The Man-Kzin Wars 12

XI

The trip to Earth took almost ten weeks. As usual, they spent a lot of time playing games; as usual, Ginger almost always won.

The dangerous part of the trip, at least in Ginger's estimation, had been right at the start, when they were depending on pursuit countermeasures to stay intact. Perpetua, however, grew more uneasy the closer they got to Earth. She didn't say anything about it, but she was at least partly conscious of it: She bathed more often, sometimes twice in a day. (He in turn was not conscious of the fact that his tail began lashing when she smelled upset; but she was. She was trying to keep at least one of them calm.)

He would never have asked why. Such an assumption of authority over her mental state would have been treating her as a subordinate, and she was a friend; more, she was a Hthnar-something humans translated as Battle Companion, a term which did express the concept if given sufficient thought.

However, she was also a human, and therefore weird, so one day she suddenly decided to explain. "I don't trust the ARM," she said when he showed up for his watch on the mass detector.

"Good," he said agreeably, steering them around a fuzzy patch that was probably nothing much. (The thing worked better for him than for her. Its manual spoke of psionic aptitude and something called the Copenhagen Interpretation, but to him the matter was simple: It was a hunting device.)

"That's why I've been so worried. They were the ones who got Wunderland conquered, you know."

Ginger cupped an ear at her. "I'm pretty sure the Patriarchy was involved too."

She snorted. "They suppressed weapon technology and rewrote history books as propaganda, so everybody believed that no civilized being was capable of making war. When the first reports of contact with the kzinti came in they suppressed those too, as disruptive."

"I didn't know that!" he exclaimed.

"It's not something humans are proud to discuss," she said.

He had no idea what to say-before confiding something that potentially demeaning, a Hero would want hostages. However, she continued almost at once.

"They're perfectly capable of suppressing knowledge of the Romans and keeping them all for study somewhere," she said.

"They'd want them off Kzrral first, though, right?" Ginger said.

"I would think so," Perpetua said, sounding puzzled.

"Then we'll be fine. I won't make a final plan until we've left Earth, so they won't be able to get it out of us."

"You haven't decided what to do after we have the Romans?"

"What would be the point? We don't have them," he said, honestly puzzled. "We don't even know if we can get the hyperdrives here."

"What? You acted so confident!"

"I'm a kzin. I am confident. I may also be wrong."

"I'm starting to get a glimmering of why we won," she muttered, walking out.

Ginger thought about that for a while, but couldn't see the connection.

They'd dropped out of hyperspace and were moving into Sol System, and Perpetua was trying to ease her own tension. "…and the Herrenmann says, 'Never mind the thanks-repeat the instructions!' "

Ginger was just starting to laugh when the hyperwave spoke up: "Incoming ship, identify yourselves."

Ginger tapped the mike. "We're the Jubilee, out of Wunderland," he said in quite good Flatlander. "Who are you?"

"Triton Relay Customs Station. Are you carrying any fissionables or bioactives?"

"No, but if you make a list we could come back," Ginger said cheerfully. Perpetua's eyes went wide and she clapped her hands over her mouth as he continued, "We'd like to talk to an ARM."

The Belter Customs officer said, "Why?" He sounded honestly perplexed.

"To engage in commerce."

"With the ARM? You'll walk out smiling and holding two coat hangers."

Ginger looked at Perpetua, who was no more enlightened than he. "Nevertheless."

"Well, I'll pass the word.-I advise against joking with them," the voice added. "There's a flatlander law against ARMs laughing at any jokes but their own."

"Thanks," Ginger said, and cut the mike.

"You don't ever joke with Customs, have you taken leave of your senses?" Perpetua exploded.

"No, but hopefully you won't be the last to think of that," Ginger said. "It may help. The idea came to me when I heard that silly question-as if a smuggler of murder supplies would be surprised into blurting out a truthful answer." His ears waved, once. "Suddenly I thought of a way to cope with human bureaucracy."

"I'll talk to the next one!" she said.

A com laser found them about an hour later. "Attention Jubilee, this is T.C. Smith, senior agent, ARM ident RM35M4419. I am the ARM officer at earliest available rendezvous, presently at Juno, coordinates follow. Be seeing you." A datastream beeped in and was recorded.

As Ginger altered course, Perpetua sent, "Senior Agent Smith, this is Jubilee, we will arrive your location-" Ginger showed the figures "-in about twenty-nine hours." She set that to repeat, then said, "He sounded positively friendly."

"I've heard that ARMs are all supposed to be kept insane," Ginger said. "Perhaps he welcomes the company. I wonder what he's doing at Juno?"

"Why, where's Juno?"

"According to these figures, it's an asteroid. Not under ARM jurisdiction."

Perpetua looked for herself, because she had to-if a kzin had done so it would have been insulting-and said, "That's weird."

Juno Traffic Control had them lie off two thousand kilometers, and at that the region seemed pretty busy. "There must be five hundred ships here!" Perpetua said wonderingly.

"About half with their drives aimed at us," Ginger commented. When she stared at him, he said, "We are of largely kzinti design, after all. And Belters who trusted strange ships in either war probably didn't survive long enough to teach the habit to anyone."

A tanker began signaling them. Perpetua acknowledged, and the speaker said, "Smith here. You need any fuel?"

"No, our planer is rigged to scoop up ambient hydrogen constantly," she replied, and Ginger stuck his finger in her mouth. She spit it out, cut the mike, and said, "What are you doing?"

"Not revealing capabilities," he said. "How did you people last long enough to get to space?"

She glared, then switched back on. "Are you in the tanker, or relaying?"

"In. Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted."

The tanker moved alongside and extended a travel tube, and presently Smith came through the lock with a parcel bigger than he was. "Great, gravity," he said, taking his helmet off.

He was one-gee short, and blond as a Herrenmann, but his skin was quite black, at least on his head. Also, his pressure suit was decorated with the head and shoulders of a pale-skinned man in an odd-looking cap, with a bill in back as well as in front; the man was smoking a curly pipe and holding a magnifying glass before one eye. Perpetua, who had spent the past day learning something about Sol Belter culture, said, "Just how long have you been at Juno?"

"Open curiosity, that's refreshing! Just over eleven years now. Well done. Junior assistant to the second deputy secretary of the consul."

"What does that mean?" Ginger said, stepping into view.

"I thought you sounded like a kzin. It means by the time I'd accumulated enough procedural complaints to be retired, my pension would have come to more than I get in salary, so they sent me where I couldn't annoy anybody worse than they normally are."

"What does T.C. stand for?" Perpetua said.

"The name of a classical author. I come from a long line of subversives, and I joined the ARM to stop being inundated with the material. So what do they do but put me in Propaganda. Where can I put this?" He indicated his parcel.

"What is it?" said Ginger.

"My official weaponry. If you want to search it, don't press any switches. Can I use your shower? I've spent the past day suited up and reading the manuals on all this junk."

"Why'd you do that in a pressure suit?" Perpetua said.

"The display's in the helmet." He grimaced.

"Through there," she said.

As he departed, she murmured, "Wonder what the complaints were for?"

"Throoping!" he called back up the passageway.

"Good ears," said Ginger. After the refresher had opened and closed, he added, "What's 'throoping'?"

"No idea."

The ship's database defined it as Intra-bureaucratic use of sarcasm and absurdity to point out, refute, and if possible punish extreme foolishness. Context invariably implies the sole voice of reason speaking with total lack of concern for consequences. Origin artificial, circa 1950. "Interesting concept," Ginger said, opening the parcel. "But does it work?"

"They must have had some reason for sending him here," she said. Then she fell silent.

There was a slug gun, a folding multibladed hullmetal knife, a hullwelding laser with a huge battery, a variable stunner, small grenades of assorted types both lethal and nonlethal, interrogation drugs, flare goggles, and impact armor; then there were the concealed weapons, like the dartgun rings, and the watch with its loop of Sinclair filament. "Interesting," Ginger said.

"A man arrives equipped for piracy and you call it 'interesting'?"

"No, what's interesting is that it's all newly opened. Still smells of packing foam. Never been used."

"And he must have brought it all with him eleven years ago," Perpetua realized.

"Oh?"

"The Belters wouldn't have allowed the ARM to establish an arsenal. They're as touchy about independence as Wunderlanders, and they've actually got it."

"Urr. Good for them."

They sorted things out into weapons, probable weapons, probable nonweapons, and who-knows-what. The last category included an elaborately sealed box of what was labeled as ordinary candy, three packages Perpetua thought looked like inflatable boats, a first-aid kit that included a small electric drill, and a sculpting rig that included an amazingly elaborate set of vibratory controls for one standard cutting bit, plus a headband with a heavy cable attaching it to the controls.

They were still puzzling over that one when Smith came out and said, "That's a touch-sculpting rig. You got some odd controls on your dispenser. What's with the sorting arrangement?" He was wearing clothes he certainly hadn't had under his suit.

"Weapons, possible, likely not, unknown," said Ginger, pointing.

"Oh, put everything in weapons," he said. "The Outfit makes a big deal over being able to kill anybody with anything. Except the candy; I got that from a woman when I said I was leaving…maybe you should just put that out the lock."

Perpetua and Ginger exchanged a glance, and Perpetua said, "Um, are you a paranoid?"

"No. But she is."

"Wish we had a stasis box," Ginger muttered in Wunderlander.

"Three right there," Smith replied, with a horrible accent. He pointed at the "boats" and said, in Flatlander again, "So what did you want to talk to an ARM for?"

"Ah," said Perpetua. "We're engaged in rescuing humans in kzinti custody. A couple of thousand years ago, the Jotoki recruited some Romans as mercenaries, north of Hadrian's Wall-"

"The Ninth Legion was abducted by aliens?" Smith exclaimed, then burst out laughing.

It took him some time to calm down. While he was wiping his eyes, Perpetua said, "You just happen to know all about the Ninth Legion?"

"Well, I guess I do now," he said, chuckling.

"Why is that funny?" Ginger said.

"Kind of a personal joke. Fission Era mythology was full of stories of people being abducted by aliens, and I got exposed to a lot of it as a kid. I gather you've found their descendants?"

"Yes…this seems like a funny coincidence. It's kind of obscure," Perpetua said warily.

"No coincidence at all. I told you, I'm in Propaganda. Most of it's historical work. You have to know what you're lying about."

"Oh."

"So where do I come in?"

"Well, there's thousands of them, and the planet they're on has two old kzinti troop carriers in orbit, so we've put together a plan to steal those, load up the humans and Jotoki, and escape. The thing is, they're slow ships. We needed an excuse to get to them, though, so we've gotten the owner to hire us to install hyperdrives in them. So we need phase initiators-everything else can be made there."

"It takes about a thousand man-hours to shake down a new phase initiator," Smith said, "and that's in a drive whose other parts are known to work together. You need two complete hyperdrives. No way I can make those just disappear; what have you got to trade?"

"Gold. You'll do it?" Perpetua said, astonished.

"Oh, absolutely, I love the idea. Gold, huh? Not many people… hm. I may know somebody on Mars."

"Mars?"

"Mars. Fourth planet. It's on the other side of the sun just now, so it'll be, oh, three days to get there with this rig."

"More like two," Ginger said, getting up.

"Not unless you plan to skim the sun."

"Three," Ginger agreed.

"How did you decide to believe us so quickly?" Perpetua said at their first meal.

"VSA implant," Smith replied. "Voice stress analysis. Lie detector. I don't have the kind of brain chemistry that can be tweaked into continuous heavy-duty intuition, which is what most ARMs rely on."

"I thought they were paranoid," she said.

"That's the term for public consumption," he agreed. "Keeps 'em nervous. The ARM doesn't have the omnipotence it had before the wars, so we take any advantage we can get. Untrained, unchanneled paranoids did a lot of damage in the past. People remember that." He grinned. "We remind them regularly."

"Oh," she said uneasily. "What's Mars like?"

"Cold," he said. "Dry. Less of both with each generation, though. The residents are gradually terraforming it. Before the wars it was a real hole. We used it as a dumping ground for troublemakers-writers, roleplayers, history buffs."

"Who lives there now?"

"Same people. Just not brainwashed. They like it. Don't ask me why. Part of the whole fantasist culture." He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and added, "Not brainwashed by us, anyway."

He grew gloomy and avoided conversation for a day or so.

In the middle of the third day he suddenly told Ginger, "There's people on Earth who think the ARM made the wars up."

This was apropos of nothing whatsoever, and ridiculous to boot; Ginger said, "What?"

"There are people who earnestly believe the whole interstellar war story is just a huge juice job. That is, all the death on Wunderland was something we caused ourselves, and we're blaming you to discredit you so you can't expose us."

Ginger thought about that, then said, "That's crazy."

"True. With eighteen billion people on Earth you get all kinds. At the other end of the spectrum of insanity you get the tweeties-that is, people who think the kzinti are responsible for everything that goes wrong, and this literally includes poor weather."

"What do you do with people like that?" Perpetua wondered, and Ginger realized it was a good question-they wouldn't simply get killed in the course of their daily affairs.

"Unless they're really deranged, ignore them. They're not that numerous."

"And the extreme cases?" she said.

"We recruit them into Technology Restriction."

Her initial laughter died down as she realized he wasn't smiling.

"There's a placement test after you qualify for the ARMs," he said. "They give you a little sliver of soap and a sheet of paper, and you're supposed to write down five fundamentally different ways to kill someone with the soap. There are only four. You can poison him, lubricate something to cause an accident, use it as fuel for combustion or explosive, or stuff it down his throat to strangle him."

"Bludgeon," said Ginger.

"It's too small. If you think of a fifth method, you're qualified for Technology Restriction. Usually." He half-smiled. "I wrote down a fifth: 'Force him to concentrate on the thing until his head explodes.' They put me in Propaganda."

Amused, Ginger said, "So what's the fifth?"

"Oh, they never tell anyone outside TR Division that." He put on an expression of grim, heroic concern: " 'There's an awful lot of soap out there.' " He laughed at their incredulity, and nodded vigorously.

"I'm surprised you still have fire," Ginger said.

"They're more or less resigned to fire," Smith said thoughtfully. "But I'm fairly sure they'd like to crack down on bronze."