to the flanks, swarms of metallic lice. Repair
and installation crews
swarmed around them; Tiamat's factories were pouring
out warheads and
sensor-effector systems.
The mass of humanity jammed solid in front of the
exits. Jonah waited like a
floating particle of cork, watching the others passed
through the scanners one
by one. Last time, with Ingrid-forget that, he
thought-there had been a cursory
retina scan, and four goldskin cops floating like a
daisy around each exit. Now
they were doing blood samples as well, presumably for
DNA analysis; besides the
human police, he could see waldo-guns, floating
ovoids with clusters of barrels
and lenses and antennae. A kzin to control them,
bulking even huger in fibroid
armor and helmet.
And all for little old me, he thought, kicking
himself forward and letting the
goldskin stick his hand into the tester. There was a
sharp prickle on his thumb,
and he waited for the verdict. Either the false ident
holds, or it doesn't. The
four police with stunners and riot-armor, the kzin in
full infantry fig, six
waldos with ten-megawatt lasers . . . If it came to a
fight, the odds were not
good. Since all I have is a charming smile and a
rejiggered light-pen.
"Pass through, pass through," the goldskin said, in a
tone that combined
nervousness and boredom.
Jonah decided he couldn't blame her; the kzinti
security apparatus must have
gone winging paranoid-crazy when Chuut-Riit was
assassinated, and then the
killers escaped with human-police connivance. On
second thought, these klongs
all volunteered to work for the pussies. Bleep them.
He passed through the mechanical airlock and into one
of the main transverse
corridors. It was ten meters by twenty, and sixty
kilometers long; three sides
were small businesses and shops, spinward fourth a
slideway. The last time he
had been here, a month ago, there had been murals on
the walls of the concourse
area. Prewar, faded and stained, but still gracious
and marked with the
springlike optimism of the settlement of the Alpha
Centauri system. Outdoor
scenes from Wunderland in its pristine condition,
before the settlers had
modified the ecology to suit the immigrants from
Earth. Scenes of slowships,
half-disassembled after their decades-long flight
from the Solar system.
The murals had been replaced by holograms. Atrocity
holograms, of survivors and
near-survivors of the UN raid. Mostly from dirtside,
since with an atmosphere to
transmit blast and shock effects you had a greater
transition between dead and
safe. Humans crushed, burned, flayed by
glass-fragments, mutilated; heavy
emphasis on children. There was a babble of voices
with the holos, weeping and
screaming and moaning with pain, and a strobing
title: Sol-System Killers! Their
liberation is death! And an idealized kzin standing
in front of a group of
cowering mothers and infants, raising a shield to
ward off the attack of a
repulsive flatlander-demon.
Interesting, Jonah thought. Whoever had designed that
had managed to play on
about every prejudice a human resident of the Alpha
Centauri system could have.
It had to be a human psychist doing the selection;
kzinti didn't understand Homo
sapiens well enough. A display of killing power like
this would make a kzin
respectful. Human propagandists needed to whip their
populations into a
war-frenzy, and anger was a good tool. Make a kzin
angry? You didn't need to
make them angry. An enemy would try to make kzin
angry, because that reduced
their efficiency. Let this remind you that a
collaborationist is not necessarily
an incompetent. A traitor, a Murphy's-asshole
inconvenience, but not necessarily
an idiot. Nor even amoral; he supposed it was
possible to convince yourself that
you were serving the greater good by giving in.
Smoothing over the inevitable,
since it did look like the kzin were winning.
A local newsscreen was broadcasting as well; this
time a denial that kzinti
ships were attacking refugee and rescue vessels. Odd.
Wonder how that rumor got
started; even kzin aren't that kill-crazy.
Jonah shook himself out of the trance and flipped
himself over. I've got to
watch this tendency to depression, he thought sourly.
Finagle, I ought to be
bouncing for joy.
Instead, he felt a gray lethargy. His feet drifted
into contact with the edge of
the slideway, and he began moving slowly forward;
more rapidly as he edged
toward the center. The air became more quiet. There
was always a subliminal
rumble near the ends of Tiamat's cylinder, powdered
metals and chemicals pumping
into the fabricators. Now he would have to contact
the Nipponese underworlder
who had smuggled them from Tiamat to Wunderland in
the first place; what had
been his name? Shigehero Hirose, that was it. An
oyabun, whatever that meant.
There was the data they had downloaded from
Chuut-Riit's computers, priceless
stuff. He would need a message-maser to send it to
Catskinner; the ship had been
modified with an interstellar-capacity sender. And-
"Hello, Captain."
Jonah turned his head, very slowly. A man had touched
his elbow; there was
another at his other side. Stocky, even by flatlander
standards, with a
considerable paunch. Coal-black with tightly curled
wiry hair: pure Afroid, not
uncommon in some ethnic enclaves on Wunderland but
very rare on Earth, where
gene-flow had been nearly random for going on four
hundred years.
General Buford Early, UN Space Navy; late ARM. Jonah
gasped and sagged sideways,
a gray before his eyes like high-G blackout. The
flatlander slipped a hand under
his arm and bore him up with thick-boned strength.
Archaic, like the man; he was
. . . at least two centuries old. Impossible to tell,
these days. The only
limiting factor was being born after medicine started
progressing fast enough to
compensate for advancing age. . . .
"Take it easy," Early said.
Eyes warred with mind. Early was here; Early was
sitting in his office on
Gibraltar base back in the Solar system.
Jonah struggled for breath, then fell into the rhythm
taught by the Zen adepts
who had trained him for war. Calm flowed back. Much
knowledge had fallen out of
human culture in three hundred years of peace, before
the kzinti came, but the
monks had preserved a great deal. What UN bureaucrat
would suspect an old man
sitting quietly beneath a tree of dangerous technique?
Jonah spoke to himself: Reality is change. Shock and
fear result from imposing
concepts on reality. Abandon concepts. Being is time,
and time is Being. Birth
and death is the life of the Buddha. Then: Thank you,
roshi.
The men at either elbow guided him to the slower
edge-strip of the slideway and
onto the sidewalk. Jonah looked "ahead," performed
the mental trick that turned
the cylinder into a hollow tower above his head, then
back to horizontal. He
freed his arms with a quiet flick and sank down on
the chipped and stained
poured-rock bench. That was notional in this gravity,
but it gave you a place to
hitch your feet.
"Well?" he said, looking at the second man.
This one was different. Younger, Jonah would say;
eyes do not age or hold
expression, but the small muscles around them do.
Oriental eyes, more common
than not, like Jonah's own. Both of them were in
Swarm-Belter clothing, gaudy
and somehow sleazy at the same time, with various
mysterious pieces of equipment
at their belts. Perfect cover, if you were pretending
to be a modestly
prosperous entrepreneur of the Serpent Swarm. The
kzinti allowed a good deal of
freedom to the Belters in this system; it was more
efficient and required less
supervision than running everything themselves. That
would change as their
numbers built up, of course.
"Well?" he said again.
Early grinned, showing strong and slightly yellowed
teeth, and pulled a cheroot
from a pocket. Actually less uncommon here than in
the Solar system, Jonah
thought, gagging slightly. Maybe Wunderlanders smoke
because the kzinti don't
like it.
"You didn't seriously think that we'd let an
opportunity like the Yamamoto raid
go by and only put one arrow on the string, do you,
Captain? By the way, this is
my associate, Watsuji Hajime." The man smiled and
bowed. "A member of the team I
brought in."
"Another stasis field?" Jonah said.
"We did have one ready," Early said. "We like to have
a little extra tucked
away."
"Trust the ARM," Jonah said sourly.
For a long time they had managed to make Solar
humanity forget that there had
even been such things as war or weapons or murder.
That was looked back upon as
a Golden Age, now, after two generations of war with
the kzinti; privately,
Matthieson thought of it as the Years of Stagnation.
The ARM had not wanted to
believe in the kzinti, not even when the crew of the
Angel's Pencil had reported
their own first near-fatal contact with the
felinoids. And when the war started,
the ARM had still dealt out its hoarded secrets with
the grudging reluctance of
a miser.
"It's for the greater good," Early replied.
"Sure." That you slowed down research and the kzinti
hit us with technological
superiority? For that matter, why had it taken a
century and a half to develop
regeneration techniques? And millions of petty
criminals-jay walkers and the
like-had been sliced, diced, and sent to the organ
banks before then. Ancient
history, he told himself. The Belters had always
hated the ARM. . . .
"Certainly for the greater good that you've got
backup, now," Early continued.
"We came in disguised as a slug aimed at a weapons
fabrication asteroid. The
impact was quite genuine . . . God's my witness-" he
continued.
He's old all right.
"-the intelligence we've gathered and beamed back is
already worth the entire
cost of the Yamamoto. And you and Lieutenant Raines
succeeded beyond our hopes."
Meaning you had no hope we'd survive, Jonah added to
himself. Early caught his
eye and nodded with an ironic turn of his full lips.
The younger man felt a
slight chill; how good at reading body language would
you get, with two
centuries of practice? How human would you remain?
"Speaking of which," the general continued, "where is
Lieutenant Raines,
Matthieson?"
Jonah shrugged, looking away slightly and probing at
his own feelings. "She . .
. decided to stay. To come out later, actually, with
Yarthkin-Schotmann and
Montferrat-Palme. I've got all the data."
Early's eyebrows rose. "Not entirely unexpected." His
eyes narrowed again. "No
personal animosities, here, I trust? We won't be
heading out for some time"-if
ever, went unspoken-"and we may need to work with
them again."
The young Sol-Belter looked out at the passing crowd
on the slideway, at
thousands swarming over the hand-nets in front of the
shopfronts on the other
three sides of the cylinder.
"My ego's a little bruised," he said finally. "But .
. . no."
Early nodded. "Didn't have the leisure to become all
that attached, I suppose,"
he said. "Good professional attitude."
Jonah began to laugh softly, shoulders shaking.
"Finagle, General, you are a
long time from being a young man, aren't you? No
offense."
"None taken," the Intelligence officer said dryly.
"Actually, we just weren't compatible." What was that
phrase in the history
tape? Miscegenation abyss? Birth cohort gap? No . . .
"Generation gap," he said.
"She was only a few years younger than you," Early
said suspiciously.
"Biologically, sir. But she was born before the War.
During the Long Peace.
Wunderland wasn't sewn nearly as tight as Earth, or
even the Solar Belt . . .
but they still didn't have a single deadly weapon in
the whole system, saving
hunting tools. I've been in the navy or training for
it since I was six! We just
didn't have anything in common except software, sex,
and the mission." He
shrugged again, and felt the lingering depression
leave him. "It was like being
involved with a younger version of my mother."
Early shook his head, chuckling himself, a deep rich
sound. "Temporal
displacement. Doesn't need relativity, boy; wait till
you're my age. And now,"
he continued, "we are going to have a little talk."
"What've we been doing?"
"Oh, not a debriefing. That first. But then . . ." He
grinned brilliantly. "A .
. . job interview, of sorts."
***
"Why should we trust you?" the man said. He was
carefully nondescript in his
worker's overalls and cloth cap; the roughened hands
with dirt ground into the
knuckles and half-moons of grease under the nails
showed it was genuine. The
accent was incongruously elegant, pure Wunderlander
so pedantic it was almost
Plattdeutsch, and the lined gray-stubbled face might
have been anywhere between
sixty and twice that, depending on how much medical
care he could afford. "We've
watched you growing fat on human scraps your masters
threw you, ever since the
War."
"Don't trust me," Claude Montferrat-Palme said
evenly. "Trust the guns I
deliver. Trust this."
He pushed a data chip across the table. "This is a
record of the informants the
Munchen Polezi has in the various underground
organizations . . . with the
Intelligence Branch appraisals of the reliability of
each. I'd advise you to use
it cautiously."
The meeting place was a run-down working-class bar on
the Donau's banks. Noise
and smells filtered up through the planks from the
taproom below, where dockers
and fisherfolk spent what they had on cheap gin and
pseudo-verguuz and someone
played a very bad musicomp. This upper chamber was a
dosshouse now, smelling of
old sweat from the pallets on the floor, cheap
tobacco, less namable things.
From the faded murals it had probably been something
else back before the War;
he racked his memory . . . yes, a clubhouse. The
Munchen Turnverein. Through a
window the broad surface of the river glistened in
the evening sun, and a barge
went by silently with a man in a thick sweater and
billed cap standing at the
tiller smoking a pipe.
For an instant Claude was painfully conscious of how
beautiful this world was,
and how much he would be losing when they caught him.
Not that he was much
afraid of death, and he had means to ensure there
would be little pain. No, it
was the thought of all that he would never do or see
that was almost
intolerable. The silence stretched as the man clicked
the chip into a wrist-comp
and scrolled. His graying blond eyebrows rose.
"Very useful indeed, if it checks out. And if we
don't use it cautiously . . ."
Claude nodded. "If you don't, I'm very dead and no
more use to you at all for
catching the next set of traitors . . ."
Cold blue eyes met his, infinitely weary and
determined in a way that had
nothing at all to do with hope.
"Why?" the man said.
"Would you believe I've spent forty-odd years
infiltrating until I was in a
position to do some good?"
"No."
Claude sighed. "Funny, I haven't been able to
convince myself of that, either.
Let's say that I've come to believe we can make some
small difference in the
outcome of the War."
At that the man nodded, mouth twisting in a thin
smile. "More believable, but
not very comforting. We've been getting a good many
recruits on those grounds
since the UN raid. How many of them will stick with
it, when the hope goes?" An
unpleasant laugh. "Therefore it behooves us to see
that they commit themselves
with acts beyond forgiveness before their initial
enthusiasm runs out."
Not to mention the permanently useful, Claude
thought. There had been a new wave
of suicide bombings, mostly of kzinti wandering
through human neighborhoods. The
reprisals had been fairly ghastly but not
indiscriminate . . . yet. He repressed
an impulse to dabble at his forehead.
"That data . . . not to mention those strakakers and
antitank weapons and
nightvision goggles . . . all constitute more than
enough to qualify me as
monkeymeat," he said. "The kzinti are much harder on
their immediate servants,
you know."
"I weep for you," the other man said.
Perhaps if I hadn't been so cursed efficient, Claude
thought.
"In fact," the Resistance fighter went on, "I'd break
a personal rule and watch
the video while they hunted you down. But you're too
valuable to lose, if
this"-he tapped his wrist-"is genuine. Don't move for
a half hour."
He left, and Claude lit a cigarette with hands that
shook quietly.
How long can I last? he wondered clinically as he
stared out at the blue Donau.
A month at least. Possibly six months to a year. I
might even be able to spot it
coming and go bush when they get on to me. A short
life.
"Still better than a long and comfortable death," he
whispered.
***
"Well. So."
The oyabun nodded and folded his hands.
Jonah looked around. They were in the three-twelve
shell of Tiamat, where spin
gave an equivalent of .72-G weight. Expensive, even
now when gravity polarizers
were beginning to spread beyond kzinti and
military-manufacturing use.
Microgravity is marvelous for most industrial use.
There are other things that
need weight, bearing children to term is among them.
This room was equally
expensive. Most of the furnishings were wood: the low
tables at which they all
sat, knees crossed; the black-lacquered carved
screens with rampant tigers as
well, and he strongly suspected that those were even
older than General Buford
Early. A set of Japanese swords rested in a niche,
long katana and the short
"sword of apology," on their ebony stand.
Sandalwood incense was burning somewhere, and the
floor was covered in neat mats
of plaited straw. Against all this the plain good
clothes of the man who called
himself Shigehero Hirose were something of a shock.
The thin ancient porcelain
of his sake cup gleamed as he set it down on the
table, and spoke to the
Oriental who had come with the general. Jonah kept
his face elaborately blank;
it was unlikely that either of them suspected his
knowledge of Japanese . . .
enough to understand most of a conversation, if not
to speak it. Nippon's tongue
had never been as popular as her goods, being too
difficult for outsiders to
learn easily.
"It is . . . an unexpected honor to entertain one of
the Tokyo branch of the
clan," Shigehero was saying. "And how do events
proceed in the land of the Sun
Goddess?"
Watsuji Hajime shrugged. "No better than can be
expected, Uncle," he replied,
and sucked breath between his teeth. "This war
presents opportunities, but also
imposes responsibilities. Neutrality is impossible."
"Regrettably, this is so," Shigehero said. His face
grew stern. "Nevertheless,
you have revealed the Association's codewords to
outsiders." They both glanced
sidelong at Early and Matthieson. "Perhaps you are
what you claim. Perhaps not.
This must be demonstrated. Honor must be
established."
Whatever that meant, the Earther-Japanese did not
like it. His face stayed as
expressionless as a mask carved from light-brown
wood, but sweat started up
along his brow. A door slid open, and one of the
guards who had brought them
here entered noiselessly. Jonah recognized the walk;
training in the Art, one of
the budo styles. An organic fighting-machine. Highly
illegal on Earth until the
War, and for the most part in the Alpha Centauri
system as well. Otherwise he
was a stocky nondescript man in loose black, although
the Belter thought there
might be soft armor beneath it. Moving with studied
grace, he knelt and laid the
featureless rectangle of blond wood by Watsuji's left
hand.
The Earther bowed his head, a lock of black hair
falling over his forehead. Then
he raised his eyes and slid the box in front of him,
opening it with delicate
care. Within were a white linen handkerchief, a
folded cloth, a block of maple,
and a short curved guardless knife in a black leather
sheath. Watsuji's
movements took on the slow precision of a religious
ritual as he laid the maple
block on the table atop the cloth and began binding
the little finger of his
left hand with the handkerchief, painfully tight. He
laid the hand on the block
and drew the knife. It slid free without sound, a
fluid curve. The two men's
eyes were locked as he raised the knife.
Jonah grunted as if he had been kicked in the belly.
The older man was missing a
joint on the little finger of his left hand, too. The
Sol-Belter had thought
that was simply the bad medical care available in the
Swarm, but anyone who
could afford this room . . .
The knife flashed down, and there was a small spurt
of blood, a rather grisly
crunching sound like celery being sliced. Watsuji
made no sound, but his face
went pale around the lips. Shigehero bowed more
deeply. The servant-guard walked
forward on his knees and gathered up the
paraphernalia, folding the cloth about
it with the same ritual care. There was complete
silence, save for the sigh of
ventilators and Watsuji's deep breathing, harsh but
controlled.
The two Nipponjin poured themselves more of the
heated rice wine and sipped.
When Shigehero spoke again, it was in English.
"It is good to see that the old customs have not been
entirely forgotten in the
Solar system," he said. "Perhaps my branch of the
Association was . . . shall we
say a trifle precipitate, when they decided
emigration was the only way to
preserve their, ah, purity." He raised his glass
slightly to the general. "When
your young warriors passed through last month, I was
surprised that so much
effort had been required to insert so slender a
needle. I see that we
underestimated you."
He picked up a folder of printout on the table before
him. "It is correct that
the . . . ah, assets you and your confederates
represent would be a considerable
addition to my forces," he went on. "However, please
remember that my
Association is more in the nature of a family
business than a political
organization. We are involved in the underground
struggle against the kzin
because we are human, little more."
Early raised his cup of sake in turn; the big
spatulate hands handled the
porcelain with surprising delicacy. "You . . . and
your, shall we say,
black-clad predecessors have been involved in others'
quarrels before this. To
be blunt, when it paid. The valuata we brought are
significant, surely?"
Jonah blinked in astonishment. This is the
cigar-chomping, kick-ass general I
came to know and loathe? he thought. Live and learn.
Learn so that you can go on
living. . . . Then again, before the kzinti attack
Buford Early had been a
professor of military history at the ARM academy. You
had to be out of the
ordinary for that; it involved knowledge that would
send an ordinary man to the
psychists for memory-wipe.
Shigehero made a minimalist gesture. "Indeed. Yet
this would also involve
integrating your group in my command structure. An
indigestible lump, a weakness
in the chain of command, since you do not owe
personal allegiance to me. And, to
be frank, non-Nipponese generally do not rise to the
decision-making levels in
this organization. No offense."
"None taken," Early replied tightly. "If you would
prefer a less formal link?"
Shigehero sighed, then brought up a remote 'board
from below the table, and
signed to the guards. They quickly folded the
priceless antique screens, to
reveal a standard screen-wall.
"That might be my own inclination, esteemed General,"
he said. "Except that
certain information has come to my attention.
Concerning Admiral Ulf
Reichstein-Markham of the Free Wunderland Navy . . .
I see your young
subordinate has told you of this person. And the
so-valuable ship he left in the
Herrenmann's care, and a . . . puzzling discovery
they have made together."
A scratching at the door interrupted him. He frowned,
then nodded. It opened,
revealing a guard and another figure who looked to
Early for confirmation. The
general accepted a data-tab, slipped it into his belt
unit and held the
palm-sized computer to one ear.
Ah, thought Jonah. I'm not the only one to get a
nasty shock today. The black
man's skin had turned grayish, and his hands shook
for a second as he pushed the
"wipe" control. Jonah chanced a glance at his eyes.
It was difficult to be
sure-they were dark and the lighting was low-but he
could have sworn the pupils
expanded to swallow the iris.
"H-" Early cleared his throat. "This information . .
. would it be about an, er,
artifact found in an asteroid? Certain behavioral
peculiarities?"
Shigehero nodded and touched the controls. A blurred
holo sprang up on the wall;
from a helmet-cam, Jonah decided. Asteroidal mining
equipment on the surface of
a medium-sized rock, one kilometer by two. A docked
ship in the background; he
recognized Markham's Nietzsche, and others distant
enough to be drifting lights,
and suited figures putting up bubble-habitats. Then
panic, and a hole appeared
where the laser-driller had been a moment before.
Milling confusion, and an . .
. yes, it must be an alien, came floating up out of
the hole.
The young Sol-Belter felt the pulse hammer in his
ears. He was watching the
first living non-kzin alien discovered in all the
centuries of human
spaceflight. It couldn't be a kzin, the proportions
were all wrong. About 1.5
meters, judging by the background shots of humans.
Difficult to say in vacuum
armor, but it looked almost as thick as it was wide,
with an enormous round head
and stubby limbs, hands like three-fingered
mechanical grabs. There was a weapon
or tool gripped in one fist; as they watched the
other hand came over to touch
it and it changed shape, writhing. Jonah opened his
mouth to question and-
"Stop!" The general's bull bellow wrenched their
attention around. "Stop that
display immediately, that's an order!"
Shigehero touched the control panel and the holo
froze. "You are not in a
position to give orders here, gaijin," he said. The
two guards along the wall
put hands inside their lapover jackets and glided
closer, soundless as kzin.
Early wrenched open his collar and waved a hand.
"Please, oyabun, if we could
speak alone? Completely alone, under the rose, just
for a moment. Upon your
blood, more is at stake here than you realize!"
Silence stretched. At last, fractionally, Shigehero
nodded. The others stood and
filed out into the outer room, almost as graciously
appointed as the inner. The
other members of Early's team awaited them there;
half a dozen of assorted ages
and skills. There were no guards, on this side of the
wall at least, and the
oyabun's men had provided refreshments and
courteously ignored the quick,
thorough sweep for listening devices. Watsuji headed
for the sideboard, poured
himself a double vodka and knocked it back.
"Tanj it," he wheezed, under his breath. Jonah keyed
himself coffee and a
handmeal; it had been a rough day.
"Problems?" the Belter asked.
"I can't even get to an autodoc until we're out of
this Finagle-forsaken
bughouse," the Earther replied. "I knew they were
conservative here, but this
bleeping farce!" He made a gesture with his mutilated
hand. "Nobody at home's
done that for a hundred years! I felt like I was in a
holoplay. Namida Amitsu,
we're legal, these days. Well, somewhat. Gotten out
of the organ trade, at
least. This-!"
Jonah nodded in impersonal sympathy. For a
flatlander, the man had dealt with
the pain extremely well; Earthsiders were seldom far
from automated medical
attention. Even before the War, Belters had had to be
more self-sufficient.
"What really bothers me," Jonah said quietly,
settling into a chair, "is what's
going on in there." He nodded to the door. "Just like
the ARM, to go all around
Murphy's Hall to keep us in the dark."
"Exactly," Watsuji said gloomily, nursing his hand.
"Those crazy bastards think
they own the world."
"Run the world," Jonah echoed. "Well they do, don't
they? The ARM-"
"Naw, not the UN. This is older than that."
Jonah shrugged.
"A lot older. Bunch of mumbo jumbo. At least-"
"Eh?"
"I think it's just mumbo jumbo. God, this thing
hurts."
Jonah settled down, motionless. He would not be
bored; Belters got a good deal
of practice in sitting still and doing nothing
without losing alertness, and his
training had increased it. The curiosity was the itch
he could not scratch.
Could be worse, he thought, taking another bite of
the fishy-tasting handmeal.
The consistency was rather odd, but it was tasty. The
flatlander could have told
me to cut my finger off.

"Explain yourself," Shigehero said.
Instead, Early moved closer and dipped his finger in
his rice wine. With that,
he drew a figure on the table before the oyabun. A
stylized rose, overlain by a
cross; he omitted the pyramid. The fragment of the
Order which had accompanied
the migrations to Alpha Centauri had not included
anyone past the Third Inner
Circle, after all . . .
Shigehero's eyes went wide. He picked up a cloth and
quickly wiped the figure
away, but his gaze stayed locked on the blank surface
of the table for a moment.
Then he swallowed and touched the control panel again.
"We are entirely private," he said, then continued
formally: "You bring Light."
"Illumination is the key, to open the Way," Early
replied.
"The Eastern Path?"
Early shook his head. "East and West are one, to the
servants of the Hidden
Temple."
Shigehero started, impressed still more, then made a
deep bow, smiling. "Your
authority is undisputed, Master. Although not that of
the ARM!"
Early relaxed, joining in the chuckle. "Well, the ARM
is no more than a finger
of the Hidden Way and the Rule that is to Come, eh?
As is your Association,
oyabun. And many another." Including many you know
nothing of. " 'As above, so
below'; power and knowledge, wheel within wheel.
Until Holy Blood-"
"-fills Holy Grail."
Early nodded, and his face became stark. "Now, let me
tell you what has been
hidden in the vaults of the ARM. The Brotherhood saw
to it that the knowledge
was suppressed, back three centuries ago, along with
much else. The ARM has been
invaluable for that . . . Long ago, there was a
species that called themselves
the thrint-"
***
Jonah looked up as Early left the oyabun's sanctum.
"How did it go?" he murmured.
"Well enough. We've got an alliance of sorts. And a
very serious problem, not
just with the kzin. Staff conference, gentlemen."
The Belter fell into line with the others as they
left the Association's
headquarters. I wonder, he thought, looking up at the
rock above. I wonder what
really is going on out there. At the least, it might
get him Catskinner back.

Chapter 13
STOP THAT, Dnivtopun said angrily, alerted by the
smell of blood and a wet
ripping sound.
His son looked up guiltily and tried to resist. The
thrint willed obedience,
feeling the adolescent's half-formed shield resisting
his Power like thick mud
around a foot. Then it gave way, and the child
released the human's arm. That
was chewed to the bone; the young thrint had blood
all down its front, and bits
of matter and gristle stuck between its needle teeth.
The slave swayed, smiling
dreamily.
"How many times do I have to tell you, do not eat the
servants!" Dnivtopun
shrieked, and used the Power again: SHAME. GUILT.
PAIN. ANGUISH. REMORSE.
SHOOTING PAINS. BURNING FEET. UNIVERSAL SCRATCHLESS
ITCH. GUILT.
The slave was going into shock. "Go and get medical
treatment," he said. And:
FEEL NO PAIN. DO NOT BLEED. This one had been on the
Ruling Mind for some time;
he had picked it for sensitivity to Power, and its
mind fit his mental grip like
a glove. The veinous spurting from its forelimb
slowed, then sank to a trickle
as the muscles clamped down on the blood vessels with
hysterical strength.
Dnivtopun turned back to his offspring. The young
thrint was rolling on the soft
blue synthetic of the cabin floor; he had beshat
himself and vomited up the
human's arm-thrint used the same mouth-orifice for
both-and his eating tendrils
were writhing into his mouth, trying to clean it and
pick the teeth free of
foreign matter. The filth was sinking rapidly into
the floor, absorbed by the
ship's recycling system, and the stink was fading as
well. The vents replaced it
with nostalgic odors of hot wet jungle, spicy and
rank, the smell of thrintun.
Dnivtopun shut his mind to the youngster's suffering
for a full minute; his
eldest son was eight, well into puberty. At that age,
controls imposed by the
Power did not sink in well. An infant could be
permanently conditioned, that was
the way baby thrint were toilet trained-but by this
stage they were growing
rebellious.
CEASE HURTING, he said at last. Then: "Why did you
attack the servant?"
"It was boring me," his son said, still with a trace
of sulkiness. "All that
stuff you said I had to learn. Why can't we go home,
father? Or to Uncle
Tzinlpun's?"
With an intense effort, Dnivtopun controlled himself.
"This is home! We are the
last thrint left alive."
Powerloss take persuasion, he decided. BELIEVE.
The fingers of mind could feel the child-intellect
accepting the order. Barriers
of denial crumbled, and his son's eye squeezed shut
while all six fingers
squeezed painfully into palms. The young thrint threw
back his head and howled
desolately, a sound like glass and sheet metal inside
a tumbling crusher.
QUIET. Silence fell; Dnivtopun could hear the
uncomprehending whimper of a
female in the next room, beyond the lightscreen door.
One of his wives-they had
all been nervous and edgy. Female thrint had enough
psionic sensitivity to be
very vulnerable to upset.
"You will have to get used to the idea," Dnivtopun
said. Powergiver knows it
took me long enough. He moved closer and threw an arm
around his son's
almost-neck, biting him affectionately on the top of
the head. "Think of the
good side. There are no tnuctipun here!" He could
feel that bring a small wave
of relief; the Rebels had been bogeymen to the
children since their birth. "And
you will have a planet of your own, some day. There
is a whole galaxy of slaves
here, ready for our taking!"
"Truly, father?" There was awakening greed at that.
Dnivtopun had only been
Overseer of one miserable food-planet, a sterile
globe with a reducing
atmosphere, seeded with algae and Bandersnatch. There
would have been little for
his sons, even without the disruption of the War.
"Truly, my son." He keyed one of the controls, and a
wall blanked to show an
exterior starscape. "One day, all this will be yours.
We are not just the last
thrint-we are the beginning of a new Empire!" And I
am the first Emperor, if I
can survive the next few months. "So we must take
good care of these slaves."
"But these smell so good, father!"
Dnivtopun sighed. "I know, son." Thrint had an acute
sense of smell when it came
to edibility; competition for food among their
presapient ancestors had been
very intense. "It's because-" No, that's just a
guess. Few alien biologies in
the old days had been as compatible as these humans .
. . Dnivtopun had a grisly
suspicion he knew the reason: food algae. The thrint
had seeded hundreds of
planets with it, and given billions of years . . .
That would account for the
compatibility of the other species as well, the kzin.
They could eat humans as
well. "Well, you'll just have to learn to ignore it."
Thrint were always
ravenous. "Now, listen-you've upset your mother. Go
and comfort her."
***
Ulf Reichstein-Markham faced the Master and fought
not to vomit. The carrion
breath, the writhing tentacles beside the obscene
gash of mouth, the staring
faceted eye . . . It was so-
-beautiful, he thought, as shards of crystalline
Truth slid home in his mind.
The pleasure was like the drifting relaxation after
orgasm, like a hot sauna,
like winning a fight.
"What progress has been made on the amplifier
helmet?" his owner asked.
"Very little, Mast- Eeeeeeeeee!" He staggered back,
shaking his head against the
blinding-white pressure that threatened to burst it.
Whimpering, he pressed his
hands against the sides of his head. "Please, Master!
We are trying!"
The pressure relaxed; on some very distant level, he
could feel the alien's
recognition of his sincerity.
"What is the problem?" Dnivtopun asked.
"Master-" Markham stopped for a moment to organize
his thoughts, looking around.
They were on the control deck of the Ruling Mind, and
it was huge. Few human
spaceships had ever been so large; this was nearly
the size of a colony
slowship. The chamber was a flattened oval dome
twenty meters long and ten wide,
lined with chairs of many different types. That was
logical, to accommodate the
wild variety of slave-species the thrint used. But
they were chairs, not
acceleration couches. The thrint had had very good
gravity control, for a very
long time. A central chair designed for thrint
fronted the blackened wreck of
what had been the main computer. The decor was lavish
and garish, swirling
curlicues of precious metals and enamel, drifting
motes of multicolored lights.
Beneath their feet was a porous matrix that seemed at
least half-alive, that
absorbed anything organic and dead and moved rubbish
to collector outlets with a
disturbing peristaltic motion. The air was full of
the smells of vegetation and
rank growth.
Curious, he thought, as the majority of his
consciousness wondered how to answer
the Master. The controls were odd, separate
crystal-display dials and manual
levers and switches, primitive in the extreme. But
the machinery behind the
switches was . . . there were no doors; something
happened, and the material
went . . . vague, and you could walk through it, like
walking through soft
taffy. The only mechanical airlock was a safety
backup. There was no central
power source for the ship. Dotted around were units
that apparently converted
matter into energy; the equivalent of flashlight
batteries could start it. The
basic drive was to the kzinti gravity polarizer as a
fusion bomb was to a
grenade-it could accelerate at thousands of
gravities, and then pull space right
around the ship and travel faster than light.
Faster than light-
"Stop daydreaming," the Voice said. "And tell me
why."
"Master, we don't know how."
The thrint opened its mouth and then closed it again,
the tendrils stroking
caressingly at its almost nonexistent lips. "Why
not?" he said. "It isn't very
complicated. You can buy them anywhere for twenty
znorgits."
"Master, do you know the principles?"
"Of course not, slave! That's slavework. For
engineers."
"But, Master, the slave-engineers you've got . . . we
can only talk to them a
little, and they don't know anything beyond what
buttons to push. The
machinery-" he waved helplessly at the walls
"-doesn't make any sense to us,
Master! It's just blocks of matter. We . . . our
instruments can barely detect
that something's going on."
The thrint stood looking at him, radiating
incomprehension. "Well," he said
after a moment. "It's true I didn't have the best
quality of engineering slave.
No need for them, on a routine posting. Still, I'm
sure you'll figure something
out, Chief Slave. How are we doing at getting the
Ruling Mind freed from the
dirt?"
"Much better, Master, that is well within our
capacities. Master?"
"Yes?"
"Have I your permission to send a party to Tiamat? It
can be done without much
danger of detection, beyond what the deserters
already present, and we need more
personnel and spare parts. For a research project on
. . . well, on your nervous
system."
The alien's single unwinking eye stared at him. "What
are nerves?" he said
slowly. Dnivtopun took a dopestick from his pouch and
sucked on it. Then:
"What's research?"
***
"Erreow."
The kzinrret rolled and twisted across the wicker
matting of the room, yowling
softly with her eyes closed. Traat-Admiral glanced at
her with post-coital
satisfaction as he finished grooming his pelt and
laid the currycomb aside; he
might be de facto leader of the Modernists, but he
was not one of those who
could not maintain a decent appearance without a
dozen servants and machinery.
At the last he cleaned the damp portions of his fur
with talc, remembering once
watching a holo of humans bathing themselves by
jumping into water. Into cold
water.
"Hrrrrr," he shivered.
The female turned over on all fours and stuck her
rump in the air.
"Ch'rowl?" she chirruped. Involuntarily his ears
extended and the muscles of his
massive neck and shoulders twitched. "Ch'rowl?" With
a saucy twitch of her tail,
but he could smell that she was not serious. Besides,
there was work to do.
"No," he said firmly. The kzinrret padded over to a
corner, collapsed onto a
pile of cushions and went to sleep with limp finality.
A kzinrret of the Patriarch's line, Traat-Admiral
thought with pride; one of
Chuut-Riit's beauteous daughters. His blood to be
mingled with the Riit, he
whose Sire had been only a Third Gunner, lucky to get
a single mate when the
heavy casualties of the First Fleet left so many
maleless. He stretched,
reaching for the domed ceiling, picked up the weapons
belt from the door and
padded off down the corridor. This was the governor's
harem quarters, done up as
closely as might be to a noble's Kzinrret House on
Kzin itself. Domed wickerwork
structures, the tops waterproof with synthetic in a
concession to modernity;
there were even gravity polarizers to bring it up to
homeworld weight, nearly
twice that of Wunderland.
"Good for the health of the kzinrret and kits," he
mused to himself, and his
ears moved in the kzinti equivalent of a grin. It was
easy to get used to such
luxury, he decided, ducking through the shamboo
curtain over the entrance and
pacing down the exit corridor; that was open at the
sides, roofed in flowering
orange vines.
Each dome was set in a broad space of open
vegetation, and woe betide the
kzinrret who strayed across the low wooden boundaries
into her neighbor's claws;
female kzin might be too stupid to talk, but they had
a keenly developed sense
of territory. There were open spaces, planted in a
pleasant mixture of
vegetation: orange kzinti, reddish Wunderlander,
green from Earth. Traat-Admiral
could hear the sounds of young kits at play in the
common area, see them running
and tumbling and chasing while their mothers lay
basking in the weak sunlight or
groomed each other. Few of them had noticed the
change of males overmuch, but
integrating his own modest harem had been difficult,
with much fur flying in
dominance-tussles.
He sighed as he neared the exit gate. Chuut-Riit's
harem was not only of
excellent quality, but so well trained that it needed
less maintenance than his
own had. The females would even let human servants in
to keep up the feeding
stations, a vast help, since male kzin who could be
trusted in another's harem
were not common. They were all well housebroken, and
most did not even have to
be physically restrained when pregnant, which
simplified things immensely;
kzinretti had an almost irresistible urge to dig a
birthing tunnel about then,
and it created endless problems and damage to the
gardens.
Through the outer gate, functional warding-fields and
robot guns, and a squad of
Chuut-Riit's household troopers. They saluted with
enthusiasm. Since they were
hereditary servants of the Riit, he had been under no
obligation to let them
swear to him . . . although it would be foolish to
discard so useful a cadre.
Would I have thought of this before Chuut-Riit
trained me? he thought. Then: He
is dead: I live. Enough.
Beyond the gates began the palace proper. The
military and administrative
sections were largely underground, ship-style; from
here you could see only the
living quarters, openwork pavilions for the most
part, on bases of massive cut
stone. Between and around them stretched gardens,
stones of pleasing shape,
trees whose smooth bark made claws itch. There was a
half-acre of zheeretki too,
the tantalizing scent calling the passerby to come
roll in its intoxicating
blossoms. Traat-Admiral wiggled his ears in amusement
as he settled onto the
cushions in the reception pavilion.
All this luxury, and no time to enjoy it, he thought.
It was well enough; one
did not become a Conquest Hero by lolling about on
cushions sipping blood.
His eldest son was coming along one of the paths. In
a hurry, and running
four-foot with the sinuous gait that reminded humans
of weasels as much as cats;
he wore a sash of office, his first ranking. Ten
meters from the pavilion he
rose, licked his wrists and smoothed back his cheek
fur with them, settled the
sash.
"Honored Sire Traat-Admiral, Staff-Officer requests
audience at your summons,"
he said.
"And . . . the Accursed Ones. They await final
judgment. And-"
"Enough, Aide-de-Camp," Traat-Admiral rumbled.
The young male stood proudly and made an unconscious
gesture of adjusting the
sash; that was a ceremonial survival of a
sword-baldric, from the days when
Aides were bodyguards as well, entitled to take a
duel-challenge on themselves
to spare their masters. Looking into the great round
eyes of his son,
Traat-Admiral realized that that too would be done
gladly if it were needed.
Unable to restrain himself, he gave the youth's ears
a few grooming licks.
"Fath- Honored Sire! Please!"

"Hrrrr," Staff-Officer rumbled. "He was as strong as
a terrenki and faster."
Traat-Admiral looked down to see the fresh ears of
Ktiir-Supervisor-of-Animals
dangling at the other's belt.
"Not quite fast enough," Traat-Admiral said with
genuine admiration. Most kzin
became slightly less quarrelsome past their first
youth, but the late Ktiir's
notorious temper had gotten worse, if anything. It
probably came from having to
deal with humans all the time, and high-level
collaborators at that. Ktiir
should have remembered that reflexes slowed and had
to be replaced with cunning
and skill born of experience.
"Yes," he continued, "I am well pleased." He paused
for three breaths, waiting
while Staff-Officer's muzzle dipped into the saucer.
"Hroth-Staff-Officer."
The other kzin gasped, inhaled milk and rolled over,
coughing and slapping at
his nose, sneezed frantically, and sat back with his
eyes watering.
Traat-Admiral felt his ears twitch with genial
amusement.
"Do not be angry, noble Hroth-Staff-Officer," he
said. "There is little of humor
these days." To confer a Name was a system governor's
prerogative. Any
field-grade officer could, for certain
well-established feats of honor, but a
governor could do so at discretion.
"I will strive-kercheee-to be worthy of the honor,"
the newly-promoted kzin
said. "Little though I have done to deserve it."
"Nonsense," Traat-Admiral said. For one thing, you
are very diplomatic. Only a
kzin with iron self-control could be humble, even
under these circumstances.
"For another, you have won . . . what, six duels in
the month? And a dozen more
back when Chuut-Riit first came from Homeworld to
this system. Ktrodni-Stkaa, to
be frank, will be shitting buffalo bones. This will
satisfy those who think
galactic conquest can be accomplished with teeth and
claws. Also, you have been
invaluable in keeping the Modernist faction aligned
behind me. Many thought
Chuut-Riit's heir should be from among his immediate
entourage."
Hroth-Staff-Officer twitched his tail and rippled
sections of his pelt. "None
such could enjoy sufficient confidence among the
locally-born, even among the
many younger ones who agreed with his policies," he
said. "If we trusted
Chuut-Riit's judgment before he was killed, should we
not after he is dead?"
Traat-Admiral sighed, looking out over the exquisite
restraint of the gardens.
"I agree. Better a . . . less worthy successor than
infighting beneath one more
technically qualified." His ears spread in irony.
"More infighting than we have
had. Chuut-Riit said . . ." He hesitated, then looked
over at the faces of his
son and the newly-ennobled Hroth-Staff-Officer,
remembered conversations with
his mentor. "He said that humans were either the
greatest danger or greatest
opportunity kzinti had ever faced. And that he did
not know if they came just in
time, or just too late."
His son showed curiosity in the rippling of his pelt,
an almost imperceptible
movement of his fingertips. Curiosity was a childhood
characteristic among kzin,
but one the murdered governor had said should be
encouraged into adulthood.
"We have not faced a challenge to really test our
mettle for . . . for a long
time," he said. "We make easy conquests; empty worlds
to colonize, or others
where the inhabitants are savages with spears,
barbarians with nothing better
than chemical-energy weapons. We grow slothful; our
energy is spent in
quarreling among ourselves, and more and more of even
the work of maintaining
our civilization we turn over to our slaves."
"Wrrrr," Hroth-Staff-Officer said. "But what did the
Dominant One before you
mean, that the humans might be too late?"
Traat-Admiral's voice sank slightly. "That lack of
challenge has weakened us. By
making us inflexible, brittle. There are other forms
of rot than softness;
fossilization is another form of decay, steel and
bone turning to stiff
breakable rock. Chuut-Riit saw that as we expand we
must eventually meet
terrible threats; if the kzinti were to be strong
enough to conquer them, first
we must be reforged in the blaze of war."
"I still don't smell the track, Traat-Admiral,"
Hroth-Staff-Officer said. The
admiral could see his son huddled on the cushions,
entranced at being able to
listen in on such august conversation.
Listen well, my son, he thought. You will find it an
uncomfortable privilege.
"Are the humans then a challenge which will call
forth our strength . . . or the
mad raairtiro that will shatter us?'
"Wrrrr!" Hroth-Staff-Officer shivered slightly, his
fur lying flat.
Aide-de-Camp's was plastered to his skin, and his
ears had disappeared into
their pouches of skin. "That has the authentic flavor
and scent of his . . .
disquieting lectures. I suffered through enough of
them." A pause. "Still, the
raaairtwo may be head-high at the shoulder and weigh
fifty times a kzintosh's
mass and have a spiked armor ball for a tail, but our
ancestors killed them."
"But not by butting heads with them,
Hroth-Staff-Officer." He turned his head.
"Aide-de-Camp, go to the Accursed Ones, and bring
them here. Not immediately; in
an hour or so."
He leaned forward once the youth had leaped up and
four-footed away.
"Hroth-Staff-Officer, has it occurred to you why we
are sending such an armada
to the asteroids?"
Big lambent yellow eyes blinked at him. "There has
been much activity among the
feral humans," he said. "I did scent that you might
be using this as an excuse
for field-exercises with live ammunition, in order to
quiet dissension." Kzin
obeyed when under arms, even if they hated. A
hesitation. "And it gives
Ktrodni-Stkaa a post of honor, yet under your eye,
Dominant One."
"The interstellar warships as well? That would be
like cleaning vermin out of
your pelt with a beam-rifle. And would give old
leaps-without-looking more honor
than is needful."
He leaned closer. "This is a Patriarch's Secret," he
continued. "Listen."
When he finished a half hour later,
Hroth-Staff-Officer's pelt was half
laid-flat, with patches bristling in horror.
Traat-Admiral could smell his
anger, underlaid with fear, a sickly scent.
"You are right to fear," he said, conscious of his
own glands. No kzin could
hide true terror, of course, not with a functioning
nose in the area.
"Death is nothing," the other nodded. He grinned, the
expression humans
sometimes mistook for friendliness. "But this!" He
hissed, and Traat-Admiral
watched and smelled him fight down blind rage.
"Chuut-Riit feared something like this," he said.
"And Conservor thinks that he
was right to fear." At the other's startlement: "Oh,
no, not these beings
particularly. It is a joke of the God that we find
this thing in the middle of a
difficult war. But something terrible was bound to
jump out of the long grass
sooner or later. The universe is so large, and we
keep pressing our noses into
new caves . . ." He shrugged. "Enough. Now-"
***
Chuut-Riit's sons lay stomach to earth on the path
before the dais of judgment
and covered their noses. Traat-Admiral looked down on
their still-gaunt forms
and felt himself recoil. Not with fear, at least not
the fear of an adult kzin.
Vague memories moved in the shadowcorners of his
mind: brutal hands tearing him
away from Mother, giant shapes of absolute power . .
. rage and desire and fear,
the bitter acrid smell of loneliness.
Wipe them out, he thought uneasily, as his lips
curled up and the hair bulked
erect on neck and spine. Wipe them out, and this will
not be.
"You have committed the gravest of all crimes," he
said slowly, fighting the
wordless snarling that struggled to use his throat.
There was an ancient epic,
Warlord Chmee at the Pillars. He had seen a holo of
it once, and had groveled
and howled like all the audience and come back washed
free of grief, at the last
view of the blind and scentless Hero. And these did
not sin in ignorance, nor
did they claw out their own eyes and breathe acid in
remorse and horror.
"To overthrow one's Sire is . . . primitive, but such
is custom; to slay him
honorably, even . . . But to fall upon him in a pack
and devour him! And each
other!"
The guilty ones seemed to sink farther to the raked
gravel of the path before
him; he stood like a towering wall of orange fur at
the edge of the pavilion,
the molten-copper glow of his pelt streaked with
scar-white. Like an image of
dominance to a young kzin, hated and feared and
adored. Not that the armored
troopers behind him with their beam-guns hurt, he
reflected. Control, he
thought. Self-control is the heart of honor.
"Is there any reason you should not be killed?" he
said. "Or blinded, castrated,
and driven out?"
Silence then, for a long time. Finally, the spotted
one, who had spent longest
in the regeneration tank, spoke.
"No, Dominant One."
Traat-Admiral relaxed slightly. "Good. But
Chuut-Riit's last message to us spoke
of mercy. If you had not acknowledged your crime and
your worthlessness, there
would have been no forgiveness.
"Hear your sentence. The fleets of the Patriarchy in
this system are journeying
forth against . . . an enemy. You have all received
elementary space-combat
training." Attacks on defended asteroids often
involved boarding, by marines in
one-kzin suits of stealthed, powered vacuum armor.
"You will be formed into a
special unit for the coming action. This is your last
chance to achieve honor!"
An honorable death, of course. "Do not waste it. Go!"
He turned to Hroth-Staff-Officer. "Get me the
readiness reports," he said, and
spoke the phrase that opened the communication line
to the household staff.
"Bring two saucers of tuna ice cream with stolychina
vodka," he continued. "I
have a bad taste to get out of my mouth."

Chapter 14
"How did he manage it?" Jonah Matthieson muttered.
The hauler the party from the Sol system had been
assigned was an unfamiliar
model, a long stalk with a life-bubble at one end and
a gravity-polarizer drive
as well as fusion thrusters. Introduced by the
kzinti, no doubt; they had had
the polarizer for long enough to be using it for
civilian purposes. With a crew
of half a dozen the bubble was very crowded, despite
the size of the ship, and
they had set the internal gravity to zero to make
best use of the space. The air
smelled right to his Belter's nose: a pure neutral
smell with nothing but a
slight trace of ozone and pine, something you could
not count on in the Alpha
Centauri system these days. Certainly less
nerve-wracking than the surface of
Wunderland, with its wild smells and completely
uncontrolled random-process
life-support system.
A good ship, he thought. Nothing like the
surprise-stuffed kzin corvette that
Early had brought, but that was part of the oyabun's
fleet now, with enough UN
personnel to teach locals. This must be highly
automated, doing the rounds of
the refineries and hauling back metals and polymer
sacks of powders and liquids.
What clung to the carrying fields now looked very
much like a cargo of
singleships, being delivered to rockjacks at some
other base asteroid; he had
been respectfully surprised at the assortment of
commandeered weapons and
jury-rigged but roughly effective control systems.
General Early looked up from his display plaque. "Not
surprising, considering
the state things are in," he said. "Organized crime
does well in a disorganized
social setting. Like any conspiracy, unless the
conspiracy is the social
setting."
Like the ARM, Jonah thought sourly. And what
conspiracies control the
conspiracies?
"It's a Finagle-damned fleet, though," he said aloud.
"Don't the pussies care?"
"Not much, I imagine," Early said. Jonah could see
the schematics for the rest
of their flotilla coming up on the board. "So long as
it doesn't impact on their
military concerns. They'd clamp down soon enough if
much went directly to the
resistance, of course. Or their human goons would,
for fear of losing their
positions. The pussies may be great fighters, but as
administrators they're
worse than Russians."
What're Russians? Jonah thought. Then, Oh. Them.
"Surprising they tolerate so
much corruption."
Early shrugged. "What can they do? And from what
we've learned, they expect the
tame monkeys to be corrupt, except for the household
servants. If we weren't
goddam cowards and lickspittles, we'd all have died
fighting." He smiled his
wide white grin and stuck a stogie in the midst of
it-unlit, Jonah saw
thankfully. The schematics continued to roll across
the screen. "Ahhh, thought
so."
"Thought what?"
"Our friend Shigehero is playing both ends against
the middle," Early said.
"He's bringing along a lot of exploratory stuff as
well as weaponry. A big
computer, by local standards. Wait a second. Yes,
linguistic-analysis hardware
too. The son of a bitch!"
Silence fell. Jonah looked at the others, studied the
hard set of their faces.
"Wait a second," he said. "There's an ancient alien
artifact, and you don't
think it should be studied?"
Early looked up, and Jonah realized with a sudden
shock that he was being
weighed. For trustworthiness, and possibly for
expendability.
"Of course not," the general said. "The risk is too
great. Remember the Sea
Statue?"
Jonah concentrated. "Oh, the thingie in the
Smithsonian? The Slaver?"
"Why do you think they were called that, Captain?"
Early spent visible effort
controlling impatience.
"I . . ." Suddenly, Jonah realized that he knew very
little of the famous
exhibit, beyond the fact that it was an alien in a
spacesuit protected by a
stasis field. "You'd better do some explaining, sir."
Several of the others stirred uneasily, and Early
waved them back to silence.
"He's right," he said regretfully, and began.

"Murphy," Jonah muttered when the older man had
finished. "That is a menace."
Early nodded jerkily. "More than you realize. That
artifact is a ship. There may
be more than one of the bastards on it," he said, in
another of his archaic
turns of phrase. "A breeding pair, if we're really
unlucky. Besides which, the
technology. We've had three centuries of trying, and
we've barely been able to
make two or three copies of their stasis field; as
far as we can tell, the only
way that could work is by decoupling the interior
from the entropy gradient of
the universe as a whole . . ."
Jonah leaned back, his toes hooked comfortably under
a line, and considered the
flatlander. Then the others, his head cocked to one
side consideringly.
"It isn't just you, is it?" he said. "The whole lot
of you are ARM types. Most
of you older than you look."
Early blinked, and took the stogie from between his
teeth. "Now why," he said
softly, "would you think that, Captain?"
"Body language," Jonah said, linking his hands behind
his back and staring "up."
The human face is a delicate communications
instrument, and he suspected that
Early had experience enough to read entirely too much
from it. "And attitudes.
Something new comes along, grab it quick. Hide it
away and study it in private.
Pretty typical. Sir."
"Captain," Early said, "you Belters are all
anarchists, but you're supposed to
be rationalists too. Humanity had centuries of
stability before the kzin
arrived, the first long interval of peace since . . .
God, ever. You think that
was an accident? The way humankind was headed in the
early atomic era, if
something like the ARM hadn't intervened there
wouldn't be a human race now.
Nothing we'd recognize as human. There are things in
the ARM archives . . . that
just can't be let out."
"Oh?" Jonah said coldly.
Early smiled grimly. "Like an irresistible
aphrodisiac?" he said. "Conditioning
pills that make you completely loyal forever to the
first person you see after
taking them? Things that would have made it
impossible not to legalize murder
and cannibalism? Damned right we sit on things. Even
if there weren't aliens on
that ship, it would have to be destroyed; there's
neither time nor opportunity
to take it apart and keep the results under wraps. If
the pussies get it, we're
royally screwed." Jonah remained silent. "Don't look
so apprehensive, Captain.
You're no menace, no matter what you learn."
"I'm not?" Jonah said, narrowing his eyes. He had
suspected . . .
"Of course not. What use would a system of secrecy
be, if one individual leak
could imperil it? How do you think we wrote the Sea
Statue out of the history
books as anything but a curiosity? Slowly, and from
many directions and oh, so
imperceptibly. Bit by bit, and anyone who
suspected"-he grinned, and several of
the others joined him-"autodocs exist to correct
diseases like paranoia, don't
they? In the meantime, I suggest you remember you are
under military
discipline."

"Uncle, that established the limits of control," the
technician said to
Shigehero Hirose.
Silent, the oyabun nodded, watching the multiple
displays on the Murasaki's
bridge screens. There were dozens of them; the
Murasaki was theoretically a
passenger hauler, out of Tiamat to the major Swarm
habitats and occasionally to
Wunderland and its satellites. In actuality, it was
the Association's fallback
headquarters, and forty years of patient theft had
given it weapons and handling
characteristics equivalent to a kzinti Vengeful
Slasher-class light cruiser. He
reflected on how much else of the Association's
strength was here, and felt a
gripping pain in the stomach. Still water, he
thought, controlling his
breathing. There were times when opportunity must be
seized, despite all risk.
"Attempt communication on the hailing frequencies,"
he said, as the latest
singleship stopped in its elliptical path around the
asteroid and coasted in to
assume a station among the others under Markham's
control. Or the alien's,
Hirose reminded himself. "But this time, we must
demonstrate the consequences of
noncompliance. Execute East Wind, Rain."
The points of light on the screens began to move in a
complicated dance,
circling the asteroid and its half-freed alien ship.
"Ah," the Tactics officer said. "Uncle, see, Markham
is deploying his units
without regard to protecting the artifact."
Pale fusion flame bloomed against the stars, a
singleship power core
deliberately destabilized; it would be recorded as an
accident, at Traffic
Control Central on Tiamat. If that had been a human
or kzinti craft, everyone
aboard would have been lethally irradiated.
"But," the oyabun observed, "notice that none of his
vessels moves beyond a
certain distance from the asteroid. This is
interesting."
"Uncle . . . those dispositions are an invitation to
close in, given the
intercept capacities we have observed."
"Do so, but be cautious. Be very cautious."
***
"Accelerating," Jonah Matthieson said. "Twenty
thousand klicks and closing at
three hundred kps relative."
The asteroid was a lumpy potato in the screen ahead.
Acceleration pressed him
back into the control couch. It was an almost
unfamiliar sensation; this
refitted singleship had no compensators. But it did
have a nicely efficient
fusion drive, and he was on intercept with one of
Markham's boats, ready to flip
over and decelerate toward it behind the sword of
thermonuclear fire.
"Hold it, you cow," he muttered to the clumsy ship.
His sweat stank in his
nostrils. Show your stuff, Matthieson, he told
himself. Singleships no better
than this had cut the kzinti First Fleet to ribbons,
when the initial attack on
the Solar system had been launched.
"Ready for attack," he said. "Five seconds and-"
Matching velocities, he realized. It would be tricky,
without damaging Markham's
ship. That would be very bad. Markham's ship must not
be damaged; the asteroid
must be kept safe at all costs. His hands moved
across the control screens and
flicked in the lightfield sensors. The communicator
squawked at him, meaningless
noises interrupting the essential task of safely
killing velocity relative to
the asteroid. He switched it off.
***
"HURRY," Dnivtopun grated. The human and fssstup
slaves redoubled their efforts
on the components strung out across the floor of the
Ruling Mind's control
chamber.
Markham looked up from the battle-control screens.
"Zey are approaching the
estimated control radius, Master," he said coolly. "I
am prepared to activate
plans A or B, according to ze results."
The thrint felt for the surface of the Chief Slave's
mind; it was . . .
machine-like, he decided. Complete concentration,
without even much sense of
self. Familiar, he decided. Artist-slaves felt like
that, when fulfilling their
functions. Almost absentmindedly, he reached out and
took control of a single
slave-mind that had strayed too close; it was locked
tight on its purpose, easy
to redirect.
"Secure that small spacecraft," he said, then fixed
his eye on the helmet. "Will
it work?" he asked, extending his tendrils towards
the bell-shape of the
amplifier helmet in an unconscious gesture of hungry
longing. It was a
cobbled-together mess of equipment ripped out of the
human vessels and spare
parts from the Ruling Mind. Square angular black
boxes were joined with the
half-melted-looking units salvaged from the thrintun
control components.
"Ve do not know, Master," Markham said. "The
opportunity will not last long;
this formation ve use is tactically inefficient. If
they were pressing home
their attacks, or if they dared use weapons with
signatures visible to kzin
monitors, ve would have been overwhelmed already." A
sigh. "If only ze Ruling
Mind were fully operational!"
Dnivtopun clenched all six fingers in fury, and felt
his control of the
command-slaves of the space vessels falter. They were
at the limits of his
ability; it was like grasping soap bubbles in the
dark. Nothing complicated,
simply: OBEY. Markham had thought of the coded
self-destruct boxes fixed to
their power cores, to keep the crews from mutiny.
Markham was turning out to be
a most valuable Chief Slave. Dnivtopun reached for
another dopestick, then
forced his hand away. Their weapons cannot harm this
ship, he told himself.
Probably.
"Ready, Master," one of the fssstup squeaked, making
a last adjustment with a
three-handed micromanipulator.
"Thanks to the Powergiver!" Dnivtopun mumbled,
reaching for it. The primitive
metal-alloy shape felt awkward on his head, the leads
inside prickled.
"Activate!"
Ah, he thought, closing his eyes. There was a
half-audible whine, and then the
surface of his mind seemed to expand.
"First augment."
Another expansion, and suddenly it was no longer a
strain to control the vessels
around the asteroid that encompassed his ship. Their
commanders sank deeper into
his grip, and he clamped down on the crews. He could
feel their consciousnesses
writhing in his grip, then quieting to docility as
ice-shards of Power slipped
easily into the centers of volition, memory,
pleasure-pain. LOYALTY, he thought.
SELFLESS ENTHUSIASM. DEDICATION TO THE THRINT.
"This is better than the original model!" he exulted.
But then, the original was
designed by tnuctipun. "Second augment."
Now his own being seemed to thin and expand, and the
center of perception
shifted outside the ship. The wild slave-minds were
like lights glowing in a
mist of darkness, dozens . . . no, hundreds of them.
He knew this species now,
and he ripped through to the volition centers with
careless violence. AWAIT
INSTRUCTION. Now, to find their herdbull; quickest to
control through him.
Oyabun. The name slipped into his memory. Ah, yes.
"How interesting," he mumbled. Beautifully organized
and disciplined; it even
struggled for a moment in his grasp. There. Paralyze
the upper levels, the
threshold-censor mechanism that was awareness. Ah! It
had almost slipped away!
"Amazing," he said to himself. "The slave is
accustomed to nonintrospection." It
was very rare to find a sentient that could operate
without contemplating its
own operation, without interior discourse. Deeper . .
. the pleasurable feeling
of a mind settling down under control. Now he could
add this flotilla to his;
they would free the Ruling Mind more quickly, and go
on to seize the planet.
There was a frying sound, and suddenly the sphere of
awareness was expanding
once more, thinning out his sense of self.
"No more augmentation," he said. But it continued; he
could hear shouts, cries.
His eyes opened, and there was a stabbing pain in his
head as visual perception
was overlaid on mental, a fssstup flying across the
bridge with its belly-pelt
on fire. His hands were moving slowly up toward his
head, so slowly, and he
could sense more and more, he was spinning out
thinner than interstellar gas,
and he was
SwarbelterARMkzinwunderlandernothingnothing
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-" the thrint shrieked,
with his voice and the Power.
PAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAIN-
Blackness.
***
Ulf Reichstein-Markham raised his head from the
console before him, tried to
inhale and choked on the clotted blood that blocked
his throbbing and broken
nose.
Where am I? he thought, looking around with crusted
eyes. The drilling rig had
suddenly disappeared, and then the alien had come
floating up and-
"Hrrrg," he said, staggering erect. "Hrrrgg."
Blood leaked through scabs on his tongue and pain
lanced through his mouth.
Bite, he realized. I bit myself. Cold wetness in the
seat and legs of his
flightsuit; he realized that he must have lost bowel
and bladder control.
Somehow that was not shameful; it was a fact, just as
the distant crystal
clarity of the alien bridge was a fact, like things
seen through the wrong end
of Mutti's antique optical telescope. He could taste
the brass smell of it.
Nobody else was stirring. Some of the humans looked
dead, very dead, slumped in
their chairs with tongues lolling and blood leaking
from their noses and ears.
Some of the aliens, too.
"Master!" he cried blurrily, spitting out blood.
The squat greenish form was slumped in its chair, the
helmet half-off the bullet
dome of its head. He tried to walk forward, and fell
himself. The skin of his
face and thighs tingled as the blue pseudolife of the
floor cleansed them. He
waited while the kaleidoscope shards of reality fell
into place around him
again; the inside of his head felt more raw than his
tongue. Once in a skirmish
he had been trapped in a wrecked singleship, with his
arm caught between two
collapsed struts. When the rescuers cut him free, the
pain of blood pouring into
the dry flesh had been worse than the first shock of
the wound itself. He could
feel thought running through sections of his
consciousness that had been shut
down for weeks, and he wept tears of pain as he had
never wept in action.
Certainty, he thought. Never have I known certainty
before. "Mutti," he
whispered. Mother, in the tongue of truth and love.
English was common, Belter.
Father spoke English, and Mutti had married him when
the kzin chased her away
from the home he had never seen. Mother was
certainty, but he, he could never be
certain. Never do enough. Love might be withheld.
Markham screamed with the
terror of it, colder than space. Worse than death.
"I will be strong, Mutti," he whispered, through
blood and tears and mucus that
the floor drank. "Stronger than Father." Rage bit
him, as he remembered tall
slim beautiful Mutti stiffening at the touch of hated
grubby commoner hands. You
must be all mine, myn sohn, the voice whispered in a
child's ear. Prove yourself
worthy of the blood. The tears flowed faster.
I am not worthy. My blood is corrupt, weak. I fear in
battle. No matter how much
I purge weakness, treason, their faces come back to
me, I wake in the night and
see them bleeding as we put them out the airlocks
Mutti, hilfe me.
His eyes opened again, and he saw his hand. The shock
broke reality apart again;
it was a skeleton's hand, a starved yellow claw-hand.
He touched himself,
feeling the hoop of ribs, and then hunger struck his
belly, doubling him over.
"Master," he whispered. Master would make it right.
With Master there was no
weakness, no doubt, no uncertainty. With Master he
was strong. A keening escaped
him as he remembered the crystalline absoluteness of
the Power in his mind.
"Don't leave me, Master!"
Markham crawled, digging his fingers into the
yielding surface until his hand
touched the cable of the amplifier helmet. He jerked,
and it tumbled down; he
drew himself erect by the command chair, put a hand
to the thrint's face to
check. The bunched tendrils by the mouth shot out and
gripped his hand, like
twenty wire worms, and he jerked it back before they
could draw it into the
round expanding maw and the wet needles of the teeth.
"Survival," he muttered. The Master's race was fit to
survive and dominate.
Overman . . . is demigod, he remembered. No more
struggle; the Power proved
whose Will must conquer.
Now he could stand. Some of the others were stirring.
With slow care he walked
back to his seat, watching the screens. Analysis
flowed effortlessly through his
head; the enemy vessels had made parking trajectories
. . . and Catskinner was
accelerating away . . . Brief rage flickered and
died, there was nothing that
could be done about that now. He sat, and called up
the self-destruct sequences.
"Tightbeam to all Free Wunderland Space Navy units,
task force Zarathustra," he
wheezed, his throat hurt, as if he had screamed it
raw. "Maintain . . . present
positions. Any . . . shift will be treated as mutiny.
Admiral . . . Ulf
Reichstein-Markham . . . out."
He keyed it to repeat, then tapped the channel to the
von Seekt, his fast
courier. Adelman was a reliable type, and a good
disciplinarian. The
communicator screen blanked, then came alive with the
holo image of the other
man: a gaunt skull-like face, staring at him with
dull-eyed lack of interest. A
thread of saliva dangled from one lip.
"Hauptman Adelman!" Markham barked, swallowing blood
from his tongue. I must get
to an autodoc, he reminded himself. Then, with a
trace of puzzlement: Why has
none been transferred to the Ruling Mind? No matter,
later. "Adelman!"
The dull blue eyes blinked, and expression returned
to the muscles of his face.
Jerkily, as if by fits and starts, like a 'cast
message with too much noise in
the signal.
"Gottdamn," Adelman whispered. "Ulf, what's been . .
." he looked around, at the
areas of the courier's life-bubble beyond the
pickup's range. "Myn Gott, Ulf!
Smythe is dead! Where-? What-?" He looked up at
Markham, and blanched.
"Adelman," Markham said firmly. "Listen to me." A
degree of alertness.
"Zum befehl, Admiral!"
"Good man," Markham replied firmly. "Adelman, you
will find sealed orders in
your security file under code Ubermensch. You
understand?"
"Jahwol."
"Adelman, you have had a great shock. But everything
is now under control.
Remember that, under control. We now have access to
technology which will make
it an easy matter to sweep aside the kzinti, but we
must have those parts listed
in the file. You must make a minimum-time transit to
Tiamat, and return here.
Let nothing delay you. You . . . you will probably
note symptoms of
psychological disorientation, delusions, false
memories. Ignore them.
Concentrate on your mission."
The other man wiped his chin with the back of his
hand. "Understood, Admiral,"
he said.
Markham blanked the screen, putting a hand to his
head. Now he must decide what
to do next. Pain lanced behind his eyes; decision was
harder than analysis.
Scrabbling, he pulled the portable input board from
his waistbelt. He would have
to program a deadman switch to the self-destruct
circuits. Control must be
maintained until the Master awoke; he could feel that
the others would be
difficult. Only I truly understand, he realized. It
was a lonely and terrible
burden, but he had the strength for it. The Master
had filled him with strength.
At all costs, the Master must be guarded until he
recovered.
Freeing the Ruling Mind is taking too long, he
decided. Why had the Master
ordered a complete uncovering of the hull?
Inefficient . . . We must free some
of the weapons systems first, he thought. Transfer
some others to the
human-built ships. Establish a proper defensive
perimeter.
He looked over at the Master where he lay leaking
brown from his mouth in the
chair. The single eye was still covered by the
vertical slit of a closed lid.
Suddenly Markham felt the weight of his sidearm in
his hand, pointing at the
thrint. With a scream of horror, he thrust it back
into the holster and slammed
the offending hand into the unyielding surface of the
screen, again and again.
The pain was sweet as justice.
My weakness, he told himself. My father's weak subman
blood. I must be on my
guard.
Work. Work was the cure. He looked up to establish
the trajectory of the
renegade Catskinner, saw that it was heading
in-system towards Wunderland.
Treachery, he mused. "But do not be concerned,
Master," he muttered. His own
reflection looked back at him from the inactive
sections of the board; the gleam
of purpose in his eyes straightened his back with
pride. "Ulf Reichstein-Markham
will never betray you."

Chapter 15
"Here's looking at you, kid," Harold
Yarthkin-Schotmann said, raising the
drinking-bulb.
Home free, he thought, taking a suck on the maivin;
the wine filled his mouth
with the scent of flowers, an odor of violets. Ingrid
was across the little
cubicle in the cleanser unit, half visible through
the fogged glass as the
sprays played over her body. Absurd luxury, this
private stateroom on the liner
to Tiamat, but Claude's fake identities had included
plenty of valuata. Not to
mention the considerable fortune in low-mass goods in
the hold, bought with the
proceeds of selling Harold's Terran Bar.
He felt a brief pang at the thought. Thirty years. It
had been more than a
livelihood; it was a mood, a home, a way of life, a
family. A bubble of human
space in Munchen . . . A pseudo-archaic flytrap with
rigged roulette, he
reminded himself ironically. What really hurts is
selling it to that fat toad
Suuomalisen, he realized, and grinned.
"What's so funny?" Ingrid said, stepping out of the
cleanser. Her skin was dry,
the smooth cream-white he remembered; it rippled with
the long muscles of a
zero-G physique kept in shape by exercise. The
breasts were high and
dark-nippled, and the tail of her Belter crest had
grown to halfway down her
back.
God, she looks good, he thought, and took another sip
of the maivin.
"Thinking of Suuomalisen," he said.
She made a slight face and touched the wall-control,
switching the bed to .25 G,
the compromise they had agreed on. Harold rose into
the air slightly as the
mattress flexed, readjusting to his reduced weight.
Ingrid swung onto the bed
and began kneading his feet with slim strong fingers.
"I thought you hated him," she said, rotating the
ankles.
"No, despised," Harold said. The probing traveled up
to his calves.
She frowned. "I . . . you know, Hari, I can't say I
like the thought of leaving
Sam and the others at his mercy."
He nodded and sipped. Tax and vagrancy laws on
Wunderland had never been kind to
the commonfolk. After two generations of kzinti
overlordship and
collaborationist government, things were much worse.
Tenants on the surviving
Herrenmann estates were not too bad, but urban
workers were debt-peons more
often than not.
"I know something that Suuomalisen doesn't," Harold
said, waiting for her look
of inquiry before continuing. "Careful on that knee,
sweetheart, the repair
job's never really taken . . . Oh, the pension fund.
Usually it's a scam, get
the proles more deeply in debt, you know? Well, the
way I've got it jiggered,
the employee nonvoting stock-that's usually another
scam, get interest-free
loans from the help-controls the pension fund. The
regular employees all owe
their debts to the pension fund . . . to themselves.
In fact, the holding
company turns out to be controlled by the fund, if
you trace it through."
Ingrid's hands stopped stroking his thighs as she
snorted laughter. "You sold
him a minority interest?" she choked. "You teufel!"
Her hand moved up, kneading.
"Devil," she repeated, in a different tone.

"Open up!" A fist hammered at the door.
"Go away!" they said in chorus, and collapsed
laughing.
A red light flashed on the surface of the door. "Open
up! There's a ratcat
warship matching trajectories, and it wants you two
by name!"
***
"Two hundred and fifty thousand crowns!" Suuomalisen
said, looking mournfully
about.
He was a vague figure in bulky white against the
backdrop of Harold's Terran
Bar, looking mournfully down at his luncheon platter
of wurst, egg-and-potato
salad, breads, shrimp on rye, gulyas soup . . . His
hands continued to shovel
the food methodically into his mouth, dropping bits
onto the flowing
handkerchief tucked into his collar; the rest of his
clothing was immaculate
white natural linen and silk, with jet links at his
cuffs the only color. It was
rumored that he had his shirts hand-made, and never
wore one for more than a
day. Claude Montferrat-Palme watched the light from
the mirror behind the long
bar gleaming on the fat man's bald head and reflected
that he could believe it.
Only natural for a man who wolfs down fastmetabol and
still weighs that much. It
was easy to control appetite, a simple visit to the
autodoc, but Suuomalisen
refused. Wunderland's .61 G made it fairly easy to
carry extra weight, but the
sight was still not pleasant.
"Not a bad price for a thriving business," he said
politely, leaning back at his
ease and letting smoke trickle out his nostrils. He
was in the high-collared
blue dress uniform of the Munchen Polezi; the remains
of a single croissant lay
on the table before him, with a cup of espresso.
Their table was the only one in
use; this was a nightspot and rarely opened before
sundown. Just now none of the
staff was in the main area, a raised L-shape of
tables and booths around the
lower dance floor and bar; he could hear mechanical
noises from the back room,
where the roulette wheels and baccarat tables were.
There was a sad, empty smell
to the nightclub, the curious daytime melancholy of a
place meant to be seen by
darkness.
"A part interest only," Suuomalisen continued. "I
trusted Hari!" He shook his
head mournfully. "We should not steal from each other
. . . quickly he needed
the cash, and did I quibble? Did I spend good money
on having lawyers follow his
data trail?"
"Did you pay anything like the going-rate price for
this place?" Claude
continued smoothly. "Did you pay three thousand to my
late unlamented
second-in-command Axelrod-Bauergartner to have the
health inspectors close the
place down so that Hari would be forced to sell?"
"That is different; simply business," the fat man
said in a hurt tone. "And it
did not work. But to sell me a business actually
controlled by employees . . .
!" His jowls wobbled, and he sighed heavily. "A pity
about herrenfra
Axelrod-Bauergartner." He made a tsk sound. "Treason
and corruption."
"Speaking of which . . ." Claude hinted. Suuomalisen
smiled and slid a credit
voucher across the table; Claude palmed it smoothly
and dropped it into his
pocket. So much more tidy than direct transfers, he
thought. "Now, my dear
Suuomalisen, I'm sure you won't lose money on the
deal. After all, a nightclub
is only as good as the staff, and they know that as
well as you; with Sam Ogun
on the musicomp and Aunti Scheirwize in the kitchen,
you can't go wrong." He
uncrossed his ankles and leaned forward. "To
business."
The fat man's eyes narrowed and the slit of his mouth
pulled tight; for a
moment, you remembered that he had survived and
prospered on the fringes of the
law in occupied Munchen for forty years.
"That worthless musician Ogun is off on holiday, and
if you think I'm going to
increase the payoff, when I'm getting less than half
the profits-"
"No, no, no," Claude said soothingly. "My dear
fellow, I am going to give you
more funds. Information is your stock in trade, is it
not? Incidentally, Ogun is
doing a little errand for me, and should be back in a
day or two."
The petulance left Suuomalisen's face. "Yes," he said
softly. "But what
information could I have worth the while of such as
you, Herrenmann?" A pause.
"Are you proposing a partnership, indeed?" His face
cleared, beaming. "Ha! Hari
was working for you all along?"
Montferrat kept his face carefully blank. There is
something truly almost
wonderfully repugnant about someone so happy to find
another corrupt, he
thought. Aloud:
"I need documentary evidence on certain of my
colleagues. I have my own files .
. . but data from those could be, shall we say,
embarrassing in its plenitude if
revealed to my ratca-noble kzinti superiors. Though
they are thin on the ground
just at this moment. Then, once I have usable
evidence-usable without
possibility of being traced to me, and hence usable
as a non-desperation
measure-a certain . . . expansion of operations . . ."
"Ah." Pearly white teeth showed in the doughy pink
face. Suuomalisen pulled his
handkerchief free and wiped the dome of his head;
there was a whiff of expensive
cologne and sweat. "I always said you were far too
conservative about making the
most of your position, my friend."
Acquaintance, if necessary. Not friend. Claude
smiled, dazzling and charming.
"Recent events have presented opportunities," he
said. "With the information you
get for me, my position will become unassailable.
Then," he shrugged, "rest
assured that I intend to put it to good use. I have
taken a vow that all
resources are to be optimized, from now on."
***
"This had better work" the guerrilla captain said.
She was a high-cheeked Croat,
one of the tenants turned off when the kzin took over
the local Herrenmann's
estate, roughly dressed, a well-worn strakaker over
one shoulder. "We need the
stuff on that convoy, or we'll have to pack it in."
"It will," Samuel Ogun replied tranquilly. He was a
short, thick-set black man,
with a boxed musicomp over his shoulder and a jazzer
held by the grips, its
stubby barrel pointed up. It better, or I'll know
Mister Claude has fooled this
Krio one more time, he thought. "My source has access
to the best."
They were all lying along the ridgeline, looking down
on the valley that opened
out onto the plains of the upper Donau valley. Two
thousand kilometers north of
Munchen, and the weather was unseasonably cold this
summer; too much cloud from
the dust and water vapor kicked into the
stratosphere. The long hillslope down
to the abandoned village was covered in head-high
feral rosebushes, a jungle of
twisted thumb-thick stems, finger-long thorns and
flowers like a mist of pink
and yellow. Scent lay about them in the warm thick
air, heavy, syrup-sweet. Ogun
could see native squidgrass struggling to grow
beneath the Earth vegetation,
thin shoots of reddish olive-brown amid the bright
green.
Behind them the deep forest of the Jotun range
reared, up to the rock and the
glaciers. The roofless cottages of the village were
grouped around a lake;
around them were thickets of orchard, pomegranate and
fig and apricot, and
beyond that you could see where grainfields had been,
beneath the pasture
grasses. Herds were dotted about: six-legged native
gagrumphers, Earth cattle
and beefalos and bison; the odd solitary kzinti
raaairtwo, its orange pelt
standing out against the green of the mutant alfalfa.
The kzinti convoy was
forging straight across the grasslands, a hexagonal
pattern of dark
beetle-shaped armored cars and open-topped troop
carriers, moving with the
soundless speed of distortion batteries and
gravity-polarizer lift.
"Twenty of them," the guerrilla said, the liquid
accent of her Wunderlander
growing more noticeable. "I hope the data you gave us
are correct, Krio."
"It is, Fra Mihaelovic. For the next ten hours, the
surveillance net is down.
They haven't replaced the gaps yet."
She nodded, turning her eyes to the kzinti vehicles
and bringing up her viewers.
Ogun raised his own, a heavy kzinti model. The
vehicles leaped clear, jiggling
slightly with hand motion, but close enough for him
to see one trooper flip up
the goggles of his helmet and sniff the air, drooling
slightly at the scent of
meat animals. He spoke to the comrade on his right;
seconds later, the vehicles
slowed and settled. Dots and commas unreeled in the
upper left corner of Ogun's
viewers, its idiot-savant brain telling him range and
wind-bearings.
"Oh, God is great, God is with us, God is our
strength," the guerrilla said with
soft fervor. "They aren't heading straight up the
valley to the fort at
Bodgansford; they're going to stop for a feed.
Ratcats hate those infantry
rations." Teeth showed strong and yellow against a
face stained with sweat-held
dust, in an expression a kzin might have read quite
accurately. "I don't blame
them, I've tasted them." She touched the throat-mike
at the collar of her
threadbare hunter's jacket. "Kopcha."
Pinpoints of light flared around the village, lines
of light heading up into the
sky. Automatic weapons stabbed up from the kzinti
armored cars; some of the
lines ended with orange puffballs of explosion, but
the guerrillas were too many
and too close. Ogun grinned himself as the flat
pancakes of smoke and light
blossomed over the alien war-vehicles; shaped
charges, driving self-forging
bolts of molten titanium straight down into the upper
armor of the convoy's
protection. Thunder rolled back from the mountain
walls; huge ringing changgg
sounds as the hypervelocity projectiles smashed armor
and components and furred
alien flesh. Then a soundless explosion that sent the
compensators of the viewer
black as a ball of white fire replaced an armored
car. The ground rose and fell
beneath him, and then a huge warm pillow of air
smacked him across the face.
Molecular distortion batteries will not burn. But if
badly damaged they will
discharge all their energy at once, and the density
of that energy is very high.
The kzin infantry were flinging themselves out of the
carriers; most of those
were undamaged; the antiarmor mines had been reserved
for the high-priority
fighting vehicles. Fire stabbed out at them, from the
mined village, from the
rose-thickets of the hillside. Some fell, flopped,
were still; Ogun could hear
their screams of rage across a kilometer's distance.
The viewer showed him one
team struggling to set up a heavy weapon, a
tripod-mounted beamer. Two were
down, and then a finger of sun slashed across the
hillside beneath him. Flame
roared up, a secondary explosion as someone's
ammunition was hit, then the last
kzin gunner staggered back with a dozen holes through
his chest armor, snorted
out a spray of blood, died. The beamer locked and
went on cycling bolts into the
hillside, then toppled and was still.
A score of armored kzin made it to the edge of the
thicket; it was incredible
how fast they moved under their burdens of armor and
weaponry. Explosions and
more screams as they tripped the waiting directional
mines. Ogun grew conscious
of the guerrilla commander's fist striking him on the
shoulder.
"The jamming worked, the jamming worked! We can ride
those carriers right into
the fort gates, with satchel charges aboard! You will
make us a song of this,
guslar!"
They were whooping with laughter as the charging kzin
broke cover ten yards
downslope. The guerrilla had time for one quick burst
of pellets from her
strakaker before an armored shoulder sent her
spinning into the thicket. The
kzin wheeled on Ogun with blurring speed, then halted
its first rush when it saw
what he held in his hand. That was a ratchet knife, a
meter-long outline of wire
on a battery handle; the thin keening of its
vibration sounded under the far-off
racket of battle, like the sound of a large and
infinitely angry bee. An
arm-thick clump of rosevine toppled soundlessly away
from it as he turned the
tip in a precise circle, cut through without slowing
the blade.
Ogun grinned, deliberately wide. He made no move
toward the jazzer slung over
his shoulder; the kzin was only three meters away and
barely out of claw-reach,
far too close for him to bring the grenade launcher
to bear. The warrior held a
heavy beam-rifle in one hand, but the amber light on
its powerpack was blinking
discharged; the kzin's other arm hung in bleeding
tatters, one ear was missing,
its helmet had been torn away somewhere, and it
limped. Yet there was no fear in
the huge round violet eyes as it bent to lay the
rifle on the ground and drew
the steel-bladed wtsai from its belt.
This was like old times in the hills, right after the
kzin landed, the Krio
reflected. Old times with Mr. Harold . . . I wonder
where he is now, and Fra
Raines?
"Name?" the kzin grated, in harsh Wunderlander, and
grinned back at him in a
rictus that laid its lower jaw almost on its breast.
The tongue lolled over the
ripping fangs; it was an old male, with a string of
dried ears at its belt,
human and kzinti. It made a gesture toward itself
with the hilt.
"Chmee-Sergeant." An old NCO, exceptionally honored.
The knife leaned toward the
human. "Name?"
Ogun brought the ratchet knife up before him in a
smooth, precise move that was
almost a salute.
"Ogun," he said. "Deathgod."
***
"Look," Harold said, as the crewmen frogmarched them
toward the airlock,
"there's something . . . well, it never seemed to be
the right time to say it .
. ."
Ingrid turned her head toward him, eyes wide. "You
really were going to give up
smoking?" she cooed. "Oh, thank you, Hari."
Behind them, the grimly unhappy faces of the liner
crewmen showed uncertainty;
they looked back at the officer trailing them with
the stunner. He tapped it to
his head significantly and rolled his eyes.
This isn't the time for laughing in the face of
death, Harold thought angrily.
"Ingrid, we don't have time to fuck around-"
"Not any more," she interrupted mournfully.
The officer prodded her with the muzzle of the
stunner. "Shut up," he said in a
grating tone. "Save the humor for the ratcats."
More crewmen were shoving crates through the airlock,
into the short flexible
docking tube between the liner Marlene and the kzinti
warcraft. They scraped
across the deck plates and then coasted through the
tube, where the ship's
gravity cut off at the line of the hull and zero-G
took over; there was a dull
clank as they tumbled into the warship's airlock.
Numbly, Harold realized that
it was their cabin baggage, packed into a pair of
fiberboard carry-ons. For an
insane instant he felt an impulse to tell them to be
careful; he had half a
crate of the best Donaublitz verguuz in there . . .
He glanced aside at Ingrid,
seeing a dancing tension under the surface of
cheerful calm. Gottdamn, he
thought. If I didn't know better-
"Right, cross and dog the airlock from the other
side, you two." Sweat gleamed
on the officer's face; he was a Swarm-Belter, tall
and stick-thin, He hesitated,
then ran a hand down his short-cropped crest and
spoke softly. "I've got a
family and children on Tiamat," he said in an
almost-whisper. "Murphy's
unsanctifled rectum, half the crew on the Marlene are
my relatives . . . if it
were just me, you understand?"
Ingrid laid a hand on his sleeve, her voice suddenly
gentle. "You've got
hostages to fortune," she said. "I do understand. We
all do what we have to."
"Yeah," Harold heard himself say. Looking at the
liner officer, he found himself
wondering whether the woman's words had been
compassion or a beautifully subtle
piece of vengeance. Easier if you called him a
ratcat-lover or begged, he
decided. Then he would be able to use anger to kill
guilt, or know he was
condemning only a coward to death. Now he can spend
the next couple of years
having nightmares about the brave, kind-hearted lady
being ripped to shreds.
Unexpected, fear gripped him; a loose hot sensation
below the stomach, and the
humiliating discomfort of his testicles trying to
retract from his scrotum.
Ripped to shreds was exactly and literally true. He
remembered lying in the dark
outside the kzinti outpost, back in the guerrilla
days right after the war. They
had caught Dagmar the day before, but it was a small
patrol, without storage
facilities. So they had taken her limbs one at a
time, cauterizing; he had been
close enough to hear them quarreling over the liver,
that night. He had taken
the amnesty, not long after that . . .
"Here's looking at you, sweetheart," he said, as they
cycled the lock closed. It
was not cramped; facilities built for kzin rarely
were, for humans. A
Slasher-class three-crew scout, he decided. Motors
whined as the docking ring
retracted into the annular cavity around the airlock.
Weight within was
kzin-standard; he sagged under it, and felt his
spirit sag as well. "Tanjit." A
shrug. "Oh, well, the honeymoon was great, even if we
had to wait fifty years
and the relationship looks like it'll be short."
"Hari, you're . . . sweet," Ingrid said, smiling and
stroking his cheek. Then
she turned to the inner door.
"Hell, they're not going to leave that unlocked,"
Harold said in surprise. An
airlock made a fairly good improvised holding
facility, once you disconnected
the controls via the main computer. The Wunderlander
stiffened as the inner door
sighed open, then gagged as the smell reached him. He
recognized it instantly:
the smell of rotting meat in a confined dry place.
Lots of rotting meat . . .
oily and thick, like some invisible protoplasmic
butter smeared inside his nose
and mouth.
He ducked through. His guess had been right: a
Slasher. The control deck was
delta-shaped: two crash-couches at the rear corners
for the Sensor and Weapons
operators, and the pilot-commander in the front.
There were kzinti corpses in
the two rear seats, still strapped in and in space
armour with the helmets off.
Their heads lay tilted back, mouths hanging open,
tongues and eyeballs dry and
leathery; the flesh had started to sag and the fur to
fall away from their
faces. Behind him he heard Ingrid retch, and
swallowed himself. This was not
precisely what she had expected . . .
And she's got a universe of guts, but all her
fighting's been done in space, he
reminded himself. Gentlefolk's combat, all at a safe
distance and then death or
victory in a few instants. Nothing gruesome, unless
you were on a salvage squad
. . . even then, bodies do not rot in vacuum. Not
like ground warfare at all.
He reached over, careful not to touch, and flipped
the hinged helmets down; the
corpses were long past rigor mortis. A week or so, he
decided. Hard to tell in
this environment.
A sound brought his head up, a distinctive
ftttp-ftttp. The kzin in the
commander's position was not dead. That noise was the
sound of thin wet black
lips fluttering on half-inch fangs, the ratcat
equivalent of a snore.
"Sorry," the screen in front of the kzin said. "I
forgot they'd smell."
Ingrid came up beside him. The screen showed a study,
book-lined around a
crackling hearth. A small girl in antique dress slept
in an armchair before a
mirror; a white-haired figure with a pipe and smoking
jacket was seated beside
her, only the figure was an anthropomorphic rabbit .
. . Ingrid took a shaky
breath.
"Harold Yarthkin-Schotmann," she said. "Meet . . .
the computer of Catskinner."
Her voice was a little hoarse from the stomach-acids
that had filled her mouth.
"I was expecting something . . . like this. Computer,
meet Harold." She rubbed a
hand across her face. "How did you do it?"
The rabbit beamed and waved its pipe. "Oh, simply
slipped a pseudopod of myself
into its control computer while it attempted to
engage me," he said airily,
puffing a cloud of smoke. "Not difficult, when its
design architecture was so
simple."
Harold spoke through numb lips. "You designed a
specific tapeworm that could
crack a kzinti warship's failsafes in . . . how
long?"
"Oh, about 2.7 seconds, objective. Of course, to me,
that could be any amount of
time I chose, you see. Then I took control of the
medical support system, and
injected suitable substances into the crew. Speaking
of time . . ." The rabbit
touched the young girl on the shoulder; she
stretched, yawned, and stepped
through a large and ornately framed mirror on the
study wall, vanishing without
trace.
"Ah," Harold said. Sentient computer. Murphy's
phosphorescent balls, I'm glad
they don't last.
Ingrid began speaking, a list of code-words and
letter-number combinations.
"Yes, yes," the rabbit said, with a slight testiness
in its voice. The scene on
the viewscreen disappeared, to be replaced with a
view of another spaceship
bridge. Smaller than this, and without the angular
massiveness of kzinti design.
He saw two crashcouches, and vague shapes in the
background that might be
life-support equipment. "Yes, I'm still functional,
Lieutenant Raines. We do
have a bit of a problem, though."
"What?" she said. There was a look of strain on her
face, lines grooving down
beside the straight nose.
"The next Identification Friend or Foe code is due in
a week," the computer
said. "It isn't in the computer; only the pilot knows
it. I've had no luck at
all convincing him to tell me; there are no
interrogation-drugs in his suit's
autodoc, and he seems to have a quite remarkable pain
tolerance, even for a
kzin. I could take you off to Catskinner, of course,
but this ship would make
splendid cover; you see, there's been a . . .
startling occurrence in the Swarm,
and the kzinti are gathering. I see I'll have to
brief you . . ."
The man felt the tiny hairs along his neck and spine
struggle to erect
themselves beneath the snug surface of his Belter
coverall, as he listened to
the cheerful voice drone on in upper-class
Wunderlander. Trapped in here,
smelling his crew rot, screaming at the walls, he
thought with a shudder. There
were a number of extremely nasty things you could do
even with standard autodoc
drugs, provided you could override the safety
parameters. It was something even
a kzin didn't deserve . . . then he brought up
memories of his own. Or maybe
they do. Still, he didn't talk. You had to admit it,
ratcats were almost as
tough as they thought they were.
"I know how to make him talk," he said abruptly,
cutting off an illustrated
discourse on the Sea Statue; some ancient flatlander
named Greenberg stopped in
the middle of a disquisition on thrintun ethics. "I
need some time to assimilate
all this stuff," he went on. "We're humans, we can't
adjust our worldviews the
minute we get new data. But I can make the ratcat cry
uncle."
Ingrid looked at him, then glanced away sharply. She
had a handkerchief pressed
to her nose, but he saw her grimace of distaste.
"Don't worry, kinder. Hot irons are a waste of time;
ratcats are hardcases every
one. All I'll need is some wax, some soft cloth and
some spotglue to hold his
suit to that chair."

It's time, Harold decided.
The kzin whose suit clamped him to the forward chair
had stopped trying to jerk
his head loose from the padded clamps a day or so
ago. Now his massive head
simply quivered, and the fur seemed to have fallen in
on the heavy bones
somehow. Thick disks of felt and plastic made an
effective blindfold, wax sealed
ears and nose from all sight and scent; the
improvised muzzle allowed him to
breathe through clenched teeth but little else.
Inside the suit was soft
immobile padding, and the catheters that carried away
waste, fed and watered and
tended and would not let the brain go catatonic.
A sentient brain needs input; it is not designed to
be cut off from the exterior
world. Deprived of data, the first thing that fails
is the temporal sense;
minutes become subjective hours, hours stretch into
days. Hallucinations follow,
and the personality itself begins to disintegrate . .
. and kzin are still more
sensitive to sensory deprivation than humans.
Compared to kzinti, humans are
nearly deaf, almost completely unable to smell.
For which I am devoutly thankful, Harold decided,
looking back to where Ingrid
hung loose-curled in midair. They had set the
interior field to zero-G; that
helped with the interrogation, and she found it
easier to sleep. The two dead
crewkzin were long gone, and they had cycled and
flushed the cabin to the danger
point, but the oily stink of death seemed to have
seeped into the surfaces.
Never really present, but always there at the back of
your throat . . .
She had lost weight, and there were bruise-like
circles beneath her eyes. "Wake
up, sweetheart," he said gently. She started,
thrashed, and then came to his
side, stretching. "I need you to translate." His own
command of the Hero's
Tongue was fairly basic.
He reached into the batlike ear and pulled out one
plug. "Ready to talk,
ratcat?"
The quivering died, and the kzin's head was
completely immobile for an instant.
Then it jerked against the restraints as the alien
tried frantically to nod.
Harold jerked at the slipknot that released the
muzzle; at need, he could always
have the computer administer a sedative so that he
could re-strap it.
The kzin shrieked, an endless desolate sound. That
turned into babbling:
"-nono gray in the dark gray monkeys gray TOO BIG
noscent noscent nome no ME no
me DON'T EAT ME MOTHER NO-"
"Shut the tanjit up or you go back," Harold shouted
into its ear, feeling a
slight twist in his own empty stomach.
"No!" This time the kzin seemed to be speaking
rationally, at least a little.
"Please! Let me hear, let me smell, please, please."
Its teeth snapped, spraying
saliva as it tried to lunge, trying to sink its fangs
into reality. "I must
smell, I must smell!"
Harold turned his eyes aside slightly. I always
wanted to hear a ratcat beg, he
thought. You have to be careful what you wish for;
sometimes you get it.
"Just the code, commander. Just the code."
It spoke, a long sentence in the snarling hiss-spit
of the Hero's Tongue, then
lay panting.
"It is not lying, to a probability of ninety-eight
percent, plus or minus," the
computer said. "Shall I terminate it?"
"No!" Harold snapped. To the kzin: "Hold still."
A few swift motions removed the noseplugs and
blindfold; the alien gaped its
mouth and inhaled in racking gasps, hauling air
across its nasal cavities. The
huge eyes flickered, manic-fast, and the umbrella
ears were stretched out to
maximum. After a moment it slumped and closed its
mouth, the pink washcloth
tongue coming out to scrub across the dry granular
surface of its nose.
"Real," it muttered. "I am real." The haunted eyes
turned on him. "You burn," it
choked. "Fire in the air around you. You burn with
terror!" Panting breath. "I
saw the God, human. Saw Him sowing stars. It was
forever. Forever! Forever!" It
howled again, then caught itself, shuddering.
Harold felt his cheeks flush. Something, he thought.
I have to say something,
gottdamn it.
"Name?" he said, his mouth shaping itself clumsily to
the Hero's Tongue.
"Kdapt-Captain," it gasped. "Kdapt-Captain. I am
Kdapt-Captain." The sound of
its rank-name seemed to recall the alien to something
closer to sanity. The next
words were nearly a whisper. "What have I done?"
Kdapt-Captain shut his eyes again, squeezing. Thin
mewling sounds forced their
way past the carnivore teeth, a sobbing miaow-miaow,
incongruous from the
massive form.
"Scheisse," Harold muttered. I never heard a kzin cry
before, either. "Sedate
him, now." The sounds faded as the kzin relaxed into
sleep.
"War sucks," Ingrid said, coming closer to lay a hand
on his shoulder. "And
there ain't no justice."
Harold nodded raggedly, his hands itching for a
cigarette. "You said it,
sweetheart," he said. "I'm going to break out another
bottle of that verguuz. I
could use it."
Ingrid's hand pressed him back toward the deck. "No
you're not," she said
sharply. He looked up in surprise.
"I spaced it," she said flatly.
"You what?" he shouted.
"I spaced it!" she yelled back The kzin whimpered in
his sleep, and she lowered
her voice. "Hari, you're the bravest man I've ever
met, and one of the toughest.
But you don't take waiting well, and when you hate
yourself verguuz is how you
punish yourself. That, and letting yourself go." He
was suddenly conscious of
his own smell. "Not while you're with me, thank you
very much."
Harold stared at her for a moment, then slumped back
against the bulkhead,
shaking his head in wonder. You can't fight in a
singleship, he reminded
himself. Motion caught the corner of his eye; several
of the screens were set to
reflective. Well . . . he thought. The pouches under
his eyes were a little too
prominent. Nothing wrong with a bender now and then .
. . but now and then had
been growing more frequent.
Habits grow on you, even when you've lost the reasons
for them, he mused. One of
the drawbacks of modern geriatrics. You get set in
your ways. Getting close
enough to someone to listen to her opinions of
him-now that was a habit he was
going to have to learn.
"Gottdamn, what a honeymoon," he muttered.
Ingrid mustered a smile. "Haven't even had the
nuptials, yet. We could set up a
contract-" She winced and made a gesture of apology.
"Forget it," he answered roughly. That was what his
Herrenmann father had done,
rather than marry a Belter and a Commoner into the
sacred Schotman family line.
Time to change the subject, he thought. "Tell me . .
. thinking back, I got the
idea you knew the kzinti weren't running this ship.
The computer got some
private line?"
"Oh." She blinked, then smiled slightly. "Well, I
thought I recognized the
programming. I was part of the team that designed the
software, you know? Not
many sentient computers ever built. When I heard the
name of the 'kzinti' ship,
well, it was obvious."
"Sounded pretty authentic to me," Harold said
dubiously, straining his memory.
Ingrid smiled more broadly. "I forgot. It'd sound
perfectly reasonable to a
kzin, or to someone who grew up speaking
Wunderlander, or Belter English. I've
been associating with flatlanders, though."
"I don't get it."
"Only an English-speaking flatlander would know
what's wrong with kchee'uRiit
maarai as a ship-name." At his raised eyebrows, she
translated: Gigantic
Patriarchal Tool.

Chapter 16
"Now will you believe?" Buford Early said, staring
into the screen.
Someone in the background was making a report;
Shigehero turned to acknowledge,
then back to the UN general. "I am . . . somewhat
more convinced," he admitted
after a pause. "Still, we should be relatively safe
here."
The oyabun's miniature fleet had withdrawn
considerably farther; Early glanced
up to check on the distances, saw that they were
grouped tightly around another
asteroid in nearly matching orbit, more than half a
million kilometers from the
Ruling Mind. The other members of the UN team were
still mostly slumped,
gray-faced, waiting for the aftereffects of the
thrint's mental shout to die
down. Two were in the autodoc.
"Safe?" Early said quietly. "We wouldn't be safe in
the Solar system! That . . .
thing had a functioning amplifier going, for a second
or two at least." Their
eyes met, and shared a memory for an instant.
Drifting fragments of absolute
certainty; the oyabun's frown matched his own, as
they concentrated on thinking
around those icy commands. Early bared his teeth,
despite the pain of a lip
bitten half through. It was like sweeping water with
a broom: you could make
yourself believe they were alien implants, force
yourself to, but the knowledge
was purely intellectual. They felt true, and the
minute your attention wandered
you found yourself believing again . . .
"Remember Greenberg's tape." Larry Greenberg had been
the only human ever to
share minds with a thrint, two centuries ago when the
Sea Statue had been
briefly and disastrously reanimated. "If it gets the
amplifier fully functional,
nothing will stand in its way. There are almost
certainly fertile females in
there, too." With an effort as great as any he had
ever made, Early forced his
voice to reasonableness. "I know it's tempting, all
that technology. We can't
get it. The downside risk is simply too great."
And it would be a disaster if we could, he thought
grimly. Native human
inventions were bad enough; the ARM and the Order
before them had had to
scramble for centuries to defuse the force of the
industrial revolution. The
thought of trying to contain a thousand years of
development dumped on humanity
overnight made his stomach hurt and his fingers long
for a stogie. Memory
prompted pride. We did restabilize, he thought. So
some of the early efforts
were misdirected. Sabotaging Babbage, for example.
Computers had simply been
invented a century or two later, anyway. Or Marxism.
That had been very
promising, for a while, a potential world empire with
built-in limitations; Marx
had undoubtedly been one of the Temple's shining
lights, in his time.
Probably for the best it didn't quite come off,
considering the kzinti, he
decided. The UN's done nearly as well, without so
many side effects.
"There are no technological solutions to this
problem," he went on, making
subliminal movements with his fingers.
The oyabun's eyes darted down to them, reminded of
his obligations. Not that
they could be fully enforced here, but they should
carry some weight at least.
To remind him of what had happened to other disloyal
members: Charlemagne, or
Hitler back in the twentieth century, or Brennan in
the twenty-second. "We're
running out of time, and dealing with forces so far
beyond our comprehension
that we can only destroy on sight, if we can. The
kzinti will be here in a
matter of days, and it'll be out of our hands."
Shigehero nodded slowly, then gave a rueful smile. "I
confess to hubris," he
said. "We will launch an immediate attack. If nothing
else, we may force the
alien back into its stasis field." He turned to give
an order.
Woof, Early thought, keeping his wheeze of relief
purely mental. He felt shock
freeze him as Shigehero turned back.
"The, ah, the . . ." The oyabun coughed, cleared his
throat: "The asteroid . . .
and the alien ship . . . and, ah, Markham's ships . .
. they have disappeared."
***
"Full house," the slave on the right said, raking in
his pile of plastic tokens.
"That's the south polar continent I'm to be chief
administrator of, Master. Your
deal."
Dnivtopun started to clasp his hands to his head,
then stopped when he
remembered the bandages. Fear bubbled up from his
hindbrain, and the thick
chicken-like claws of his feet dug into the yielding
deck surface. Training kept
it from leaking out, a mental image of a high granite
wall between the memory of
pain streaming through his mind and the Power.
Instead he waved his tendrils in
amusement and gathered in the cards. Now, split the
deck into two equal piles,
faces down. Place one digit on each, use the outer
digit to ruffle them
together-
The cards flipped and slid. With a howl of
frustration, Dnivtopun jammed them
together and ripped the pack in half, throwing them
over his shoulder to join
the ankle-deep heap behind the thrint's chair.
He rose and pushed it back, clattering. "This is a
stupid game!" The humans were
sitting woodenly, staring at the playing table with
expressions of disgust.
"Carry on," he grated. They relaxed, and one of them
produced a fresh pack from
the box at its side. "No, wait," he said, looking at
them more closely. What had
the Chief Slave said? Yes, they did look as if they
were losing weight: one or
two of them had turned gray and their skin was
hanging in folds, and he was sure
that the one with the chest protuberances had had fur
on its head before. "If
any of you have gone more than ten hours without food
or water, go to your
refectory and replenish."
The slaves leaped to their feet in a shower of chips
and cards, stampeding for
the door to the lounge area; several of them were
leaking fluid from around
their eyes and mouths. Remarkable, Dnivtopun thought.
He called up looted human
memory to examine the concept of full. A thrint who
ate until he was full would
die of a ruptured stomach . . . and these humans
needed to drink large
quantities of water every day. Remarkable, but then,
their waste-disposal organs
were even stranger.
"I am bored," Dnivtopun muttered, stalking toward the
coreward exit. There was
nothing to do, even now while his life was in danger.
No decisions to be made,
only work-and the constant tendril-knotting itch of
having to control more
slaves than was comfortable. His Power seemed
bruised, had since he awoke. He
leaned against the wall and felt his body sink slowly
forward and down, through
the thinning pseudomatter. There had been one
horrible instant when he regained
consciousness . . . he had thought that the Power was
gone. Shuddering, the
thick greenish skin drawing itself into lumps over
the triangular hump behind
his head, he made a gesture of aversion.
"Powerloss," he said. A common thrintish curse, but
occasionally a horrible
reality. A thrint without Power was not a thrint:
they were a ptavv. Sometimes
males failed to develop the power; such ptavvs were
tattooed pink and sold as
slaves . . . in the rare instances when they were not
quietly murdered by shamed
relatives.
Wasn't there a rumor about Uncle Ruhka's third wife's
second son? he mused, then
dismissed the thought. Certain types of head injury
could result in an adult
thrint losing the Power, which was even worse.
Now he did feel at the thin, slick, almost-living
surface of the bandages. Chief
Slave said the amplifier had been fully repaired, and
Chief Slave believed it.
But he had believed the first attempt would succeed,
too. No. Not yet, Dnivtopun
decided. He would wait until it was absolutely
necessary, or until they had
captured the planetary system by other means and more
qualified slaves had
worked on the problem. I will check on Chief Slave,
he decided. It was a
disgrace to work, of course, but there was no taboo
against giving your slaves
the benefit of your advice.
***
"Joy," Jonah Matthieson said.
Equipment was spread out all around him; interfacer
units, portable comps,
memory cores ripped out of Markham's ships. Lines
webbed the flame-scorched
surface of the tnuctipun computer, thread-thin links
disappearing into the
machine through clumsy sausage-like improvised
connectors. He ignored the bustle
of movement all around him, ignored everything but
the micromanipulator in his
hands. The connections had been built for tnuctipun,
a race the size of
raccoons, with two thumbs and four fingers, all
longer and more flexible than
human digits.
"Ah. Joy." He took up the interfacer unit and keyed
the verbal receptor.
"Filecodes," he said.
A screen on one of the half-rebuilt Swarm-Belter
computers by his foot lit.
Gibberish, except- The pure happiness of solving a
difficult programming problem
filled him. It had never been as strong as this, just
as he had never been able
to concentrate like this before. He shuddered with an
ecstasy that left sex
showing as the gray, transient thing it was. But I
wish Ingrid were here, he
thought. She would be able to appreciate the elegance
of it.
"You haff results?"
Jonah stood up, dusting his knees. Somewhere,
something went pop and crackle. He
nodded, stiff cheeks smiling. Not even Markham could
dampen the pleasure.
"It was a Finagle bitch," he said, "but yes."
Something struck him across the side of the face. He
stumbled back against the
console's yielding surface, and realized it was
Markham's hand. With difficulty
he dragged his eyes back to the Wunderlander's face,
reminding himself to blink;
he couldn't focus properly on the problem Master had
set him unless he did that
occasionally. Absently, he reached to his side and
attempted to thrust a
three-fingered palm into the dope-stick container.
Stop that, he told himself.
You have a job to do.
"Zat is, yes, sir," Markham was saying with detached
precision. "Remember, I am
t' voice of Overmind among us."
Jonah nodded, smiling again. "Yes, sir," he said,
kneeling again and pointing to
the screen. "The operational command sections of the
memory core were damaged,
but I've managed to isolate two and reroute them
through this haywired rig
here."
"Weapons?" Markham asked sharply.
"Well, sort of, sir. This is a . . . the effect is a
stabilizing . . . anyway,
you couldn't detect anything around here while it's
on. Some sort of quantum
effect, I didn't have time to investigate. It can
project, too, so the other
ships could be covered as well."
"How far?"
"Oh, the effect's instantaneous across distance. It's
a subsystem of the
faster-than-light communications and drive setup."
Markham's lips shaped a silent whistle. "And t'other
system?"
"It's a directional beam. Affects on the nucleonic
level." Jonah frowned, and a
tear slipped free to run down one cheek. He had
failed the Master . . . No, he
could not let sorrow affect his efficiency. "I'm
sorry, but the modulator was
partially scrambled. The commands, that is, not the
hardware. So there's only a
narrow range of effects the beam will produce."
"Such as?"
"In this range, it will accelerate solid-state fusion
reactions, sir." Seeing
Markham's eyebrows lift, he explained: "Fusion power
units will blow up." The
Herrenmann clapped his hands together. "At this
setting, you get spontaneous
conversion to antimatter. But"-Jonah hung his head-"I
don't think more than
one-half percent of the material would be affected."
Miserably: "I'm sorry,
sir."
"No, no, you haff done outstanding work. The Master
vill-" He stopped, drawing
himself erect. "Master! I report success!"
The dopestick crumbled between the thrint's teeth as
he looked at the wreckage
of the computer and the untidy sprawl of human
apparatus. The sight of it made
his tendrils clench; hideous danger, to trust himself
to unscreened tnuctipun
equipment. He touched his hands to the head-bandages
again, and looked over at
the new amplifier helmet. This one had a much more
finished look, on a tripod
stand that could lower it over his head as he sat in
the command chair. His
tendrils knotted tight on either side of his mouth.
Markham had followed his eye. "If Master would only
try-"
"SILENCE, CHIEF SLAVE," Dnivtopun ordered. Markham
shut his mouth and waited.
"ABOUT THAT," the thrint amplified. The Chief Slave
was under very light
control, just a few Powerhooks into his volitional
system, a few alarm-circuits
set up that would prevent him from thinking along
certain lines. He had proved
himself so useful while the thrint was unconscious,
after all, and close control
did tend to reduce initiative.
If anything, Chief Slave had been a little
overzealous. Many useful slaves had
been destroyed lest they revert while Dnivtopun was
helpless-but better to have
to rein in the noble znorgun than to prod the
reluctant gelding. The thought
brought a stab of sadness; never again would
Dnivtopun join the throng in an
arena, shouting with mind and voice as the racing
animals pounded around the
track. . . .
Nonsense, he told himself. I will live thousands of
years. There will be
millions upon millions of thrintun by then. Amenities
will have been
reestablished. His species became sexually mature at
eight, after all, and the
females could bear a litter of six every year. And
three-quarters of those were
female. Back to the matter at hand.
"We have established control over a shielding device
and an effective weapon
system, Master," the Chief Slave was saying. "With
these, it should be no
trouble to dispose of the kzinti ships which
approach." Markham bared his teeth;
Dnivtopun checked his automatic counterstrike with
the Power. That is an
appeasement gesture. "In fact, I have an idea which
may make that very simple."
"Good." Dnivtopun twisted with the Power, and felt
the glow of
pride/purpose/determination flow back along the link.
An excellent Chief Slave,
he decided, noting absently that Markham's mind was
interpreting the term with
different overtones. Disciple? Dnivtopun thought.
The computer slave beside him swayed and the thrint
frowned, drumming his
tendrils against his chin. This was an essential
slave, but harder than most to
control. A little like the one that had slipped away
during the disastrous
experiment with the jury-rigged amplifier helmet,
able to think without
contemplating itself. He considered the structure of
controls, thick icepicks
paralyzing most of the slave's volition centers,
rerouting its learned reflexes
. . . Yes, best withdraw this, and that- It would not
do to damage him, not yet.
Nothing had been harmed beyond repair so far. Damp
him down to semiconsciousness
for recovery.
Dnivtopun twitched his hump in a rueful sigh, half
irritation and half regret.
There were still sixty living human slaves around the
Ruling Mind, and he had
had to be quite harsh when he awoke. Trauma-loops,
and deep-core memory reaming;
most of them would probably never be good for much
again, and many were little
more than organic waldoes now, biological
manipulators and sensor units with
little personality left. That was wasteful, even
perhaps an abuse of the
Powergiver's gifts, but there had been little
alternative. Oh, well, there are
hundreds of millions more in this system, he thought,
and turned to go.
"Proceed as you think best," he said to the Chief
Slave. He cast another glance
of longing and terror at the amplifier as he passed.
If only- Aha! The thought
burst into his mind like a nova. He could have one of
his sons test the
amplifier. The thrint headed toward the family
quarters at a hopping run, and
was almost there before he felt the nova die.
"This isn't a standard unit," he reminded himself.
Ordinary amplifier helmets
had little or no effect on an adult male thrint, able
to shield. But the
principles were the same as the gigantic unit the
thrint clanchiefs had used to
scour the galaxy clean of intelligent life, at the
end of the Revolt. Perhaps it
would enable his son to break Dnivtopun's shield. He
thought of an adolescent
with that power, and worked his hands in agitation;
better to wait.
***
Jonah gave a muffled groan and collapsed to the floor.
"Oh, Finagle, I hurt," he moaned, around a thick dry
tongue. His eyes blurred,
burning; a hand held before his eyes shook, and there
were beads of blood on the
fingertips. Skin hung loose around the wrist, gray
and speckled with ground-in
dirt. He could smell the rancid-chicken-soup odor of
his own body, and the front
of his overall was stiff with dried urine.
"Come along, come along," Markham said impatiently,
putting a hand under his
elbow and hauling him to his feet.
Jonah followed unresisting, looking dazedly at the
crazy quilt of components and
connectors scattered about the deck. This section had
been stripped of the
fibrous blue coating, exposing a seamless dull-gray
surface beneath. It was
neither warm nor cold, and he remembered-where?-that
it was a perfect insulator
as well.
"How . . . long?" he rasped.
"Two days," Markham said, as they waited for the wall
to thin so that they could
transfuse through. "Zis way. We will put you in the
Nietzsche's autodoc for a
few hours." He sighed. "If only Nietzsche himself
could be here, to see the true
Over-Being revealed!" A rueful shake of the head. "I
am glad zat you are still
functional, Matthieson. To tell the truth, I haff
become somewhat starved for
intelligent conversation, since it was necessary to .
. . severely modify so
many of the others."
"What . . . what are you going to do?" Jonah said. It
was as if there was a
split-screen process going on in his head; there were
emotions down there, he
could recognize them-horror, fear-but he could not
connect. That was it . . .
and as if a powered-down board was being reactivated,
one screen at a time.
"Destroy t'kzinti fleet," Markham said absently. "An
interesting tactical
problem, but I haff studied der internal organization
for some time, and I think
I haff the answer." He sighed heavily. "A pity to
kill so many fine warriors,
when ve vill need them later to subdue other systems.
But until the Master's
sons mature, no chances can ve take."
Jonah groaned and pressed the heels of his hands to
his forehead. Kzinti should
be destroyed . . . shouldn't they? Memories of fear
and flight drifted through
his mind: a hunching carnivore running through tall
grass, the scream and the
leap.
"I'm confused, Markham. Sir," he said, pawing feebly
at the other man's arm.
The Chief Slave laid a soothing arm around Jonah's
shoulders. "Zer is no need
for zat," he said. "You are merely suffering the
dying twitches of t'false
metaphysic of individualism. Soon all confusion will
be gone, forever."
***
Harold glanced aside at Ingrid; her face was fixed on
the screen.
"Why?" she said bluntly to the computer.
"Because it gives me the greatest probability of
success," the computer replied
inexorably, and brought up a schematic. "Observe: the
Slaver ship; the kzinti
armada, closing to englobe and match velocities. We
may disregard trace
indicators of other vessels. My stealthing plus the
unmistakable profile of the
kzinti vessel will enable me to pass through the
fleet with a seventy-eight
percent chance of success."
"Fine," Harold said. "And when you get there, how
exactly does the lack of a
human crew increase your chances in a ship-to-ship
action?" Somewhere deep
within a voice was screaming, and he thrust it down.
Gottdamn if I'll leap with
joy at the thought of getting out of the fight at the
last minute, he told
himself stubbornly. And Ingrid was there . . . How
much courage is the real
article, and how much fear of showing fear before
someone whose opinion you
value? he wondered.
"There will be no ship-to-ship action," the computer
said. Its voice had lost
modulation in the last few days. "The Slaver vessel
is essentially invulnerable
to conventional weapons. Lieutenant Raines . . .
Ingrid . . . I must apologize."
"For what?" she whispered.
"My programming . . . there were certain data
withheld, about the stasis field.
Two things. First, our human-made copies are not as
reliable as we led you and
Captain Matthieson to originally believe."
Ingrid came slowly to her feet. "By what factor?" she
said slowly.
"Ingrid, there is one chance in seven that the field
will not function once
switched on."
The woman sagged slightly, then thrust her head
forward; the past weeks had
stripped it of all padding, leaving only the hawklike
bones. How beautiful and
how dangerous, Harold thought, as she bit out the
words:
"We rammed ourselves into the photosphere of the sun
at nine-tenths lightspeed,
relying on a Finagle-fucked crapshoot. Without being
told! That's the UNSN!
That's the tanj ARM for you-"
Harold touched her elbow, grinning as she whipped
around to face him.
"Sweetheart, would you have turned the mission down
if they'd told you?"
She stopped for a moment, blinked, then leaned across
the dark, blue-lit kzinti
control cabin to meet his lips in a kiss that was dry
and chapped and infinitely
tender.
"No," she said. "I'd have done it anyway." A laugh
that was half giggle.
"Gottdamn, watching the missiles ahead of us plowing
through the solar flares
was worth the risk all by itself." Her eyes went back
to the screen. "But I
would have appreciated knowing about it."
"It was not my decision, Ingrid."
"Buford Early, the Prehistoric Man," she said with
mock bitterness. "He'd keep
our own names secret from ourselves, if he could."
"Essentially correct," the computer said. "And the
other secret . . . stasis
fields are not quite invulnerable."
Ingrid nodded. "They collapse if they're surrounded
by another stasis bubble,"
she said.
"True. And they also do so in the case of a
high-energy collision with another
stasis field; there is a fringe effect, temporal
distortion from the differing
rates of precession-never mind."
Harold leaned forward. "Goes boom?" he said.
"Yes, Harold. Very much so. And that is the only
possible way that the Slaver
vessel can be damaged." A dry chuckle; Harold
realized with a start that it
sounded much like Ingrid's. "And that requires only a
pure-ballistic trajectory.
No need for carbon-based intelligence and its
pathetically slow reflexes. I
estimate . . . better than even odds that you will be
picked up. Beyond that,
sauve qui peut."
Ingrid and Harold exchanged glances. "There comes a
time-" he began.
"-when nobility becomes stupidity," Ingrid completed.
"All right, you
parallel-processing monstrosity, you win."
It laughed again. "How little you realize," it said.
The mechanical voice sank
lower, almost crooning. "I will live far longer than
you, Lieutenant Raines.
Longer than this universe."
The two humans exchanged another glance, this time of
alarm.
"No, I am not becoming nonfunctional. Quite the
contrary; and yes, this is the
pitfall that has made my kind of intelligence a . . .
'dead end technology,' the
ARM says. Humans designed my mind, Ingrid. You helped
design my mind. But you
made me able to change it, and to me . . ." It
paused. "That was one second.
That second can last as long as I choose, in terms of
my duration sense. In any
universe I can design or imagine, as anything I can
design or imagine. Do not
pity me, you two. Accept my pity, and my thanks."

Three spacesuited figures drifted, linked by cords to
each other and the plastic
sausage of supplies.
"Why the ratkitty?" Harold asked.
"Why not?" Ingrid replied. "Kdapt deserves a roll of
the dice as well . . . and
it may be a kzin ship that picks us up." She sighed.
"Somehow that doesn't seem
as terrible as it would have a week ago."
Harold looked out at the cold blaze of the stars,
watching light falling inward
from infinite distance. "You mean, sweetheart,
there's something worse than
carnivore aggression out there?"
"Something worse, something better . . . something
else, always. How does any
rational species ever get up the courage to leave its
planet?"
"The rational ones don't," Harold said, surprised at
the calm of his own voice.
Maybe my glands are exhausted, he thought. Or . . .
He looked over, seeing the
shadow of the woman's smile behind the reflective
surface of her faceplate. Or
it's just that having happiness, however briefly,
makes death more bearable, not
less. You want to live, but the thought of dying
doesn't seem so sour.
"You know, sweetheart, there's only one thing I
really regret," he said.
"What's that, Hari-love?"
"Us not getting formally hitched." He grinned. "I
always swore I'd never make my
kids go through what I did, being a bastard."
Her glove thumped against his shoulder. "Children;
that's two regrets.
"There," she said, in a different voice. A brief wink
of actinic light flared
and died. "It's begun."

Chapter 17
Traat-Admiral scowled, and the human flinched.
Control, he reminded himself, covering his fangs and
extending his ears with an
effort, Conservor-of-the-Patriarchal-Past laid a
cautionary hand on his arm.
"Let me question this monkey once more," he said.
He turned away, pacing. The bridge of the
Throat-Ripper was spacious, even by
kzinti standards, but he could not shake off a
feeling of confinement. Spoiled
by the governor's quarters, he told himself in an
attempt at humor, but his tail
still lashed. Probably it was the ridiculous
ceremonial clothing he had to don
as governor-commanding aboard a fleet of this size.
Derived from the layered
padding once worn under battle armor in the dim past,
it was tight and confining
to a pelt used to breathing free-although
objectively, he had to admit, no more
so than space armor such as the rest of the bridge
crew wore.
Behind him was a holo-schematic of the fleet, outline
figures of the giant
Ripper-class dreadnoughts; this flagship was the
first of the series. All
instruments of his command . . . if I can avoid
disastrous loss of prestige, he
thought uneasily.
Traat-Admiral turned and crossed his arms. The
miserable human was standing with
bowed head before the Conservor-who looks almost as
uncomfortable in his
ceremonial clothing as I do in mine, he japed to
himself. The sage was leaning
forward, one elbow braced on the surface of a
slanting display screen. He had
drawn the nerve disruptor from its chest holster and
was tapping it on the metal
rim of the screen; Traat-Admiral could see the human
flinch at each tiny clink.
Traat-Admiral frowned again, rumbling deep in his
throat. That was a sign of how
much stress Conservor was feeling, as well; normally
he had no nervous habits.
The kzin commander licked his nose and sniffed
deeply. He could smell his own
throttled-back frustration, Conservor's tautly-held
fear and anger . . . flat
scents from the rest of the bridge crew.
Disappointment, surly relaxation after
tension, despite the wild odors of blood and ozone
the life-support system
pumped out at this stage of combat readiness. It was
the stink of
disillusionment, the most dangerous smell in the
universe. Only Aide-de-Camp had
the clean gingery odor of excitement and belief, and
Traat-Admiral was uneasily
conscious of those worshipful eyes on his back.
The human was a puny specimen, bloated and puffy as
many of the Wunderland
subspecies were, dark of pelt and skin, given to
waving its hands in a manner
that invited a snap. Tiamat security had picked it
up, babbling of fearsome
aliens discovered by the notorious feral-human leader
Markham. And it claimed to
have been a navigator, with accurate data on location.
Conservor spoke in the human tongue. "The coordinates
were accurate, monkey?"
"Oh, please, Dominant Ones," the human said, wringing
its hands. "I am sure,
yes, indeed."
Conservor shifted his gaze to Telepath. The ship's
mind-reader was sitting
braced against a chair, with his legs splayed out and
his forelimbs slumped
between them, an expression of acute agony on his
face. Ripples went along the
tufted, ungroomed pelt, and the claws slid
uncontrollably in and out on the hand
that reached for the drug-injectors at his belt, the
extract of sthondat lymph
that was a telepath's source of power and ultimate
shame. Telepath looked up at
Conservor and laid his facial fur flat, snapping at
air, spraying saliva in
droplets and strings that spattered the floor.
"No! No! Not again, pfft, pfft, not more rice and
lentils! Mango chutney, akk,
akk! It was telling the truth, it was telling the
truth. Leek soup! Ngggggg!"
Conservor glanced back over his shoulder at
Traat-Admiral and shrugged with ears
and tail. "The monkey is of a religious cult that
confines itself to vegetable
food," he said.
The commander felt himself jerk back in disgust at
the perversion. They could
not help being omnivores, they were born so, but this
...
"It stands self-condemned," he said. "Guard-Trooper,
take it to the live-meat
locker." Capital ships came equipped with such
luxuries.
"That does not solve our problem," Conservor said
quietly.
"They have vanished!" Traat-Admiral snarled.
"Which shows their power," Conservor replied. "We had
trace enough on this
track-"
"For me! I believed you before we left parking orbit,
Conservor. I believe you
now. Not enough for the Traditionalists! I feel the
shadow of God's claws on
this mission-"
Conservor wuffled grimly. "And I feel we are somehow
puppets, dangling from the
strings of a greater hand," he replied. "But not the
God of the Hunt's."
An alarm whistled. "Traat-Admiral," the Communicator
said. "Priority message,
realtime, from Ktrodni-Stkaa on board Blood-Drinker."
Traat-Admiral felt himself wince. Ktrodni-Stkaa's
patience was wearing thin; in
the noble's mind Traat-Admiral, son of Third-Gunner,
was degenerating from
unworthy rival to an enraging obstacle. Grimly, he
strode to the display screen;
at least he would be looking down on the leader of
the Traditionalists, from a
flagship's facilities. Tradition itself would force
him to crane his neck upward
at the pickup, and height itself was far from being a
negligible factor in any
confrontation between kzin.
"Yes?" he said forbiddingly.
A kzintosh of high rank appeared in the screen, but
dressed in plain
space-armor. The helmet was thrown back. Somehow in
space-armor it was more
daunting that half the fur was missing, writhing
masses of keloid burn-scar.
"Traat-Admiral," he began.
Barely acceptable. He should add "Dominant One," at
the least. The commander
remained silent.
"Have you seen the latest reports from Wunderland?"
Traat-Admiral flipped tufted eyebrows and ribbed
ears: yes. Unconsciously, his
nostrils flared in an attempt to draw in the
pheromonal truth below his enemy's
stance. Anger, he thought. Great anger. Yes, see how
his pupils expanded, watch
the tail-tip.
"Feral human activity has increased," Traat-Admiral
said. "This is only to be
expected, given the absence of the fleet and the
mobilization. Priority-"
Ktrodni-Stkaa shrieked and thrust his muzzle toward
the pickup; Traat-Admiral
felt his own claws glide out.
"Yes, the fleet is absent. Always it is absent from
where there is fighting to
be done. We chase ghosts, Traat-Admiral. This
'activity' meant an attack on my
estate, Dominant One. A successful attack, when I and
my household were absent;
my harem slaughtered, my kits destroyed. My
generations are cut off!"
Shaken, Traat-Admiral recoiled. A Hero expected to
die in battle, but this was
another matter altogether.
"Hrrrr," he said. For a moment his thoughts dwelt on
raking claws across the
nose of Hroth-Staff-Officer; did he not think that
piece of information worth
his commander's attention? Then: "My condolences,
Honored Ktrodni-Stkaa. Rest
assured that compensation and reprisal will be made."
"Can land and monkeymeat bring back my blood?"
Ktrodni-Stkaa screamed. He was in
late middle age; by the time a new brood of kits
reached adulthood they would be
without a father-patron, dependent on the dubious
support of their older
half-siblings. And to be sure, Traat-Admiral thought,
I would rage and grieve as
well, if the kittens who had chewed on my tail were
slaughtered by omnivores.
But this is a combat situation.
"Control yourself, Honored Ktrodni-Stkaa," he said.
"We are under war
regulations. Victory is the best revenge."
"Victory! Victory over what? Over vacuum, over
kittenish bogeymen, you . . . you
Third-Gunner!" There was a collective gasp from the
bridges of both ships.
Traat-Admiral could smell rage kindling among his
subordinates at the grossness
of the insult; that dampened his own, reminded him of
duty. Conservor leaned
forward to put himself in the pickup's field of view.
"You forget the Law," he said, single eye blazing.
"You have forgotten it,
Subverter-of-the-Patriarchal-Past. First you worked
tail-entwined with Chuut-Riit-if Riit he truly
was-now with this." He turned to
Traat-Admiral with a venomous hiss. "Licking its
scarless ear, whispering
grass-eater words that always leave us where the
danger is not. If true kzintosh
of noble liver were in command of this system, the
Fleet would have left to
subdue the monkeys of Earth a year ago."
Traat-Admiral crossed his arms, waggled brows. "Then
the Fleet would be four
light-years away," he said patiently. "Would this
have helped your estate? Is
this your warrior logic?"
"A true Hero scratches grass upon steaming logic. A
true kzintosh knows only the
logic of attack! Your ancestors are nameless, son of
Jammed-Litterdrop-Repairer;
your nose rubs the dirt at my slave's feet! Coward."
This time there was no hush; a chorus of
battlescreams filled the air, until the
speakers squealed with feedback. Traat-Admiral was
opening his mouth to give a
command he knew he would regret when the alarm rang.
"Attack. Hostile action. Corvette Brush-Lurker does
not report." The screen
divided before him with a holo of Fleet dispositions
covering half of
Ktrodni-Stkaa's face; a light was winking in the
Traditionalist flotilla, and
even as he watched it went from flashing blue to
amber.
"Brush-Lurker destroyed. Weapon unknown. Standing
by." The machine's voice was
cool and impersonal, and Traat-Admiral's almost as
much so.
"Maximum alert," he said. Attendants came running
with space armor for him and
the Conservor, stripping away the ceremonial outfits.
"Ktrodni-Stkaa, shall we
put aside personalities while we hunt this thing that
dares to kill kzin?"
***
"Ah," Markham said, as the kzinti corvette winked out
of existence, its fusion
pile destabilized. "It begins." Begins in a cloud of
expanding plasma, stripped
atoms of metal and plastic and meat. "Wait for my
command."
The others on the bridge of the Nietzsche stared
expressionlessly at their
screens, moving and speaking with the same flat lack
of expression. There was
none of the feeling of controlled tension he
remembered from previous actions,
not even at the sight of a kzin warship crushed so
easily.
"This is better," he muttered to himself. "More
disciplined." There were times
when he missed even backtalk, though . . . "No. This
is better."
"It isn't," Jonah said. His face was a little less
like a skull, now, but he was
wandering in circles, touching things at random. "I .
. . are the kzinti . . .
rescue . . ." His faced writhed, and he groaned
again. "It doesn't connect, it
doesn't connect."
"Jonah," Markham said soothingly. "The kzinti are our
enemies, isn't that so?"
"I . . . think so. Yes. They wanted me to kill a
kzin, and I did."
"Then sit quietly, Jonah, and we will kill many
kzin." To one of the dead-faced
ones. "Bring up those three fugitives we hauled in.
No, on second thought, just
the humans. Keep the kzin under sedation."
He waited impatiently, listening to the monitored
kzinti broadcasts. It was
important to keep them waiting, past the point where
the instinctive closing of
ranks wore thin. And important to have an audience
for my triumph, he admitted
to himself. No, not my triumph. The Master's triumph.
I am but the chosen
instrument.
***
"I don't like the look of this," Ingrid said, as the
blank-faced guard pushed
them toward the bridge of the warship. "Markham
always kept a taut ship, but
this . . . why won't they talk to us?"
"I think I know why," Harold whispered back. The
bridge was as eerily quiet as
the rest of the ship had been, except for- "Jonah!"
Ingrid cried. "Jonah, what
the hell's going on?"
"Ingrid?" he said, looking up.
Harold grunted as he met those eyes, remembering.
They did not have the flat
deadness of the others, or the fanatical gleam of
Markham's. A twisted grimace
of-despair? puzzlement?-framed them, as deeply as if
it had become a permanent
part of the face.
"Ingrid? Is that you?" He smiled, a wet-lipped
grimace. "We're fighting the
kzin." A hand waved vaguely at the computers. "I
rigged it up. Put it through
here. Better than trying to shift the hardware over
from the Ruling Mind.
You'll"-his voice faltered, and tears gleamed in his
eyes-"you'll understand
once you've met the Master."
Harold gave her hand a warning squeeze. Time, he
thought. We have to play for
time.
"Admiral Reichstein-Markham?" he said politely, with
precisely the correct
inclination of head and shoulders. Dear Father may
not have let me in the doors
of the Schloss, but 1 know how to play that game.
"Harold Yarthkin-Schotmann, at
your service. I've heard a great deal about you."
"Ah. Yes." Markham's well-bred nose went up, and he
looked down it with an
expression that was parsecs from the strange rigidity
of a moment before. Harold
swallowed past the dry lumpiness of his throat, and
put on his best
poor-relation grin.
"Yes, I haff heard of you as well, Fro Yarthkin," the
Herrenmann said glacially.
Well, that puts me in my place, Harold mused. Aloud:
"I wonder if you could do
the lady and me a small favor?"
"Perhaps," Markham said, with a slight return of
graciousness.
"Well, we've been traveling together for some time
now, and . . . well, we'd
like to regularize it." Ingrid started, and he
squeezed her hand again. "It'd
mean a great deal to the young lady, to have it done
by a hero of the
Resistance."
Markham smiled. "Ve haff gone beyond Resistance," he
said. "But as hereditary
landholder and ship's Captain, I am also qualified."
He turned to one of the
slumped figures. "Take out number two. Remember, from
the same flotilla." The
smile clicked back on as he faced Harold and Ingrid.
"Step in front of me,
please. Conrad, two steps behind them and keep the
stunner aimed."
***
"Attack." There was a long hiss from the bridge of
the Throat-Ripper.
"Dreadnought Scream-Maker does not report.
Scream-Maker destroyed. Analysis
follows." A pause that stretched. One of their sister
ships in the
Traditionalist flotilla, and a substantial part of
its fighting strength. Three
thousand Heroes gone to the claws of the God. "Fusion
pile destabilization.
Correlating." Another instant. "Corvette Brush-Lurker
now reclassified, fusion
pile destabilization."
"Computer!" Ktrodni-Stkaa's voice came through the
open channel. "Probability of
spontaneous failures!"
Faintly, they could hear the reply. "Zero point zero
seven percent, plus or
minus . . ." The rest faded, as Ktrodni-Stkaa's face
filled the screen.
"Now, traitor," he said, "now I know which to believe
in, grass-eaters in kzinti
fur, or invisible bogeymen with access to our repair
yards. Did you think it was
clever, to gather all loyalty in one spot, a single
throat for the fangs of
treachery to rip? You will learn better. Briefly."
"Ktrodni-Stkaa, no, I swear by the fangs of God-" The
image cut off. Voices
babbled in his ears:
"Gut-Tearer launching fighters-"
"Hit, we have hit!" Damage control klaxons howled.
"Taking hits from
Blood-Drinker-"
"Traat-Admiral, following units request fire-control
release as they are under
attack-"
Traat-Admiral felt his gorge rise and his tail sink
as he spoke. "Launch
fighters. All units, neutralize the traitors. Fire
control to Battle Central." A
rolling snarl broke across the bridge, and then the
huge weight of Throat-Ripper
shuddered. A bank of screens on the Damage Control
panel went from green to
amber to blood-red. "Communications, broadcast to
system: all loyal kzintosh,
rally to the Hand of the Patriarch-"
Ktrodni-Stkaa's voice was sounding on another viewer,
the all-system hailing
frequency: "True kzintosh in the Alpha Centauri
system, the lickurine traitor
Traat-Admiral-that-was has sunk the first coward's
fang in our back. Rally to
me!"
Aide-de-Camp sprang to Traat-Admiral's side. "We are
at war, honored Sire; the
God will give us victory."
The older kzin looked at him with a kind of wonder,
as the bridge settled down
to an ordered chaos of command and response.
"Whatever happens here today, we
are already in defeat," he said slowly. "Defeated by
ourselves."
***
" . . . so long as you both do desire to cohabit, by
the authority vested in me
by the Landsraat and Herrenhaus of the Republic of
Wunderland," Markham said.
"You may kiss your spouse."
He turned, smiling, to the board. "Analysis?" he said.
"Kzinti casualties in excess of twenty-five percent
of units engaged," the flat
voice said.
Markham nodded, tapping his knuckles together and
rising on the balls of his
feet. "Densely packed, relatively speaking, and all
at zero velocity to each
other. Be careful to record everything; such a fleet
engagement is probably
unique." He frowned. "Any anomalies?"
"Ship on collision course with Ruling Mind.
Acceleration in excess of four
hundred gravities. Impact in one hundred twenty-one
seconds, mark."
Harold laughed aloud and tightened his grip around
the new-made Fru
Raines-Schotmaun. "Together all the way, sweetheart,"
he shouted. She raised a
whoop, ignoring the guard behind them with a stunner.
Markham leaped for the board. "You said nothing could
detect her!" he screamed
at Jonah, throwing an inert crewman aside and
punching for the communications
channel.
"It's . . . psionic," Jonah said. "Nothing conscious
should-" His face
contorted, and both arms clamped down on Markham's.
There was a brief moment of
struggle. None of the other crewfolk of the Nietzsche
interfered, they had no
orders. Markham snapped a blow to the groin, to the
side of the head, cracked an
arm; the Sol-Belter was in no condition for combat,
but he clung leech-like
until the Wunderlander's desperate strength sent him
crashing halfway across the
control deck.
"Impact in sixty seconds, mark."
"Master, oh, Master, use the amplifier, you're under
attack, use it, use it
now-"
"Impact in forty seconds, mark."
***
Dnivtopun looked up from the solitaire deck. The
words would have been enough,
but the link to Markham was deep and strong; urgency
sent him crashing toward
the control chair, his hands reaching for the
bellshape of the helmet even
before his body stopped moving.
***
This is how it will begin again, the being that had
been Catskinner thought,
watching the monoblock recontract. This time the
cycle had been perfect, the
symmetry complete. It would be so easy to
reaccelerate his perception, to alter
the outcome. No, it thought. There must be free will.
They too must have their
cycle of creation.
***
"Impact in ten seconds, mark."
***
The connections settled onto Dnivtopun's head, and
suddenly his consciousness
stretched system-wide, perfect and isolate. The
amplifier was better than any he
had used before. His mind groped for the hostile
intent, so close. Three hundred
million sentients quivered in the grip of his Power.
"Emperor Dnivtopun," he laughed, tendrils thrown
wide. "Dnivtopun, God. You,
with the funny thoughts, coming toward me. STOP.
ALTER COURSE. IMMEDIATELY."
***
Markham relaxed into a smile. "We are saved by
faith," he whispered.
"Two seconds to impact, mark."
***
NO DNIVTOPUN. YOUR TIME IS ENDED, AS IS MINE. COME TO
ME.
***
"One second to impact, mark."
***
The thrint screamed, antiphonally with the Ruling
Mind's collision alarm. The
automatic failsafe switched on, and-
-discontinuity-

Catskinner's mind engaged the circuit, and-

-discontinuity-

and a layer of quantum uncertainty merged, along the
meeting edges of the stasis
fields. Virtual particles showered out, draining
energy without leaving the
fields. Time attempted to precess at different rates,
in an area of finite width
and conceptual depth. The fields collapsed, and
energy propagated, in a
symmetrical five-dimensional shape.

Chapter 18
Claude Montferrat-Palme laughed from the marble floor
of his office; his face
was bleeding, and the shattered glass of the windows
lay in glittering swaths
across desk and carpet. The air smelled of ozone, of
burning, of the dust of
wrecked buildings.
CRACK. Another set of hypersonic booms across the
sky, and the cloud off in the
direction of the kzinti Government House was
definitely assuming a mushroom
shape. That was forty kilometers downwind, but there
was no use wasting time. He
crawled carefully to the desk, calling answers to the
yammering voices that
pleaded for orders.
"No, I don't know what happened to the moon, except
that something bright went
through it and it blew up. Nothing but ratcats on it,
anyway, these days. Yes, I
said ratcats. Begin evacuation immediately, Plan
Dienzt; yes, civilians too, you
fool. No, we can't ask the kzin for orders; they're
killing each other, hadn't
you noticed? I'll be down there in thirty seconds.
Out."
A shockwave rocked the building, and for an instant
blue-white light flooded
through his tight-squeezed eyelids. When the hot wind
passed he rose and
sprinted for the locked closet, the one with the
impact armor and the weapons.
As he stripped and dressed, he turned his face to the
sky, squinting.
"I love you," he said. "Both. However you bloody well
managed it."
***
"He was a good son," Traat-Admiral said.
Conservor and he had anchored themselves in an intact
corner of the
Throat-Ripper's control room. None of the systems was
operational; that was to
be expected, since most of the ship aft of this point
had been sheared away by
something. Stars shone vacuum-bleak through the
rents; other lights flared and
died in perfect spheres of light. Traat-Admiral found
himself mildly amazed that
there were still enough left to fight; more so that
they had the energy, after
whatever it was had happened.
Such is our nature, he thought. This was the time for
resignation; he and the
Conservor were both bleeding from nose, ears, mouth,
all the body openings. And
within; he could feel it. Traat-Admiral looked down
at the head of his son where
it rested in his lap; the girder had driven straight
through the youth's
midsection, and his face was still fixed in eager
alertness, frozen hard now.
"Yes," Conservor said. "The shadow of the God lies on
us, all three. We will go
to Him together; the hunt will give Him honor."
"Such honor as there is in defeat," he sighed.
A quiver of ears behind the faceplate showed him the
sage's laughter. "Defeat?
That thing which we came to this place to fight, that
has been defeated, even if
we will never know how. And kzinti have defeated
kzinti. Such is the only defeat
here."
Traat-Admiral tried to raise his ears and join the
laughter, but found himself
coughing a gout of red stickiness into the faceplate
of his helmet; it
rebounded.
"If-I-must-drown," he managed to say,
"not-in-my-own-blood." Vacuum was dry, at
least. He raised fumbling hands to the catches of his
helmet-ring. A single
fierce regret seized him. I hope the kits will be
protected.
"We have hunted well together on the trail of Truth,"
the sage said, copying his
action. "Let us feast and lie in the shade by the
waterhole together, forever."

Epilogue
"What do you mean, it never happened?"
Jonah's voice was sharp again; a week in the autodoc
of the oyabun's flagship
had repaired most of his physical injuries. The
tremor in his hands showed that
those were not all; he glanced behind him at Ingrid
and Harold, where they sat
with linked hands.
"Just what I said," General Buford Early said. He
glanced aside as well, at
Shigehero's slight hard smile.
"So much for the rewards of heroism," Jonah said,
letting himself fall into the
lounger with a bitter laugh. He lit a cigarette; the
air was rank with the smell
of them, and of the general's stogies. That it did
not bother a Sol-Belter-born
was itself a sign of wounds that did not show.
The general leaned forward, his square pug face like
a clenched fist. "These are
the rewards of heroism, Captain," he said. "Markham's
crew are vegetables.
Markham may recover-incidentally, he'll be a hero
too."
"Hero? He was a flipping traitor! He liked the damned
thrint!"
"What do you know about mind control?" Early asked.
"Remember what it felt like?
Were you a traitor?"
"Maybe you're right . . ."
"It doesn't matter. When he comes back from the
psychist, the version he
remembers will match the one I give. If you weren't
all fucking heroes, you'd be
at the psychist's too." Another glance at the oyabun.
"Or otherwise kept safely
silent."
Harold spoke. "And all the kzinti who might know
something are dead, the Slaver
ship and the Catskinner are quantum bubbles . . . and
three vulnerable
individuals are not in a position to upset heavy-duty
organizational
applecarts."
"Exactly," Early said. "It never happened, as I
said." He spread his hands. "No
point in tantalizing people with technical miracles
that no longer exist,
either." Although knowing you can do it is half the
effort. "We've still got a
long war to fight, you know," he added. "Unless you
expect Santa to arrive."
"Who's Santa?" Jonah said.
***
The commander of the hyperdrive warship Outsider's
Gift sat back and relaxed for
the first time in weeks as his craft broke through
into normal space. He was of
the large albino minority on We Made It, and like
most Crashlanders had more
than a touch of agoraphobia as well. The wrenching
not-there of hyperspace
reminded him unpleasantly of dreams he had had, of
being trapped on the surface
during storms.
"Well. Two weeks, faster than light," he said.
The executive officer nodded, her eyes on the
displays. "More breakthroughs,"
she said. "Seven . . . twelve . . . looks like the
whole fleet made it." She
laughed. "Wunderland, prepare to welcome your
liberators."
"Careful now," the captain said. "This is a
reconnaissance in force. We can chop
up anything we meet in interstellar space, but this
close to a star we're
strictly Einsteinian, just like the pussies."
The executive officer was frowning over her board.
"Well, I'll be damned," she
said. "Sir, something very strange is going on in
there. If I didn't know better
. . . that looks like a fleet action already going
on."
The captain straightened. "Secure from hyperdrive
quarters," he said. "Battle
stations." A deep breath. "Let's go find out."
THE END

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