The Man-Kzin Wars 04

CHAPTER 9

(2396 A.D.)

The excitement!

The recruiters weren't just taking volunteers; they were conducting tournaments and selecting the warriors who were to accompany the armada to Wunderland. Competition was in the very air that wafted through the ventilators. The warriors even smelled different. They cuffed each other and tussled. They boasted about their skill and about the number of man-animals they would own when they were their father's age. They invented new and wonderful insults.

"My Near-Sighted Hero!" roared a kzin youth to a myopic friend at the feast between the jousts. "You say you see yourself on an estate in Africa hunting elephants? You have selected an elephant as your prey, I presume, not for his bravery but because he is big enough to see?"

"Will you wrestle the tusked beast to the ground with me, or will you shoot at him from a tree while he waves the tree over his head?" retorted the myopic friend, peering, not quite sure who it was who had challenged him.

The challenger directed his booming voice to the other orange-red tournament contenders who were devouring their Jotok arms noisily. "Let me recite to all, to this gathering of noble Heroes, the illustrious saga of my stumbling friend who is too tall to see his feet!" He stumbled in imitation, rousing a flurry of flapping ears and good-natured growls.

"Well, don't fall over before you've read me my fate!"

"You'll make it through the fiery battles in space. You have courage and quickness to compensate for your weak eyes! You'll smash ships and disgorge the boiling hairless corpses to the vacuum. We know that you have blind luck and the cunning of a mole! You'll stagger through the traps that explode in space. You'll drop on your grav-platform to the surface of Africa, there to slaughter battalions with your broad-beam fire!"

The raconteur was spitting and snarling with relish as he described the fights, purring through the compliments.

"Get on with it!" taunted the myopic friend. "I demand the glorious day of my elephant hunt!"

"Ah that. Hr-r. You see the elephant-beast's grey bulk looming in the distance. You stalk him. You leap mightily! But what is this? You have dived, headfirst into a gigantic grey boulder! The boulder takes the first round. Birds land in your mane, singing. Uniformed beasts, wearing the colors of the UNSN, crawl out of hiding, intrigued by your sudden stillness. Alas, they skin you, and there you are, Conqueror of Manhome, cured and spread upon some floor in Africa to tickle the feet of monkeys!"

The audience roared approval. Some waved Jotok bones in the air.

Trainer-of-Slaves was uncomfortable in this crowd there were too many of his old enemies present. He was here only because he desperately wanted to volunteer, wanted to follow Chuut-Riit to glory. His courage was not permitting it. He didn't dare enter the tournament, even though claws were padded and no one could attack outside of the circle. In all this time of preparation for the coming of his savior, it had never occurred to him once that he might have to fight for the privilege of following!

I'm doomed, he thought. He would have stayed longer at the meet, struggling to find a way around his fear, but he spotted Puller-of-Noses moving through the crowd.

So he caught a jerking auto-car through the tunnels back to the Jotok Run. Back to work. It didn't matter. Hssin would be emptied after the armada left, and most of his enemies would be gone. There was that.

Jotok-Tender spotted his apprentice in the dome near the main entrance of the Run and moved to greet him, animation in his gait. Hssin was indeed in a state when even the giant caught its fever! The giant didn't stop as he usually did but came right up and cuffed Trainer with force enough to half-knock him down.

"Look at this!" He showed a golden honor card. "Chuut-Riit has commended us for our slaves!

Our work groups have been overhauling some of his fleet's worn gravitic polarizers. He is pleased. A small thing, but we have honor!"

Trainer took the arm of his master, almost gently, and walked him through the trees and grass of the plaza. There was nothing much to say, but they made purring noises at each other. There was no question of working for the rest of the day. The old kzin fussed about, providing sparkling water and tasty hard bits to chew on. He talked quietly of his best memories.

Trainer-of-Slaves listened fondly to the familiar tales.

The next day was not so quiet. Kasrriss-As, the Patriarch of Hssin, who had never said a word in his life to Jotok-Tender, using underlings to deal with him, made a personal voice call. Chuut-Riit was interested in the response range of the man-beast's physiology and had bought two Wunderland monkeys from Kasrriss-As which he wished to hunt. An elaborate hunting party was to be arranged immediately for the Jotok Run, which was the only really large hunting run on Hssin.

"They don't make good prey," Kasrriss-As grumbled. "They're badly designed. Weak. They can run, but not well; they can climb trees, but not well. Good to eat, though.” Sulkily he added, "I wanted them for my menagerie.”

"Noble Hero, when shall we have the hunt ready?"

"He hasn't given me enough notice!" complained Kasrriss-As. "It takes months to exercise them into fit enough shape to make a good run! Terrible muscle tone! Ah well could your kit possibly do something with them, teach them something in a day? Anything to make the hunt more interesting!

I'm so distracted. I have so many things to do. Take care of everything. The honor of Hssin rests upon your accomplishment."

At the instant of disconnect, Jotok-Tender reached out and pulled down an enchiridion not a data capsule or an eyewriter but a slim, lavishly illustrated book, bound in Jotok hide and printed on the finest fiber paper in subtle colors and everlasting scent. "Read it now! Learn everything you can." It was the most popular kzin manual on men.

Huem-Sergeant and two of his assistants immediately brought the rare beasts around to the Jotok quarters. Trainer-of-Slaves, still with the book in his hand, saw three battle-ready kzin, so enormous that they could enter through the door only one at a time, roughly nudging two helpless charges between them. The hairless bipeds, together, couldn't have massed as much as the smallest guard. The monkeys looked much less formidable than their pictures, and they didn't smell like flower-water. They were far more vivid. They wore the smell of fear.

He tried to fit on them the details he had been reading in the enchiridion. The one without facial hair was a young male? Trainer-of-Slaves stared intently; yes, that must be right. The one with the facial hair had looser folds in his tail-like skin, and tiny wrinkles signs of age. It was the youth who was radiating the essence of fear most strongly. That must account for why his genitals were retracted.

"Aowrrgh, said Huem-Sergeant, "strange lot." He was reminding Trainer-of-Slaves to relieve him of his guard duty.

Trainer forced his eyes off the monkeys. He gave the swift transfer-of-contract sign with his hand, and the kzinwarriors left him, one at a time through the door.

Alone with his deformed charges, he felt his own fear stirring, the need for a grin. But he had a strange sympathy for the frightened young one there was no need to frighten the doomed animal further. He suppressed his smile and kept his face as expressionless as possible under the circumstances.

"I have a stall for you," he hissed and spat, but they understood nothing.

"I think he wants us to go with him," said the bearded biped.

"Should we resist?"

"Don't be crazy, Marisha.

They followed him through the corridors to the stall. "This is where you will sleep and defecate until the hunt. I have orders to make you comfortable." The spits were mixed with the atonal inflections and hurry rumblings of the Hero's Tongue.

"I think we've been demoted."

"What's happening? Look at this place! I thought we were getting along with the Chief Kumquat?"

"There's a big buzz stirring up this ratcat trap. I think we've been sold."

"You have a theory that we are slaves. Are we really slaves?"

"I don't know anything, Marisha. Nothing at all. I'll see if I can get us some food. Big Yellow Lineman here is just standing around staring, wondering where the football is." He made finger motions to his mouth.

"Long-Reach, some food for the slaves."

The Jotok scuttled into the stall. "Honored kzin, what do they eat?"

"Sol's Blazes, what is that teufel!" screeched Marisha.

"I've seen them at a distance and once close up. That was in a kzin engine room. I think he has a better deal than we do."

Trainer-of-Slaves was consulting his book. These rotting manuals never seemed to carry what you needed in the place you were looking at!

"Omnivore," he clacked and hissed. Not very helpful. "Try one of everything. Water, too."

Long-Reach returned with a variety of warm, raw meats on a skewer and a bowl of leaves with a side dish of leaf sauce.

The older man sniffed the meat but tried the leaves first. "Tastes like eucalyptus. Same texture, too.' He spat it out and tried the meat with a sour expression. "We're going to have to teach them how to cook all over again."

"It's raw? Gottdamn!"

"And tough."

Trainer-of-Slaves was impressed when he watched them chewing on the meat and rejecting the leaves.

"Can you ask him for some clothes?" whimpered Marisha.

"I don't think they have our size. Maybe something in yellow lace with five arm holes?"

Trainer-of-Slaves busied himself with professional questions asked of himself because it was impossible to ask them anything. He examined the bottoms of their feet, clawing the sole gently, and decided that the skin was too soft. Had they been carried about by machines on Wunderland? Maybe on the two-year trip to Hssin in the hibernator their feet had grown soft? Certainly they wouldn't be able to last out the hunt on those!

Item provide them with makeshift sandals. The giant was frugal to the point of insanity and had all sorts of hides around that had been softened by Jotok mastication,

He wasn't sure what to do about the rest of their skin. It had no fur to protect them from heat and cold, and would be useless against brambles and branches. Nor was it thick like a Jotok's hide. Just running his claws along their skin made them flinch in pain and make noises that didn't sound like polite conversation. Had they been shelled out of their carapace? Or was it just that Man-home was a paradise?

Item: provide them with leggings. With their build and fragility, what they really needed was a military suit of armor.

At first light he took them into the forest with Long-Reach, Joker, and Creepy following in the trees. He tried to teach them the lay of the caverns, how to run and where to run, how to backtrack and hide, what to rub on their bodies to disguise their rank smell. After frustrating misunderstandings, he decided that they didn't understand that they were going to be hunted. Were they stupid?

For a while Trainer-of-Slaves entertained the notion that they might be females. What did he know of monkey anatomy? They certainly didn't understand him when he quite carefully enunciated from his man-talk phrase book. They behaved exactly like Kzinretti he'd tried to converse with lifting their faces attentively, listening, all attention and no comprehension. Females for sure.

But they did chatter. Was it mindless chatter? Some sounds seemed

… meaningful. "Not so fast!" was a demand that he stop demonstrating kzin reflexes. "Let's rest a minute!" was a cry of weakness. "Lunkhead OverThere" and "BarrelRibs" was a way of referring to a dominant slave master while deferentially averting one's eyes.

At twilight he tried an experiment. Painfully he copied for them words from his phrasebook using manscript.

2/8 day tomorrow run fast!!!!

4/8 day hunt catch man die

6/8 day hunt catch man die

8/8 day hunt end hunt man live

"Holy Mother Earth, he's telling us that tomorrow we're going to be on the wrong end of a kzin hunt!"

The young one paled.

The older one turned toward Trainer. "Jack, she's only fifteen!"

They understood! He could smell their sudden fear. They could read! Ah, males for sure.