The Man-Kzin Wars 07

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rrowl-Captain paced the command bridge of Belly-Slasher and watched the forward thinplate screen closely, his hairless tail slashing the air with impatience. He growled low in his throat as he stalked the bridge, taloned boots silent on the tapestry-covered deck. The bridge crew remained both respectful and silent, eyes averted and ears folded tightly against orange-furred skulls. Clawed fingers hung expectantly over keypads, waiting for the captain of Belly-Slasher to shriek an impatiently angry command.

It had taken half of a watch-interval for Belly-Slasher to cautiously maneuver close to the monkeyship. The wariness had worn poorly on Rrowl-Captain and his crew so soon after the monopole bomb from Spine-Cruncher had silenced the human vessel. Triumph tasted like leafy defeat in their jaws, as Belly-Slasher moved slowly toward the iceball of a spacecraft.

To skulk toward the carcass of the monkeyship denied the Octal-and-Two Truths in the Warrior Heart. Rrowl-Captain snarled wetly to himself in frustration, his jaws snapping on nothingness.

It was a tense time aboard the sole surviving kzin warship.

The waiting was taking a toll on him and the crew of Belly-Slasher. Ventilators poured out dry-conditioned air in a stiff, cold breeze, attempting to dilute the scream-and-leap pheromones that every crewkzin was emitting in quantity. Intellect remained locked in battle with instinct and kzinti hormones. At least until there were actual enemies to battle with wit and claws.

Agitated and filled with frustration, many of the crewkzin had begun to lose discipline. So far Rrowl-Captain had only riffle his new and significantly larger trophy belt loop as reminder. He bared teeth in satisfied memory of his reinforced dominance.

Rrowl-Captain had then lightly reminded his impatient crew of the clever p'charth of Kzin-home. The beast feigned death as a technique for luring its prey close enough to spit swift-acting neurotoxin into surprised scavenger faces. The Teachings of the One Fanged God used the p'charth as a parable of the dangers of certitude in battle: "The Wise Hero ensures that Prey is not Predator cloaked by the Long Grass of Wit or Trickery; some claws can slash deeply as well as run swiftly.”

In so calming his crew, he calmed himself. "Navigator," Rrowl-Captain snarled. The kzin in question looked up from his console and thinscreen, facial fur matted from intense concentration. Rrowl-Captain chose to overlook the other kzin's lack of grooming for the moment.

"Dominant One!" Navigator replied with only a trace of distraction present in his hiss-and-spit syllables. "Report on progress," the captain rasped, gentling his tone slightly. It must be frustrating, he reflected, for a Hero to stalk numbers within bloodless computer memory. Like leaping, fangs agape, into enemies composed of mere fog and shadow.

"Leader," the other kzin rumbled in low respectful tones, "look to the forward thinscreen." A schematic of the monkey spacecraft, huge and rounded like an icy asteroid, appeared. Magnetic lines of force, which swept the interstellar medium from the alien ship's path, were added to the diagram. The route of Belly-Slasher was a circuitous line threading the deadly tongues of magnetic force toward the bow of the monkeyship. "Hrrr… " Rrowl-Captain growled, musingly. "Your attention to careful and precise duty is duly noted and will be well rewarded. We cannot afford to lose this prize to monkey tricks or treachery, despite our impetus to complete your conquest and celebrate a successful hunt.”

The other kzin's orange-and-black ruff lifted with pride at Rrowl-Captain's words of praise. "It would not have been possible, Dominant One, without the aid of Alien Technologist." He paused, scratching with a careless claw beneath his whiskers reflectively. "The monkeys do not make sense, Leader. It is difficult to understand their design philosophy. If we only had a Telepath – “

Rrowl-Captain snorted dismissal. "Indeed; we do not. Placing dream-fangs on prey does not fill a Hero's belly nor honor the Great Web of Existence." He paused. "These monkeys are, as you say, different from Heroes, different from Kdatlynos, different from Chunquen, different even from our loyal Jotoki. The One Fanged God made slaves in different forms to serve our different needs.”

"As you say, Leader," Navigator agreed, obedience stiffening his spine.

"Even an unblooded kitten could set fangs in such facts." Rrowl-Captain dismissively changed the subject as obvious He gestured at the forward thinscreen with a sharp black claw. "Your attention to detail in adroitly taking us through the magnetic force-lines is especially noteworthy.”

Navigator put sheathed claws to face in recognition of the compliment. "It was as you commanded, Dominant One. Alien-Technologist and I stalked fact and hypotheses in our planning. The monkeys do not use our gravitic polarizers so they do not have force shielding, as we do; they must rely on primitive magnetic fields for protection." His tone burred contempt.

"Yet these fields are of great power," Rrowl-Captain rumbled low in warning. "Do not underestimate monkey tricks. They may lack honor seen in the light of the Teaching of the One Fanged God, but such strategies can still slash the most noble Hero's tail in two through overconfidence.”

"As you command," the other kzin deferred with a hiss He highlighted the path of Belly-Slasher on the thinscreen schematic with a few claw slashes at his console; they were moments from rendezvous with the large airlock structure identified earlier by Alien-Technologist.

"There are no signs of activity from the target?" Rrowl-Captain inquired.

"No, Leader. Only the contra-matter drive and the magnetic-field equipment appear to be functioning optimally. No laser ranging or microwave emissions. Nothing." Navigator purred in thought. "Perhaps the monkeys were killed by life-support failure or some other catastrophe, only leaving a few automated subsystems in order?”

Rrowl-Captain licked his nostrils with a disbelieving tongue. What did his unconscious mind scent? "Surely life-support systems were adequately shielded.”

"Spine-Cruncher's monopole weapon was of high power and delivered most skillfully, Dominant One. The human-monkeys must not have shielded themselves properly, other than drive and field waveguides. Or perhaps random chance intervened.”

" 'Even the sharpest and most skillful fang can break'," the captain of Belly-Slasher quoted from the Teachings of The One Fanged God. The other kzin blinked agreement. Random chance too often ruled the universe.

Rrowl-Captain hissed in worry. He had expected some kind of monkey trick during Belly-Slasher's tense voyage to the bow of the alien spacecraft, but the huge ship had wallowed through space without response, seemingly without guidance or crew. No railguns, no lasers, no particle beams, no missiles.

Nothing.

The monkeyship was like a pilotless ghost vessel, its fearsome idling reaction drive swinging randomly through a small angle. It tasted like victory, yet the savor was not quite as satisfying as Rrowl-Captain had anticipated. Bloody, but not hot and fresh.

Clearly, the contra-matter drive was extremely dangerous, and required many safeguards. Such a protected subsystem could have easily survived the magneto-electrical pulse. Perhaps the magnetic shielding was assigned such a priority, as well. The monkeys, after all, did not think like Heroes. His reasoning had the tang of fangs-on-fact, logic. Still, Rrowl-Captain had the distinct feeling of enemy eyes upon him. He felt his ruff rising involuntarily.

"Return to your station," he ordered Navigator peremptorily. The other kzin slapped claws to face and turned back to his console.

Rrowl-Captain reflected on his own seemingly brave words. He again saw the greenish light of monkey lasers in his mind's eye, filling the sky, shaming his Warrior Heart and slashing bits from his liver. Pushing the grass-eating vision to the back of his mind, he leaped back to his command chair and sat.

"Preparing for rendezvous," Navigator announced over the ship commlink.

"Alert Alien-Technologist in his quarters," the captain of Belly-Slasher hissed to Apprentice-to-Communications who leaped to his clumsy feet nervously. "Tell him, by my order, to assemble his team at the starboard airlock in space armor, along with their equipment." The young kzin huddled next to the commlink, and hissed and spat his Leaders orders.

Rrowl-Captain settled back in his command chair, listening to the ripping-cloth sound of the gravity polarizers slowly decrease. Belly-Slasher cautiously approached the alien vessel, halting a few lengths of kzin-leaps above the other ship's icy pitted hull.

The forward viewscreen showed the relativity-distorted universe around them, lonely points of velocity-squeezed light and black empty spaces. Energetic particles from the interstellar medium impacted the magnetic field surrounding the alien vessel from time to time, producing colorful aurora flickers of ghostly light.

We are so far from our lairs, here between the stars, he mused. Far from our kittens and kzinretti.

Rrowl-Captain gestured to his personal Jotoki servant which rushed forward to offer a placating delicacy with the fingerlets at the end of its warty slave arm: a still-wriggling slice of k'chit from the vivarium on board. The captain bolted the warm flesh whole, hardly chewing. The act of consuming – of at least his gullet doing battle with some kind of adversary – served to slow his breathing. Rrowl-Captain took the cloth his Jotok was now offering, and cleaned tangy blood from his jaws, mollified for the moment.

"Rendezvous complete," Navigator rasped over shipwide commlink.

Rrowl-Captain leaped to his feet and purred readiness. He stalked toward the hatchway, tail held high with anticipation.

It was at last time to complete the hunt.