The Man-Kzin Wars 12

String Hal Colebatch and Matthew Joseph Harrington

2895 CE

“This will be a change from your last assignment for us,” the puppeteer said. The grizzled ARM general apparently standing beside it nodded agreement. Given modern medical techniques, not even counting whatever the ARM kept for themselves, the gray had to be pure theater, to establish dominance via human respect for elders. It wasn't that effective—there were too many elders these days.

“It had better be,” said Richard Guthlac. “The last was not something we'd like to repeat.”

“You did well enough then, though your companion did better,” it replied. “A great menace was destroyed. That is one reason you have been chosen again. That and the fact Charrgh-Captain asked for you.”

Richard and Gay exchanged eloquent looks. Charrgh-Captain had been the Patriarchy observer assigned to accompany their small human-Wunderkzin team to the last stasis box to be found.

“He evidently appreciates your resourcefulness,” the puppeteer went on. “More, by the terms of the treaty they are only obliged to accept one observer, but he said you were a mated team. Unasked concessions like that from a kzin of the Patriarchy, an officer very much of the old school, are too rare to be lightly set aside.”

Richard and Gay nodded. They and Charrgh-Captain had been through a memorable time together.

“This time,” the general said, “it's been the kzinti's turn to find a stasis box. You will be the human observers attached to a kzinti expedition.

“Of course you don't have to go,” he went on. “But the pay will be good.”

“For sharing a ship with a crew of kzinti of the Patriarchy? It had better be!” Richard exclaimed.

“For sharing a ship with a crew of kzinti, and for facing a possibly very dangerous unknown at the end of it. But you know that better than I can tell you.

“Anyway,” said the general, “it appears the kzinti are abiding by the treaty like good little kitties. They have informed us of the discovery, have given you time to join them, and, of course, have agreed that you will have diplomatic status and immunity. Your reserve ranks will also be respected, so you will be entitled to fighters' privileges, though I hope it won't be necessary for you to invoke them.

“The box will be opened where it is, not taken to Kzin-aga. In some ways that has problems, but both sides insisted on it, neither trusting the other, and it's written in. High Admiral Zzarrk-Skrull has given his Name as his Word that the box has not been surreptitiously opened already and then closed again for our benefit. I don't need to tell you to try discreetly to confirm that if you can,” he said, telling them anyway. ARMs. “But I think the kzinti are genuinely wary about bringing home stasis boxes to open, and in this case I think their paranoia is justified—pretty much everybody's had problems in that direction in the past, as you probably know. There's no reason why it shouldn't all go according to the protocols.”

“Charrgh-Captain,” said the puppeteer—its pronunciation of the kzinti Name was as perfect as its contralto Interworld—“has assured us that he is aware of human requirements and comforts. You will have your own cabin and kitchen.”

“I don't suppose the job includes having bombs implanted in us in case the box turns out to hold something really dangerous?” asked Richard.

“Good heavens! How do you get such terrible ideas?” said the puppeteer convincingly.

“Working with ARMs. They'll be doing a full scan on us, huh?” he asked the general.

The puppeteer looked itself in the eyes. The general said nothing, and pointedly looked at Gay.

“How big is this stasis box?” asked Gay, very politely.

“Large, but much smaller than the last one you investigated. Too small for there to be anything, ah, comparable inside.—I don't think the kzinti really mind that either.—It's quite a long trip, but not so long that you'll have to go into coldsleep again. Twenty-five light-years. A matter of about eighty days each way, counting in STL acceleration and deceleration time. The actual retrieval and opening of the box shouldn't take long.”

“And the pay will be?”

The general named a figure.

“That's hard to refuse,” said Richard. “We could always do with more capital.”

“Yes, I'd heard you'd taken up farming. But land's still cheap on Wunderland, isn't it?”

“Yes, but machines aren't. Farming needs sophisticated robotics to be competitive. Well, we'll think about it.”

“Don't think too long,” said the general. “Others would jump at the chance—making a name for themselves, a big hatful of stars in the bank.”

“Do tell. How many others are there in this unruly mob of volunteers? Within a factor of two, say?”

“Humans are brave,” said the puppeteer. “And curious. Many would jump at the opportunity.”

“But you wouldn't? You don't feel like going yourself, by any chance?” Richard asked innocently. If he had not known the puppeteer's heads contained no brains, its brain—an extremely large one—being located under a reinforced bony hump between its shoulders, he might have sworn a look of horror crossed the vapid faces. Certainly the creature flinched, and seemed to stop itself going into a crouch only with a great effort of will.

Richard felt a faint stab of guilt. Teasing a puppeteer about danger was too easy to be any achievement. Still, if the puppeteers were extremely averse to risking their own necks, they seemed to have few qualms about having others risk theirs. He waved a hand in apology and reassurance. This puppeteer had, by the standards of its kind, done a very brave thing by walking abroad on Wunderland at all, even if this was only a hologram of it. It would have to be barking mad, of course, which would make so much courage easier for it. All sane puppeteers had fled Known Space long before.

“There weren't many qualified volunteers,” the general said, oblivious to the exchange; an ARM's usual ration of empathy would be deemed a shortage if the same amount were detected in a brick.

“It does seem like a pretty narrow window of qualification,” Richard observed. “Smart enough to do a good job, but dumb enough to agree to it?”

The puppeteer looked itself in the eyes again, and the general said brusquely, “The expedition leaves from Kzin-aga. There's a commercial flight there leaving in three days.”

The puppeteer added hopefully, “You may also expect salvage fees for anything our distribution network may safely market.”

“As I said, we'll think about it.”

When they had privacy again, Gay shoved him in the shoulder. “How come I had to be the respectable one?” she said, laughing.

“Because I'm no good at it?” Richard suggested.

“Standard procedure will be followed,” said Charrgh-Captain. “There is a telepath with us. The instant the box is opened he must probe it. Should it contain live Slavers, experience suggests it will take them at least a few moments to orient themselves. In those moments Telepath must detect them and we must destroy them.

“Your cabin!” he announced, flinging open a kzin-scale door with a grand gesture. “Spacious enough, I take it? It is of course Hero-sized!”

“Thank you,” said Gay. Charrgh-Captain had obviously devoted some thought to making it not uncomfortable. Even the light was brighter and bluer than the kzinti used for themselves, and the cabin somewhat warmer than kzinti liked. Kzinti, though masters of gravity control, officially eschewed the decadent human luxury of sleeping plates, but a Hero-sized bunk made more than a double bed for humans. The monsters which Heroes battled and bloodily slew in the bulkhead pictures were not human or even simian—quite a rare piece of cultural sensitivity for kzinti interior decor. Marks on the bulkhead, however, suggested some less-tactful decorations might have been recently removed. There was also a versatile human-type kitchen/recycler and a library, part of the basic-maintenance human autodoc.

“The kzin is a generous host,” said Richard.

“I had some of your personnel from the embassy to advise.” Charrgh-Captain's ears twitched, corresponding to a slightly mischievous smile. “Apart from my previous experiences of you and other humans. You will note I am returning you the compliment of providing a lockable door. Unfortunately, in preparing your comfort there was no time to alter the sanitary facilities to human scale. You will have to sit and balance carefully, I think, if you do not want to fall backwards and down into the waste turbines. And here is a facility for water to immerse yourself—a sho-urr.”

“You have done us proud.” And had your little joke. But things could be a lot worse.

“We are companions,” said Charrgh-Captain. “In a companionship sealed by bonds that will not be broken lightly. In any case, this is a large ship, with a small crew. We all like what you call elbow room, and here we can be generous with living space.”

Yes, thought Richard, you kzinti always build ships larger than you need—as though you just might want them for something else one day. I'm sure this one is a lot more intricately subdivided than a simple trader needs to be, too. And lots of mountings and installations for very high-energy signaling devices, just in case your message laser fails, of course. Aloud he said: “How small a crew, Honored Charrgh-Captain?”

“Myself, a weapons officer who is second-in-command, two flyer/watchkeepers, a Slaverexpert, two engineers, four troopers, and the telepath.”

Twelve kzinti. If it comes to a fight over the stasis box, we wouldn't stand much chance against that lot. I don't suppose we're here to fight for the stasis box, though. We're really only here taking the role of canaries in ancient submarines or coal mines. As long as we live, things are okay. If the kzinti don't let us return to make a full report, humanity will assume the box contained a major weapon of the Slavers, and will hit the kzinti worlds with everything it's got.

“Leave your things here for the moment,” said Charrgh-Captain. The commonplace, domestic phrases of hospitality sounded strange from a nine-foot-tall felinoid with dagger fangs. “You are officially part of the crew and should familiarize yourselves with the ship.”

He escorted them through it from end to end. It turned out to be a refitted warship—most kzinti vessels were, not too surprisingly; a ship built entirely out of hardpoints doesn't tend to wear out very soon. The puppeteers were still running a few General Products outlets, to help with moving expenses, but aside from a yacht for the Patriarch, for the publicity, they weren't providing the kzinti with invulnerable hulls. (Which was a pity; one would have been nice now, under the circumstances.) Still, there were a lot of awfully tough merchant ships out there lately.

Slowly, the kzinti were becoming integrated into the great web of interstellar trade and commerce. Slowly, some kzinti were taking to the business and mercantile life and coming to appreciate the rewards it brought. At first they put a good face on it by saying to one another that it was a temporary expedient, until more Heroic times returned; but as time went on, and sons grew up in family businesses, this claim was made less often.

Humans (with puppeteer advice, when that wasn't absurdly naïve) had gradually initiated them into a system of rewards, rituals, stories, respect, and honors for successful merchants. There was a Kzinti Chamber of Commerce now, with the Patriarch's ninth son as Honorary President, and several wholly or partially kzinti chapters of Rotary Interstellar—though the Rotarians' cherished ritual of the Sergeant-at-Arms levying small fines upon members before dinner, for charitable purposes, had been dropped in the kzinti chapters, as it had occasionally led to death duels.

This ship, Cunning Stalker, was officially a merchant vessel, seconded to the science-and-research branch of the new Kzinti Mercantile College. (Kzinti of the old school, who had not read Adam Smith's writing on trade's mutual advantages for both parties, still called it “House-to-Learn-Plundering-from-Animals-by-Stealth.”) Cunning Stalker was built in the classical kzinti hemisphere-and-cone pattern, though with three drives—a traditional kzinti gravity-planer, a human-derived hydrogen-fusion reaction drive, and of course a hyperdrive. The first two had long been obsolete for interstellar travel, but were still essential within a star's singularity, and had other uses. The hugely oversized power plants of the Red Age were now banned by treaty, so that gravity effects were no longer used for casual convenience—like, as an alternative to reaching for things—but lesser motors throughout the ship did allow for a variety of useful effects, including whatever was comfortable at the moment.

The aft part of the ship contained several cargo holds, whose partitioning could be altered. Richard wondered briefly if it might have been a slave transport; it was just barely old enough. There was a control center well forward. The engineers had sleeping cabins near the engine spaces, the rest of the personnel about the control center. There were many empty cabins and other spaces, some of these suggestive to a trained eye. As Charrgh-Captain had said, there was plenty of room.

Sometimes in the wars, humans, who, one way or another, found themselves sharing ships with kzinti, had managed to elude or ambush those kzinti by climbing through ducting too narrow for the great felinoids to enter. Richard noticed, not without wry amusement, that Cunning Stalker appeared to have been refitted with memories of this in mind. Any ducting too small to admit a kzin was either also too small to admit a human, or else covered with very tough gratings.

Overall, it contained few surprises for the humans, though much of the machinery and instrumentation was quite alien to them. Both Richard and Gay had long ago absorbed the standard layout of various classes of kzinti ships through imprinting, as part of their reserve officer training, but those designs were from the Red Age, pre-hyperdrive, when transit times were measured in decades; back then, any innovation meant newly arrived personnel would require complete retraining. Nowadays changes could be implemented Empire-wide in months, with the result that the Guthlacs found the latest kzinti designs just short of baffling. The control center was downright intimidating, with three kzinti busy at instrument consoles whose combined complexity was worthy of a hospital doc. The ports had not yet been opaqued for the transition to hyperspace, and Kzinhome's primary was a vast red ball filling the sky to one side as they skimmed it. (Slingshot maneuvers were thrifty if there was no hurry, and of course kzinti were up on all the gravity business.)

There too was Telepath, smaller, bowed, skittering nervously about, not daring yet to sleep. Beside the tigerish magnificence of Charrgh-Captain, and after the tall, strong, normal-looking Wunderkzin telepaths Richard and Gay knew at home on Wunderland, the twitchy, doomed, neurotic creature was an awful sight. Looking at him, they understood afresh why so many telepath POWs had aided humanity; and why so many other telepaths, stranded in the Centauri System after its liberation in the first great war, had been so eager to throw in their lot with humanity, with its milder, less-destructive drugs, and to take human names and loyalties.

Richard and Gay were used to non-humans, particularly kzinti—on Wunderland there were Wunderkzin they thought of as companions and friends. But these were not Wunderkzin. The Guthlacs' nerves were on edge in the ruddy orange light, hulking tigerish forms around them.

The last time they had flown with Charrgh-Captain, he had been the attached observer, and their crew had been two other humans and a Wunderkzin. Now they felt their minority status with painful nervous tension. It was not improved by the knowledge that even nontelepathic kzinti could sense emotions, so that their companions were certainly aware of how the humans felt. Even Earth canines could smell fear, and to kzinti it could be an intoxicant. It was a relief to thank Charrgh-Captain for the tour and close their cabin door behind them.

“This bed is something!” Gay commented, bouncing on it. “And the covers are real fabric! I was half-afraid they'd be human skin or something.”

Richard bounced onto the bed beside her. Was the gravity here less? It was something the kzinti could arrange easily enough, but he had not anticipated such thoughtfulness. Gay grabbed him and wound her arms around him.

“I do feel a bit nervous here,” she said, “and I think I need some comforting.”

“You want to make love now?”

“Yes. Don't you? I think we'd better give this bed a test flight.” She grabbed him and pulled him down.

I feel sorry for those who need new partners all the time, Richard thought afterward as they lay in each other's arms, dreamy and contented, thoughts drifting. They had been married nearly twenty years, and the more they knew one another's bodies the better they became, even as—something they had once thought impossible—their love for one another seemed to continue to deepen. This is perfection, he thought, kissing his wife's skin. Most twenty-ninth-century human bodies were perfect, but beyond that their minds, spirits, and desires were in a radiant union. Lying together there, his arms about her, it was as if each basked in an aura of the other's comfort, happiness, and contentment. He murmured something below speech, running his knuckles along her spine.

She turned away from him, her curves of shoulder and back and buttocks making her seem rather more surrendered and giving than when she faced him.

“You know, eighty days of this each way shouldn't be too hard to bear,” Richard mused.

“And we're getting paid to do it!”

“Hah! True. Not sure how I'd phrase it on a resumé, though. Of course the kzinti aren't what they were, not quite. Even with a full shipyard doing nothing else it would take several hours, at least, to convert this ship back for Navy use in another war… I'm still digesting the idea of kzinti Rotarians.”

“I remember hearing somewhere there's been attempts to set up kzinti Lions Clubs. The fines officer's known as the Tail-Twister, you know! The mind boggles.”

They both laughed, rather nervously, and Richard reached for her again.

The door beeped. Someone desired entrance. Gay kicked herself over and pulled the cover up to her chin, then let it fall. “What the hell, kzinti aren't going to be shocked by monkeys.”

“Shall we let them in?”

“Why not?”

“Admit,” said Richard. Unless specially locked, the door was voice-keyed.

“May I join you?” It was Telepath. Like Charrgh-Captain, he spoke Interworld, the largely Jinxian-based common human tongue which, despite its name, was difficult for nonhumans to pronounce.

“We speak some kzinti tongues,” said Richard, experimentally. Even on Wunderland, some kzinti strongly disliked simians “defiling” the Heroes' Tongue—and this, as he was all too well aware, was not Wunderland. Still, his accent was good; and a certain amount of the hostility was due to frequent mangled pronunciation.

“I would be grateful,” said the telepath, “if I could spend some time here with you. The minds of the Heroes leak at me endlessly. I can shield, but it is not enough. Humans are so different that when I am not drugged I need to concentrate to understand you at all. The noise drowns out the others. This cabin, your minds, give me a refuge.”

Richard felt uncomfortable. Telepath was obviously trying to control his neurotic behavior. Good manners toward the humans were clamped about him like a coat of mail. Yet this timid, wistful, depressed, and undersized kzin was so hideously unnatural. It's just the instinctive revulsion one feels towards a sick animal, he thought. Don't let him sense it! How do I stop him sensing it? No headaches yet. He's not trying to read my mind. But I'll bet he gets the vibes.

Gay nodded. “Stay awhile,” she said, sitting up. “We can offer you bourbon if you like.”

“A small one, thank you. So that is what you really look like, without your clothing.”

They had forgotten for a moment that they were naked. Richard and Gay came from a culture where nudity, if not everyday, was less uncommon for everyone than it had been in the past—after the wars, Wunderland had needed a lot of work to clean up its climate, and there had been no reason to stop short of comfort. In any case Telepath himself, like most kzinti, wore very minimal garments consisting chiefly of utility belts and pouches for tools (including, they presumed, his drugs). “What you see is what you get,” said Richard, a laugh covering a momentary stab of embarrassment. He swung his feet to the deck and crossed to the drinks cabinet.

“It is fascinating,” said Telepath, looking them both up and down. “I knew you were tailless, but I have never actually seen tailless beings like you before. How do you balance? And would you not need them when you are swinging through trees?”

“We don't actually swing through trees very much,” Richard said. “Not now.”

“And only two teats. You must have small litters.”

“Yes, usually one, sometimes two. More are rare.”

“A lot of your cubs must survive, then. This is the first time I have left Kzin-aga. You are the first aliens I have met. Such spindly limbs, no muscles at all.” He reached out and touched. “Such soft skins. Yet you have fought Heroes. And won. I am glad you are not like Heroes.”

His voice changed.

“But so many similarities,” he said. “Spinal column, skull, ribs, two forelimbs, two hindlimbs. Same number of eyes and ears, similar mouth, same arrangement of alimentary canal, same division of functions by organ. Both mammalian. It is extraordinary.”

“Well, it's a good design,” said Richard. “Crops up all over. The ancestors of humans evolved on a world in the Galactic Core, while I understand that kzinti evolution can be traced back in a nearly unbroken chain to an incredible distance.”

“I hadn't known that myself,” Telepath said.

“It was in an article in Jinx Goshographic,” Richard said. “Something about geological stability—or, no, continuity of processes,” he said, trying to remember. “What's the word—gradualism! Changes were very standard, and laid down fossils pretty reliably up to two or three million years ago.”

“What happened then?” Telepath wondered.

“Asteroid impact. After that the geology wasn't as stable. Anyway, it's not that big a coincidence.”

“But our brains have functional similarities, too, I think. I have read minds of Pierin, of Jotoki. More strange. They don't understand about the need to fight.” Telepath's voice was becoming slurred. His eyelids were beginning to droop. “I think I am going to sleep now,” he said. “Let me sleep here. They will not come and kick me here.” He curled on the deck like a house cat after a large meal. After a minute he began to purr faintly, his claws extending and retracting rhythmically, though irregular twitches also ran over his muscles. He was runtish for a kzin, under eight feet tall, but it was still fortunate that their cabin was roomy. I think the poor creature is actually happy at this moment, Richard realized with a shock. With some memory of their own old cat in mind, he moved to scratch him under the chin, a gesture which with old Shebee had never failed to produce an ecstatic purring. Gay reached out quickly to halt him, and he stopped, shaking his head at himself. Telepath was, after all, still a kzin, small and weak by kzinti standards, but still with teeth and claws and speed capable of dismembering a buffalo. The rules for a human touching kzinti were very strict, and the rule for touching a sleeping one was NEVER.

It was a long time later that Telepath awoke.

“I have never slept so well that I remember,” he said. “But I should not have trespassed on you.”

“Perhaps you will come and talk with us again,” said Gay.

“We don't want him as a permanent guest!” said Richard after Telepath left.

“I think he knows that. Well, he would, wouldn't he? But I'm sorry for him.”

“I'd rather have him for a friend than an enemy,” said Richard. “I hate to think what a telepath enemy might do! But you're right as usual. And I guess I'm sorry for him, too.”

“I know you are. I've known you a long time, remember?”

The voyage proceeded. Neither Richard nor Gay could feel very comfortable in the main body of the ship, with its dim light, lower temperatures, and the hulking kzinti here and there—not all of them, they suspected, as sophisticated as Charrgh-Captain about the company of humans, or with the pathetic friendliness of Telepath. Their orange fur, camouflage in this light, and their capacity for perfect stillness, often made them hard to see, for all their size, until the humans came startlingly close. Their eyes, glowing in the dimness, were not friendly, and both Richard and Gay knew enough of kzinti body language to be under no illusions about that.

Things were peaceful enough—the kzinti had a gym to work off their energy and aggression, Charrgh-Captain forbade death duels among the relatively small crew, and foodmakers in private quarters avoided the most common source of fights—but it was still like walking through a cage of tigers.

They spent some time with Charrgh-Captain on the bridge, familiarizing themselves further with the ship—it was the instinct of any spacer to do that, though they couldn't really hope to know more than the rudiments of the systems. Especially since they were wary of touching meters or control panels or interrupting kzinti watchstanders. Both made as sure as they could that the other kzinti were reminded as often as possible, by the sight of the three of them together, that they were under Charrgh-Captain's protection—the Patriarch's protection, if it came to that.

Sometimes—not very often—Charrgh-Captain was in the mood to talk; sometimes, when he wished to relax, even to joke and share a drink and reminiscences, or game with them in his suite; but the other kzinti were not companions from a past adventure, and it soon became abundantly clear that, for some reason, they had no particular inclination to socialize with representatives of the most terrible enemy their race had ever known.

As far as Richard could tell, none of the other kzinti spoke Interworld. He thought it unwise to try to press conversation upon them in either his insulting, monkey-mangled attempt at the Heroes' Tongue, or in what was still known in the Patriarchy (of which this ship was a part) as the slaves' patois. The windows were opaqued and there was nothing to be gained by looking through them anyway, except possibly madness—the blind-spot effect of looking upon hyperspace affected kzinti every bit as badly as it did humans. In their cabin there were entertainments.

Telepath, however, visited them; as often, they surmised, as he thought they could tolerate him. They played chess and card games with him sometimes, never developing the violent headache which would have warned them he was cheating. He won routinely at chess, but card games that involved bluffing were something of a kzinti handicap. He could easily sense their emotions when one of them had a good hand; it was the idea of folding—surrendering—that so often threw him.

They had brought some old-fashioned jigsaw puzzles. He enjoyed them hugely, and could assemble them with blur-quick movements—except for the one that was all-white. That kept him poring over the pieces for hours at a time. They gathered he had no possessions or pastimes of his own. Anything a telepath had that another kzin fancied, the other kzin would take as a matter of course. Once he surprised them by bringing them a model of a kitten he had carved from some kind of wood—surprised them doubly, as they hadn't realized that sculpture was so strongly nonvisual. (Kzinti paintings could be incomprehensible to human perceptions.) Sometimes he told them about his life, including the fact, which also surprised them, that he had kits. Both Richard and Gay, as reserve officers, filed his information away, though they felt slightly uncomfortable about doing so. Mostly he took their company, games, and talk as a preliminary and aid to relaxation and sleep, and their cabin as a refuge from the other kzinti.

There came the indescribable moment, the discontinuity as the ship dropped out of hyperspace. The ports became transparent again, and stars reappeared. Strange stars. Then there were planets. They swung past two ringed gas giants, with the families of moons and Trojan-point asteroids that had first attracted kzinti miners to this system. They fell toward the system's heart, and toward a small inner planet.

It was not unlike Mars. A red surface suggested oxygen locked in iron. There were eroded stumps of mountains and what might have been seas a billion years previously. There was a tenuous atmosphere, mainly nitrogen and carbon dioxide, which for breathing purposes might as well have been a vacuum, but which sufficed to stir winds and dust clouds, and slowly traveling processions of crescent dunes. Kzinti instruments had detected no life but microbes. There were small icecaps. A small but bright sun gave good light.

With hyperdrive, this was not far beyond the existing borders of kzin-settled space. If the kzinti ran out of better planets, and humans let them, they could probably kzinform it one day. Despite the broad streaks of anarchy in their government, and a bureaucracy which depended largely on inefficient and unreliable slaves, they were capable of great constructive feats when they put their minds to it.

At present they had an application before the human worlds to mine the gas giants' moons: on probation after four major and several minor wars launched against humans, the Patriarchy was now under close observation in any effort to expand its territories. The kzinti had lost all the wars, of course. If they had won one, there would have been no more after it.

The stasis box, its general position already known, was easy to locate with deep-radar, and easy to uncover. Cunning Stalker simply hovered over it, holding position with a gravity generator, and ran its reaction drive on very low power so as to blow the dust away.

The mirror surface of the stasis box was revealed about fifty feet down. Magnification brought the image of the exposed section into the control center. Whether it had been deliberately buried there, or it and the planet had collided in the remote past, or it had once been housed in some installation whose metal was now coloring the sand, there was no way of telling. There were curves of vitrified rock that might be the last traces of the rimwall of an ancient impact crater—not necessarily related. Anyway, unanswerable speculations as to how it got there were of no importance at all, beside the question of what it might contain.

Deep-radar showed it was spherical—unusual—and about twenty feet in diameter. Far smaller than the last one, but still huge for a stasis box. All aboard Cunning Stalker knew it was quite big enough to contain live Slavers.

The box was now uncovered. A “mining robot” (which bore a remarkable resemblance to a Third War automated sapper) was landed next to it; it burrowed beneath the box with a disintegrator, emerged a few minutes later, and rose to be picked up. Cunning Stalker moved aside, and a fusion charge blew the stasis box off the planet.

They had to catch it before it fell back; it didn't reach escape speed. The charge had been meant to accomplish that, so the box was significantly more massive than expected. This might be good or bad: it could mean the box was packed solid, with no room for inhabitants, or it could mean that there was extremely heavy equipment inside, which suggested weapons—and someone to use them.

The box was towed to high orbit, and the ship's fusion drive was aimed at it and kept hot. Charrgh-Captain, Slaverexpert, Telepath, two troopers, and the humans took the gig over to it. (The “gig” had oversized gravity compensators and a remarkably heavy layer of hullmetal lining its nose, almost as if it was meant to be used to ram a hole in something.) Slaverexpert fired a parcel of fine black material at it: superconductor. The fabric wrapped around the box, formed a closed surface, turned silver briefly, and rolled itself back up into the parcel. “Clever,” Gay murmured.

“The dropcloth is Pierin emergency firefighting equipment,” Charrgh-Captain remarked. “I don't think they had this in mind.”

The container's surface was still seamless, but had acquired a creamy hue. Richard had been watching the views from the scanners around the box, and he said, “Where's the cutoff switch?”

Slaverexpert, who had never previously spoken unless directly addressed, startled Richard by saying, “True.” In Interworld.

“Explain,” commanded Charrgh-Captain.

“These were designed to be opened easily, Charrgh-Captain. A panel would be spring-loaded, to break the conductive surface when the field was interrupted. The stasis has ended, but the surface is still seamless.”

Gay, who had gotten curious and was having a look, said, “It isn't. It's split in half. Look, there.” She pointed at one of the screens. The seam was at an inconvenient angle, so nobody else had noticed it.

And it hadn't been as big. The split was getting wider.

“Battle stations,” Charrgh-Captain said. Still in Interworld, addressing the two humans—kzinti routine was Battle Stations. The Guthlacs got to their couches and strapped in.

“Sir,” Telepath said dopily, drugged with sthondat-lymph extract, “I detect no life.”

“You can't read Slaverexpert, either,” Charrgh-Captain replied.

“No, sir, but I can tell where he is.”

“Noted. Slaverexpert, report.”

“The only energy I detect is heat, in amounts consistent with being present before stasis began, plus the separation of the shell. Shall I deep-radar?”

“Yes. Display the results.”

The image on the humans' screens was divided into wedge-shaped compartments, almost all full of materials slightly denser than water. One held even denser material, probably metallic, in boxes. “It looks like an orange designed by ARMs,” Richard said.

Charrgh-Captain, relieved of tension, snorted amusement. “An orange? The fruit?”

“Sure. Armor-plated for safety, big so it's easy to find, opens automatically when ripe.”

“So what's all the metal?” Gay chuckled, pointing at the last wedge.

Slaverexpert spoke up. “Emergency escape pods for the seeds?” After a moment of utter silence, he looked up to find everyone else staring at him—even Telepath. “Sorry, sir,” he said faintly to Charrgh-Captain, and looked back down at his instruments in a marked manner.

“We'll examine that section before taking the box in tow,” Charrgh-Captain said.

Probably the best thing about working in space with kzinti was that they had been doing it for so long. Lighting, for instance. Humans, even those in the mining industries, tended to put up one or two bright lights, and wear one or two smaller lights on their helmets, producing sharp-edged shadows and a nagging conviction that something was hiding just out of sight. Here, though, Second Trooper strewed fistfuls of little spheres toward the partitions: where they hit, they stuck, and presently began to glow gently. They had frosted surfaces, so the light was diffuse. The kzinti suits also had multiple lights: a couple at each wrist, and two rows of three each down the torso, where things would be held to work on them. A light under the chin illuminated things directly ahead.

The Guthlacs were given clusters of faint blue lights to strap onto their suits, which in conjunction with standard kzinti lighting gave them a spectrum they could use easily. The amount of thought and preparation this implied was extremely flattering: They were being extended enormous courtesy. Richard found himself wondering if Charrgh-Captain had known all along that human-model food dispensers included a toilet.

There wasn't much time to dwell on this. The parcels were full of gadgets.

Most of them were pretty straightforward power tools: drills, saws, hammers, trimmers, shapers, diggers, a couple of amazingly elaborate grippies, and something that Gay and Slaverexpert tentatively labeled, after much consultation, as a handheld turret lathe. “These must have been for the use of a slave race,” said Slaverexpert. “They are too large for Tnuctipun hands, and Thrintun would rather starve than toil.” He sounded troubled.

“What's wrong?” said Richard.

“There is something familiar about the workmanship. Disturbing.”

“What would this be?” Charrgh-Captain said, holding up a thing that included a short spike, a knife, a crank, and little spring-loaded rollers. “It hardly seems useful as a weapon.”

Slaverexpert took it and turned it over a few times. “I am open to any suggestion,” he said, baffled.

“It looks…” Richard began, then said, “Nah, crazy.”

“So?” said Charrgh-Captain.

“Good point. Well, it looks like an apple peeler. A good one, too.”

“It does, doesn't it?” Gay agreed.

Slaverexpert worked the crank a little. “It seems articulated to follow a complex surface.”

“Potato peeler, then?” Gay said.

Slaverexpert looked at her, then at Richard. His ears were distinctly cupped, as if he were expecting ambush. He said, “Charrgh-Captain, it may be prudent to inspect the other sections as well.”

“Very well, once we're done with this one.”

Other devices were more complex. Several were lasers, or included lasers, but would have required great modification of focus for use as weapons. Another seemed intended to take in some kind of powder and extrude solid material in any desired shape. The purpose of a few remained unclear. All the tools that required power had to be plugged in; they had no power supplies of their own.

And it was Telepath, whose drugs were wearing off, who said, “Are there two of anything?”

Charrgh-Captain gave a startled grunt. “He's right,” he said. “There are no duplications. Or spare parts,” he realized. He picked up an object that had been mysterious a moment before. “This could be used to wind wire around a rotor.” He added in Hero, “Everyone pick up an object and examine it for signs of usage.”

His tone of command was such that the Guthlacs did so along with the rest. Richard inspected the peeler and found the blade and spike unstained. “Clean, no wear,” he said. Similar remarks were made by others.

“These may be models,” Charrgh-Captain declared. “Meant only to be copied. Were not the Slavers highly mercantile?”

“Charrgh-Captain, they were,” said Slaverexpert. “These may indeed be articles of commerce. Shall I see what organic goods they stocked?”

“Certainly.”

Slaverexpert had gone from being taciturn to interested, and had now gone from interested to stiffly formal. If Richard understood kzinti reactions (and he had some reason to think he might), Slaverexpert was experiencing immense stress, about something he didn't want to discuss.

Slaverexpert's conduct while inspecting the other segments verged on bizarre. One held thirty-one bacterial-containment canisters, and he barely glanced at them. The next three held clear plastic shells, each containing seeds of different sizes and shapes, which were also virtually ignored. The fifth held larger bins, that fitted into the shell segment; he shone a light on one, then said, “Charrgh-Captain, I have a security problem.”

“From plants?”

“Tree-of-life,” said Slaverexpert. There was a moment's silence.

Then, “Discuss it with the humans. The rest of you withdraw and switch to a music channel. Telepath, take your sedative.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Tree-of-life” was a term coined over seven centuries earlier by a man who had eaten some. It had been brought by a Pak protector, a sort-of-alien from the Galactic Core, and it had turned the man into an asexual killing machine with vastly increased intelligence and the single goal of ensuring his descendants' propagation—just the effect it had on the Pak. An ill-conceived attempt by the ARM to do the same thing deliberately during the First War had misfired, and had things gone even a little worse all other intelligent life in Known Space would have been methodically exterminated.

Richard was beginning to recover from the shock, but only in stages. “This can't be tree-of-life,” he protested. “The time is off by a factor of, of eight hundred. How the tanj do you know about tree-of-life, anyway?”

“It's in my area,” said Slaverexpert. “The Pak were a Tnuctip bioweapon.”

Richard stared for a moment, then said, “Impossible. In two billion years they would have evolved beyond recognition.”

“They ate their mutations,” said Slaverexpert. “They could distinguish variation of a single codon by smell.”

“Richard, I read a monograph on that once,” Gay said. “The author made a good case.”

“Where was this?” he exclaimed.

“Fractal Edge netzine.”

Richard sighed. “Gay, the only people who contribute to that are conspiracy theorists.”

“You mean, like the people who used to believe in alien abductions?”

Gay was one of a large proportion of modern Wunderlanders descended from kidnapped humans that the Jotoki had engaged as mercenaries; Richard's ancestral kin had been aboard so many kzinti warships that it was practically a Guthlac family tradition. Richard opened and closed his mouth once, scowled, and stuck out his tongue.

“Don't change the subject,” Gay said primly.

As Richard was sputtering, Second Trooper, who had been idly watching him from a distance, touched helmets with First Trooper and said, “Why would he expose his tongue?”

“From what I've read on them, humans spend most of their spare time either mating or making plans to mate. That's why there are so many of them.”

“What does that have to do with what I said?”

“Human mating rituals include grooming each other's genitals,” First Trooper replied.

Second Trooper, who like all kzinti had a tongue not unlike a wood rasp, looked at the Guthlacs with new respect. No wonder human fighters were so tough.

Richard got back on track: “Look, two and a half million years ago the Pak colonized Earth, the root didn't grow right, the breeders stopped turning into protectors, and they wound up evolving into us. If the Pak had been around for two billion years, wouldn't that have happened somewhere else by now?”

“It likely did,” said Slaverexpert. “Repeatedly. It may have come to your attention that humans are warlike. Certainly it has not escaped ours. It would have been easy for them to exterminate one another.”

Richard was still finding it too incredible. “Look, the plants needed thallium to work right. Where's the thallium supply?”

“Richard Guthlac,” Slaverexpert said gently, “did you see any tools suitable for Tnuctip use? This is a cache prepared for rebellion against the Tnuctipun. The proto-Pak would have tailored a root for themselves that was not limited by the availability of a rare-earth element, which was doubtless a feature designed by the Tnuctipun to restrict their spread.”

It was chillingly plausible.

Gay made it a little more so: “I just realized there are no fabricators, to copy those model tools,” she said. “A protector would build one on the spot after the stasis box was opened, rather than waste storage space that could be used for more models.”

It accounted for the potato peeler.

—Except that nothing accounted for the potato peeler: “Why is there a potato peeler?” Richard exclaimed. “They ate the whole things, didn't they?”

Slaverexpert thought. Then he looked at the roots and thought some more. Finally he said, “All I can think of is flavor, which is illogical; they could surely have tailored for that as well. I shall have to analyze one for better information.”

As Slaverexpert signaled to Charrgh-Captain, Gay murmured to Richard, “Do you think he'd have destroyed them without testing otherwise?”

“If they're tree-of-life, I'd help,” he replied in equally low tones. “Protectors are asexual and all look ancient. I prefer to be young and dumb and… keep my hair.”

“I like your hair too.” She smiled.

Cunning Stalker's lab was a thorough one, and its safety features were appallingly practical: In an emergency, the entire lab would be ejected from the ship and into the path of the message laser, which would keep firing until the beam was unobstructed. “No need for the calcium notch,” said Richard weakly. He had won the toss, and Gay was back in their compartment, watching by screen.

“Urr?” said Slaverexpert, as he put the sample case into the lab manipulator with one hand and began undoing his suit with the other.

“On the spectroscope next to the laser.”

“Why a spectroscope?” The kzin's Interworld was excellent.

Surprised, Richard said, “I thought it was standard equipment. When something is blown up, the spectroscope scans the cloud, and if there's no band at the calcium frequency it was a miss or a decoy.”

“Because a real target would include something with a skeleton,” Slaverexpert said. “I see. Richard Guthlac, I find I enjoy working with you, so I hope you will take this suggestion: Do not say things like that very often around kzinti. There is something deeply disturbing in the didacticism that humans bring to the business of battle.”

Richard could think of nothing to say—it probably had been thought up by someone sitting at a desk somewhere, who might never have so much as seen a live kzin.

Slaverexpert opened a cabinet next to the manipulator controls and put on a set of goggles from it. He looked through various compartments in the cabinet, growled very deep in his throat, and took off his goggles. “There is no human-version viewer,” he said, putting them away, “so we will have to use window displays. I would prefer something that stayed in view when I turned my head, but leaving you out would violate the agreement.”

Richard was about to ask why he couldn't use kzinti goggles, when the displays appeared on the window before them. The one in front of him was familiar in style, with different kinds of information displayed in different colors of high chroma, arranged in rows and columns with any useful diagrams at the top. The one in front of Slaverexpert had kzinti script in deep purple written right across light gray diagrams, whose shapes were constantly shifting, just slightly. The writing moved around slowly within the diagrams. The positions of the diagrams underwent abrupt changes every few seconds, too. Just looking at it was disturbing; trying to get information out of it would have given him a bad headache very quickly. “Telepath should see this,” Richard murmured.

He'd forgotten kzinti hearing. “Why?” said Slaverexpert.

“Oh, a while back he was talking to us about the similarities in human and kzinti thinking. There's some fundamental differences in brain structure suggested here, and it might be of interest.”

“Oh. Good, I thought I was going to have to wake him up. He doesn't sleep enough.” Before Richard could absorb the concept of a healthy kzin showing concern for a telepath, Slaverexpert went on, “He's right, though. The fact that your readout looks like something I'd watch to get to sleep merely reflects a difference in hunting style.” His ears curled up for a moment as the readouts changed several times. Then they uncurled, the readouts steadied, and he said, “Unfamiliar equipment. I've got it now.”

Behind the window, waldoes opened the bin of roots and removed one. Richard had controls at his own station, and directed a sniffer to sample the air that had been in the container. “I did read somewhere that humans and kzinti are the only races to use fissionables to make bombs,” he remarked.

“Odd. It seems such an obvious idea,” said Slaverexpert. “No thallium, but I didn't expect it. Air interesting?”

“Nitrogen, oxygen, a little argon. Pretty standard habitable-planet issue,” Richard said, and heard the kzin snort in amusement. “Traces of medium-sized hydrocarbons.”

“Urr?” Slaverexpert brought some new instruments into play, then said, “The root is rich in terpenes. And there is no taurine.”

“Taurine?”

“An amino acid human metabolism uses in dendrite connections. You do not synthesize it, so tree-of-life should be crammed with it to facilitate the change… Though you may have lost the ability to synthesize it due to the supply available in Earth prey—no, Jack Brennan had no difficulty… I am unable to detect any trace of steroid compounds. The roots from the Pak ship that came to Sol System were found to contain a hormone for rapid muscle and bone development. This does not appear to be tree-of-life,” Slaverexpert concluded.

“Good!” Richard said. “So what is it?”

“Let me try something.” A waldo took up the uncut half of the root, then tossed it at a wall. It bounced back. “It's rubber.”

“What?”

“Rubber. Rather, a long-chain molecule assembled from terpene monomers, suitable for insulation, seals, and padding. Hardenable and readily cast into nonconductive parts.”

“Rubber,” said Richard, amused.

“A valuable industrial material. I speculate that many of the life-forms we have found here will be tailored to produce such. Shall we investigate?”

“Let's.” Now that fear was going, avarice had come out of hiding to put in a few words.

Unreasonably many hours later, Richard said, “Is that the last?” and wiped his brow with a hand that, he noticed, was developing a twitch from operating waldo gloves for so long.

“It is,” said Slaverexpert. “I marvel at your endurance.”

“I'm ready to fall down,” Richard protested. “You're in much better shape.”

“I possess medical enhancements added long ago to repair lethal injuries, and can produce my own natural stimulants at will. Nevertheless I am losing image persistence. I need exercise and sleep.”

“Me too, not in that order.”

“Urr. I can't remember whether you said there were any microorganisms present in anything.”

“Just the handmade stuff in the cans.”

“Good.” Slaverexpert cycled a sample box through the containment lock, put a few roots into it, and brought it out, saying, “These should be amus—What's wrong?”

Richard had backed across the lab and was squinting. “I'm not that fond of mint.” Even the traces on the outside of the closed box were disagreeably strong.

“You'll want to avoid the relaxroom, then, because I'll be bouncing one of these around. You don't like this? It seems quite pleasant to me.”

Richard's throat was trying to close up. “Have to go,” he choked out, and fled.

Telepath was in their quarters, looking like he just woke up, which was likely. Gay, off monitor duty, was already in the shower. Richard said to Telepath, “Excuse me please,” and began peeling off his suit.

“Certainly. What smells so good?”

“That's right, you slept through the analysis. Well, I've got time”—a pressure suit should not come off quickly—“so: there was a root that looked a lot like Pak protector root, but it turned out to be something that produced a useful organic polymer. You're smelling the monomer. There were roots that produced other polymers, bacteria that made enzymes that chelated trace elements from iodine to uranium, seeds for trees that collected other elements in their bark, other this and that. We're all going to be rich. You look better,” Richard realized.

“Possibly the good news. I feel better. I'll return to my own quarters now, in case you two wish to get in some more breeding practice.” Telepath left.

Richard, almost stripped, stared at the closed door for a moment. That had sounded like humor.

Even in the shower, Gay was bleary with fatigue. She'd been watching everything, and hadn't had the stimulation of doing the actual work to keep her going. “You smell like a Verguuz bottle,” she said, frowning.

“I knew there was a reason I don't like the stuff. That monomer in the roots. Kzinti apparently enjoy it.”

“What did you do, roll in them?”

“This is just what wafted over and stuck to my face when Slaverexpert got a closed box out of the containment. They're elastic, he's going to bat them around to wind down.”

“Phew.” She used a squirter and began shampooing his hair.

They'd gone straight to sleep. Richard had bad dreams, and awoke suddenly, remembering an obscure reference in chemistry. “Fuck,” he exclaimed.

“Brush'r teeth,” Gay murmured, not awake.

He was already headed for their library.

He worked fast. Once he excluded cooking, most references to any sort of mint were in folk medicine, where their analgesic effects produced the illusion of recovery. He added a search for references to terpenes, and got false mint: nepetalactone. It was not a salicylate as mints were, but scent receptors et cetera, right, composed of two isoprene groups, aha! there's your monomer. Found in various Earth plants never successfully raised on other worlds, chiefly nepeta cataria.

More commonly known as catnip.

He wasn't aware of making any kind of sound, and Gay was later unable to describe the noise clearly, but she came running out and said, “Richard, what's wrong?”

“The roots are made of catnip extract,” he said.

She burst out laughing. Abruptly she stopped and covered her mouth, then uncovered it and said, “Oh my god.”

“Uh-huh. It's in the relaxroom, thousands of times any sane concentration, and it's hours late to warn Charrgh-Captain. Any ideas?”

She was paralyzed for a long moment, then sat at the other screen and began hunting. Soon she said, “Says here the effect only lasts a few minutes, and is followed by temporary immunity.”

“Sounds like someone working from theory. Shebee used to get blitzed for about an hour, sleep it off for four, and repeat until the catnip was used up,” Richard said. He found the page she was on. “Also claims it has to be smelled, 'eating it has no effect.' What is this atad doing in our library?”

“I don't know!” Gay said, frazzled. “Richard, I think we'd better get the stuff off the ship. Suit up and go out really carefully.”

The door beeped.

They both looked at it.

Gay had the wit to turn on the intercom and say, “Is it important? We're a little busy,” putting a chuckle into her voice.

“You aren't either,” said a voice much like Telepath's. “The crew are stalking one another, Charrgh-Captain is running on the walls, Weapons Officer is chasing his tail, and I cannot awaken Slaverexpert for more than a few seconds at a time. We need to make plans.”

They looked at each other. “Admit,” they said in unison.

Telepath came in, closed the door, and said, “Better lock.”

They did. Richard might have hit his switch first.

Telepath was neatly groomed, relaxed, and clear-eyed. “I heard you wake up all the way from my quarters,” he said, and settled on the deck. “You should eat. I already have.”

He smelled of mint. “Are you okay?” Gay said.

“Depends what you mean. Like everyone else but you two, I'm dead drunk. It's just that in my case it happens to be an improvement.”

“You heard us?” Richard repeated.

“You only. I seem to have the… hang of it? Is that a fabric-working term? You make your language do such funny things. That's part of it. I'll use a metaphor. Think of thought as hunting. A kzin sees his prey and pounces. Humans follow it wherever it wanders until it tires and stops moving. Right now I seem to be chasing mice all over a crowded warehouse.” He took a deep breath, sat up, and brought his tail around his feet. “I'm able to follow your train of thought,” he clarified.

“This stuff has improved your filters?” Gay guessed.

Telepath shook his head. “If anything they're weaker. It's just destroyed my sense of criticism. Everything's great.”

“What do we do now?” Richard said.

“I already said. Eat.”

“I meant about our situation.”

“So do I. You'll think better.”

That was undoubtedly true. They got meals from the dispenser. Gay said, “This doesn't bother you?”

“Right now I can hear three Heroes trying to eat textiles. Reconstituted vegetables are a decided improvement.”

While they ate Telepath sat quietly, aside from an occasional soft rumble. His eyes narrowed briefly each time he exhaled, which when Shebee had done it indicated great comfort. It was something only done at home.

When Richard realized this, Telepath focused on him, leaned forward a bit, and gave a sleepy-looking blink: a gesture of abiding fondness. “This room and your company have been a good time in my life,” Telepath said. “And no, pity does not offend me. It is many steps up from fear and contempt.” The comment made Richard acutely self-conscious, and Telepath added, “There is truly no need to reply to everything I say. I spoke to clarify: I feel good. Eat.”

As he finished, Richard realized who Telepath was making him think of. “Gay, remember Steve Rhee?”

“Richard,” she reproved.

“I am not offended,” Telepath said. “But thank you for your concern.”

Steve Rhee was a Jinxian immigrant who had settled outside Auslandburg and started a farm, a café, a bakery, a music shop, and a furrier's, in that order. The fur business was successful. Through all his business failures he had never lost his cheerful attitude, due to his intrinsic good nature, his enjoyment of living under a third of the gravity he was accustomed to, and his careful selective breeding of a staggeringly powerful strain of hemp on his homestead plot. The fact that smoking hemp never caught on with Wunderlanders was not a problem; his own consumption of the stuff was vast, and what he didn't smoke, stray Morlocks, living in deep woods now that there were no uncollapsed caves in the region, came out and ate all night. He would go out among the stupefied creatures in the morning and snap their necks, which was where he got so many pelts.

“So he brought the hemp with him?” Telepath remarked.

“No, Wunderlanders have grown it for cheap cordage for a long time,” Gay said. “It's pretty strong, for a natural fiber. And it makes wonderful toys.” She looked at Richard suddenly.

“Shebee,” he agreed, not catching on yet. Gay stood and started to examine the dispenser settings. Telepath began chuckling. “What have I missed?” Richard said, and got it. “Oh.” Then he began laughing too.

“This may just get us into the control room,” she said, and tapped switches.

After the dispenser had worked for a minute or so, Telepath said, “First Engineer is sneaking up the corridor outside.”

“Do tell,” said Gay. She stopped the dispenser, took out what it had made so far, and handed it to Richard before restarting. “Care to do the honors?”

“Sure.” Richard unlocked, opened the door manually, tossed out the fist-sized fuzzy ball of twine, and sealed the door again.

They waited.

Shortly there was a thump from the wall.

It was followed, after a pause, by several more in quick succession. An intermittent series of further thumps moved off down the corridor over the next couple of minutes. All three listeners kept as quiet as possible. At one point Gay shifted her head as if to speak, but Telepath softly placed a fingertip against her lips. Then he took it away, gave her a sidelong look, and, while Gay tried desperately to keep her helpless laughter silent, wiped his perfectly dry finger repeatedly on his fur.

By and by Telepath said, “He's out of earshot.”

“What was that about?” Richard said, pointing at Telepath's hand.

Gay was still shaking, and made as if to grab something with her mouth. Telepath said, “She had a sudden urge to nibble on my finger. I believe the term is contact high. I think I had better block you two out for the duration; there appears to be feedback.”

Richard finally figured out something that had been bothering him on a subliminal level, and found he couldn't think of a courteous way to bring it up: Telepath was talking a lot more clearly.

“I'm less self-conscious,” Telepath said. “And I can detect the way you use your own vocal apparatus. I think perhaps sthondat lymph may not be an amplifier at all, but a tranquilizer—my mind is wandering. We will need Slaverexpert.”

“We will?” Richard said.

“I cannot fly a ship.”

“He can?” said Richard, just as Gay said, “Can't you read the others?”

“He can. I can read the others readily, if all I want to do is chase my tuft. First Engineer is currently the most rational of them.”

“Oh great,” Richard said. “Telepath, Slaverexpert must have gotten the biggest dose of all!”

“He can control his biological responses.”

“I thought you couldn't read his mind.”

“I can't. But nobody will duel with him.”

That was indicative, all right. Modern kzinti wouldn't fight unless they had a chance of winning. “Okay, how do we get to him?”

“We need to isolate the others. Charrgh-Captain first, so I only have to change the security codes once.” Telepath stopped talking, and suddenly his ears waggled as he turned to look at Gay. “I think that could work,” he said.

The procession started with a short figure in a pressure suit, followed by a larger figure in a similar suit, followed by a smallish kzin whose tail was generously decorated with silver ribbons tied into bows. A bell was tied to the tuft. In one hand the lead figure carried an object like a drumhead, with miniature cymbals set into the rim. This was shaken continuously except when it was struck with the other hand.

The procession set out from the observers' quarters. Progress was slow, as there were evidently rules concerning the length and rhythm of the paces taken: They were short, and often a step or two went backward. A good deal of noisemaking was clearly required as well. No fewer than five kzinti gave the group immediate and undivided attention on the trip to the bridge. Fourth Trooper seemed to consider joining in as they passed, but was distracted by a fragment falling off his chunk of vegetable.

Telepath buzzed for entrance, and they paraded in a little circle while awaiting a reply. It was not prompt. “I do not believe we're going through a shipful of Heroes in a conga line,” Richard said over the suit radio.

“Then where do you believe you are?” Telepath said interestedly.

Ignoring Gay's sudden laughter, Richard mused, “I suppose I could be in a tank with that ARM general doing synthetic-perception experiments on me.”

Gay said, still laughing, “Why would the ARM do that?”

“Why not?”

The hatch opened before Gay could think of a reply, and she banged her tambourine and marched through.

They stopped performing once the hatch was shut again, but Charrgh-Captain looked at them for a long time before speaking. Finally he said, “Why were you doing that?”

“To avoid attention, sir,” Richard said through the suit speaker.

One of the advantages of dealing with almost anyone of any intelligent species is that when you say something that makes no sense to him, he comes up with his own explanation. As expected, Charrgh-Captain thought this over, gave a brief snort of what he supposed to be comprehension, and said, “What do you want? I'm very busy.”

This was manifestly true. Charrgh-Captain had apparently been alone on the bridge. That is, there did not appear to be room for another kzin underneath the incredible quantity of shredded packing foam covering every available surface there, said surfaces including the top of the kzin's head.

“Noble Sir,” Telepath said, “we came seeking your wisdom to counsel us in a matter of grave importance to the security of this vessel and success of the mission.”

Charrgh-Captain's manner underwent a shift, and he said formally, “What is the trouble?”

“What is the proper procedure for addressing a very superior officer said to be severely intoxicated?” Telepath asked humbly.

Charrgh-Captain thought for a moment. Then he suddenly bristled all over and roared at an astonishing volume, “Who says I'm drunk?”

“He went in there,” Gay said quickly, pointing to the Captain's Battle Quarters.

The senior kzin's scream was not transliterable. He leapt through the hatchway without touching sides or deck, and Telepath hit the wall next to it an instant later and tapped out a security override on the keypad. “Nine to go,” he said.

“I cannot begin to imagine what he's going to say about this,” Richard said.

“I can hear him. Would you like me to tell you?” said Telepath.

“No,” Richard and Gay said in unison.

The next target was supposed to be Weapons Officer, but Fourth Trooper wasn't far from the bridge when they came out, so they formed up again and circled him until he joined in. They congaed down to his quarters, went in, Richard said, “Oops!” and dropped a ball of twine, and the three of them congaed back out and sealed the door.

Weapons Officer was in his quarters already, inspecting the dispenser. Telepath reported, “He's checking the tattoo settings.”

“Fine,” said Gay. “Lock up.”

“I feel I should interrupt him. He's not so bad as some.”

“If he wants a tattoo that's his decision,” Richard said.

“He's looking at pictures of butterflies,” Telepath said.

The two humans thought about what life would be like for a kzin with butterflies on his ears or tail or both. They looked at each other.

“No,” said Telepath.

“I'll go, I'm smaller and female and not a threat,” said Gay.

Telepath curled his ears partway and said, “You must not improvise anything. Just once through, doing one thing. Please.”

“All right.”

Weapons Officer was contemplating images of the monarch and viceroy butterflies. The viceroy was decidedly more refined, less baroque. On the other hand, the monarch was no good to eat, which was a matter of personal dignity.

He was somewhat distracted by the sudden opening of the door of his quarters. He had stunner and w'tsai out at once, but the human—the smaller one—who ran in never came near him; she just ran around the entryway twice, shouting, “Bats! Bats! Bats!” and waving her hands overhead until she ran out again.

Well, this was the kind of thing you had to expect from hunters who cremate their prey. He went over to the door, made sure it was locked, and went back to his screen, shaking his head. Bats. What were bats?

He looked them up.

In the corridor, Richard and Telepath were about equally worried. They tried to pass the time with talk, but it was no distraction:

“I have sometimes wondered what having a sapient mate would be like,” Telepath remarked. “Traveling with you I have learned a great deal.”

“Good or bad?”

“I am not sure I can answer that yet.”

Gay came out and flung her hands about as if chasing something away from her, then stopped and looked at the door in some surprise.

“Weapons Officer just locked his door,” Telepath said as Gay was entering the security code.

Richard had to be given a little shake to keep him from hysterics.

There had to be a better way.

There was.

Somewhat, anyway.

Second Flyer was amusing himself, tying knots in his pressure suit and watching them untie themselves, when he was distracted by the sound of a tiny bell. He looked around to see a little fuzzy knot of something bouncing along, jingling as it moved. He turned his body slowly, and pounced—and it jumped out of reach! This did not deter him, nor even slow him: He kept after it, bounding off walls at corners, until he had cornered it in his quarters.

Then he ate it.

One by one, Second Engineer, First Trooper, Third Trooper, and First Engineer had much the same experience.

After the first couple of times, Richard had gotten the knack of switching off the camera in a twine-wrapped medical-exploration robot before it disappeared down a kzin's incredibly toothy maw, but he was still pretty ragged. “You want to bathe?” said Telepath. “Or eat a potato? That calms humans.”

“It does?” Richard said.

“Well, humans who have run out of potatoes are supposed to be very excitable, so I'm assuming the complement.”

“I can do the next one,” Gay offered again, and again Richard shook his head.

“It won't work on the others anyway,” Telepath said. “First Flyer likes Intelligence novels and would assume a trick, and Second Trooper has adopted concealment.”

“I keep thinking of that old joke about the Herrenmann who decided to import some tigers,” Richard said weakly. “A zoologist who'd just come from Plateau wanted to be paid for advising him about the habits of big cats.”

“What do mountaineers know about big cats?” Telepath wondered.

“I guess he'd read a lot. He advised the Herrenmann to have his people wear little bells on their clothing when dealing with any big cat, so it would hear them approach and not be startled into attacking, and to carry pepper spray in case the cat became hostile. All cats should react pretty much the same way. A few weeks later the Herrenmann sent him back a message that said they'd tried the advice, and the zoologist's information on big cats was incomplete: The droppings of tigers, for example, smelled like ammonia and were smooth, while the droppings of kzinti smelled like pepper and had little bells in them.”

The question of whether they were being routinely read was settled at once: Telepath literally fell down laughing.

After they'd watched him roll around for a while, Richard said, “It's all very well for you. You haven't been getting the bell's-eye view.”

“We should be able to get the smell out of the ship now,” Gay said encouragingly.

That turned out not to be the case.

Not entirely, anyway. The ship's design considered the possibility of boarding, and gas, so the walls were highly resistant to adsorption of volatiles; but a single molecule can be enough to trigger a conditioned response without actually being perceived on a conscious level.

All of which went a long way to explain why, even after all detectable roots had been spaced and the corridors had been through basic decontamination, Telepath kept having sudden fits of the earwiggles.

At least Richard didn't need to wear a pressure suit to keep from getting ill.

And Telepath could function.

First Flyer was gradually getting the idea that something was wrong. The bridge was empty—aside from what looked like a kzintosh's first unsupervised experience with packing foam—and the controls were locked, and nobody else seemed to be around. He was headed blearily back to his quarters to do a remote systems check when he saw Telepath rolling down the corridor.

Telepath was hanging on to a huge hairy sphere, about a third his own volume, and acting like he was trying to gut it.

Aliens!

First Flyer screamed and leapt, w'tsai plunging into the sphere in sure, swift strokes.

After fifteen stabs there was still no blood.

Telepath was staring at him over the edge of the sphere. His ears were spread very wide, in a position of astonishment.

The sphere appeared to be wound from some kind of stiff cellulose-based cord.

Incensed, First Flyer knotted his ears.

Telepath immediately leapt to his feet and came to attention.

First Flyer stood, looked at Telepath, looked at the huge toy Telepath had made for himself, and growled, “Go to your quarters.”

“Sir!” said Telepath, and leapt away down the corridor.

The hairy thing had loose strands sticking out all over it now.

It did look like fun.

When he got near his own quarters with it he noticed the humans leaning against a wall. Their bodies were together, faces touching. Probably checking one another for parasites or something. They took no notice as he dragged the thing in and sealed the door.

Richard got to the keypad first. “Just one now,” he said.

“We can ignore Second Trooper,” said Telepath from three feet away, causing them both to leap into the air. He stared at them for a moment, then reached up and actually held onto his ears as he continued, “He'll be staying out of the way.”

“Slaverexpert, then,” Gay said, breathing hard.

“Are you tired?” said Telepath.

“No.”

“Oh.” He thought. “Good diversion.”

As they got to Slaverexpert's quarters, Richard said, “We shouldn't stand close to him.”

“Good idea,” said Telepath. “We can move all his stuff onto lower shelves, too.”

Richard stopped in his tracks as he tried to figure that out. “How would that make it safer to wake him up?” he finally asked.

“Oh. I thought you wanted him to think the drug had made him taller.”

Richard shook his head, said nothing, and walked on.

As he passed, Telepath said mildly, “That wasn't called for.”

Slaverexpert heard movement and opened his eyes to see Telepath. “You again,” he said in Hero. “I told you to let me sleep.”

“That was three days ago,” said Telepath.

“Oh.” Slaverexpert considered. “Then I really am this hungry.” He established a coherent pattern of behavior, rolled off his fooch, scooped the fabric into the recycler, and punched for something not too drippy and a gallon of lager. Then he noticed the humans. “Good day, Richard and Gay Guthlac,” he said in Interworld. “On reflection I believe the polymer roots we found should not be admitted into general use.”

After perhaps half a minute watching two humans lean against one another laughing insanely, Slaverexpert turned to Telepath and said, “I gather there have been developments.”

“Oh yes.”

“Describe—are you hungry?”

“In fact, I am.”

“Will those two be safe in the corridor?”

“Yes.”

“Push them out the door and key something for yourself.”

“Thank you,” said Telepath, surprised. He got the Guthlacs out, and turned back just as Slaverexpert's haunch and mug came out. “I wonder why humans call it a dial,” he said as he made his selection. “Like an instrument dial.”

“Some historical reference involving mating, religion, or money,” Slaverexpert said, and took a healthy bite.

“Involving how?”

“Who knows? But practically every odd thing humans do does. Tell me what's been happening.”

Telepath began to do so, pausing only to get his own meat and hot milk when they came out, and to say, “This is better than Charrgh-Captain's dispenser makes!”

Obviously he'd monitored others at meals, and who could blame him? “Yes, it was custom-made,” Slaverexpert said. “I've kept it with me ever since. How did you know I could fly a ship? Oh, of course, Charrgh-Captain knows it. Tell me the rest after you've eaten.”

Telepath devoured his food gratefully. As they were cleaning their faces he said quietly, “My thanks for the honor.”

“My regrets for its lateness. My duties kept me from doing anything that might draw undue attention, such as treating a telepath with respect for a difficult job reliably done.”

“You're a Patriarch's Eye?” Telepath blurted, then said, embarrassed, “I did not speak.”

Slaverexpert spread his ears amiably and said, “A traditionalist, I see. Rather than 'I heard nothing,' the proper reply in this case would be, 'There is no shame.' I was never an Eye. I used to train them for the Speakers-to-Animals, but I gave it up because my better students could never tell me what they did. The best one simply disappeared. Maddening. I began studying Slavers instead. I was very disappointed not to be on the Wallaby expedition, but at the time I had obligations-of-duty.” The term he used indicated a significant degree of responsibility to underlings who trusted him with their future prosperity, and a kzin who would neglect that would eat grass. “If we are done, we should join the humans and see to the ship. You may then tell—ftah. At your earliest convenience I would like to hear the rest of what has happened.”

Telepath was gazing at him with a kitten's wonder. He realized it and looked down. “I meant no intrusion.”

“I do not duel.”

Telepath's ears extended back against his head in the position of utmost curiosity, but he said merely, “Urr. I believe we are done… Commander.”

“Well, that wasn't too dignified,” Richard said after they'd gotten themselves under control and had been waiting a while.

“In the circumstances I doubt they'll hold it against us,” Gay said.

“Mm, no,” he agreed. “And there is the formal excuse that we wouldn't want to watch them eat.” Kzinti courtesy was decidedly not human courtesy, but one of the points in common was occasionally pretending not to notice something.

The door opened, and Telepath said in Interworld, “Good, you're still clothed. We should go to the bridge now.”

Richard opened his mouth, realized that Telepath had never dropped in on them while they were making love or immediately after and therefore knew their habits, and closed his mouth again, attempting to keep some dignity.

It didn't help that Gay giggled all the way to the bridge.

Slaverexpert looked around and said, “I had hoped you were exaggerating. Start a cleaning robot.”

“Sir,” said Telepath, and obeyed.

“I cannot use a mass detector,” said Slaverexpert, “so we will need a kzin and a human here at all times. Watches will be…” He thought, and found the word. “Staggered. Four hours. Which of you is currently less fatigued?”

Richard and Gay looked at each other.

“They need much rest before they can proceed, sir,” Telepath said.

Slaverexpert growled wordlessly, then caught himself. Old habits came back unexpectedly. “There will be a few days before we enter hyperspace. After that we will all have to make do with solitary…” He found the word. “Naps.”

The humans left without a word, their postures dismayed.

“They're not getting paid enough,” Telepath said after they had left. “Each of them thought that.” His ears were twitching just a bit.

“Given that my own household will still be six light-years away once we get back to Kzin-aga, my sympathy is all that it should be. You seem well; how are you able to read them without drugs or pain?”

“The euphoria the roots produce has a remarkable stabilizing effect, sir.”

“But the ship has been decontaminated,” Slaverexpert said.

Telepath stood very still for a long moment. Then he looked toward the door of the Captain's Battle Quarters. Then he said—almost a question—“I still feel good.”

Without hesitation Slaverexpert firmly said, “Good. What has been done with the rest of the roots?” They represented a tremendously powerful weapon against the Patriarchy.

“Spaced, sir.”

Slaverexpert stared in shock. “How did you get them to agree to that?”

“It was their idea, sir. They were concerned about the effect on our civilization, sir.”

Slaverexpert contemplated that, and came to the same conclusion he had shortly after he had awakened as a cyborg: Humans were weird. Then he said, “Telepath, in the circumstances I think it reasonable to regard military discipline as held in abeyance. You don't have to be formal in your address.”

“Thank you. I think I should stay in practice, though.”

Slaverexpert said mildly, “As executive officer the ship's records are in your keeping, including those of the last three days and those of the events in private cabins. I imagine henceforth you may never have to be formal in your address.”

Telepath looked at him in puzzlement, then visibly realized the implications. His ears stood out, but his voice was controlled as he said, “I will need instruction in guiding the ship.”

“Of course.” Slaverexpert stepped over the cleaning robot to indicate controls, politely ignoring the faint purring Telepath produced as he contemplated a voyage under the command of a flagrant subversive.

Gay knew that Slaverexpert was being considerate. She also knew that the kzin would never understand that to a human—at least, to a civilized human—there are few things likelier to diminish arousal than a deadline. A kzin would probably be trying to establish a record.

Both the Guthlacs were frustrated and irritable by the time the Cunning Stalker left the system's singularity.

Weeks of watch-and-watch routine did nothing to improve this.

Second Trooper's intermittent brief appearances and immediately disappearances were provoking in the extreme. He still had a chunk of the root, too, so they persisted.

Returning from her second watch of the fifty-first day in hyperspace, having steered the ship around a record four suspicious fuzzy red lines, Gay was passing the door to Second Trooper's quarters when it suddenly opened. She jumped and stared at him.

In response to this perceived aggression, equally surprised, Second Trooper bared his teeth and claws.

Lacking both weapons and patience, Gay stuck her tongue out at him.

Second Trooper's pupils grew huge, his ears curled, and with a faint squeak he leapt back into his quarters and sealed the door.

Astounded, Gay stared at the door for a moment. The kzin had reacted like he was scared to death.

She shook off the momentary paralysis and quickly entered the door's security override, then turned, thinking to go back to the bridge and report the last straggler caught. She refrained. It could wait.

She continued back to their cabin for what sleep she could get.

She was always tired now, though, and never did think to ask what could have prompted the reaction.

Toward the end of hyperspace transit, even Slaverexpert's fatigue override system was under some strain. It manifested as garrulity.

At least he was interesting.

On the seventy-fifth day he was on watch with Richard when he looked up from his screen and said, “Most of the design changes in this ship are based on human ideas, you know.”

“They are?” Richard said, looking around incredulously. Past the row of little blue globes the humans used to avoid eyestrain, the kzin-scale mechanisms with their deep orange lighting looked not unlike the foundry of the Cyclopes.

“Very much so. Crew posts not facing a common center, for instance, so everyone can see the same view. Far less distracting than my old command.”

“You commanded a ship before?” Richard exclaimed.

“At the start of the Fourth War,” Slaverexpert said, which made him something over three hundred years old—unheard of! “I had a partial Name then. I gave it up after my injuries were repaired. Having a Name is grounds for killing if it is not used properly, and I had lost the desire to kill.”

“What was it?” Richard had never heard of any kzin giving up a Name, and hadn't known it was possible.

“Richard, I told you: I no longer use it,” he said patiently. “Twice since then I have been offered one for my competence. Normally the degree of ability adhering to being an Expert carries such an honor. However, one of my crew had been an Expert, so I knew it was done.”

“Why didn't he have one?”

“His behavior was too exotic,” said Slaverexpert. “I learned much later that he had been raised in an obscure sect which worships death. He had left the faith, though.”

“I may have heard of it,” Richard said, taking another look at the mass detector. “There were a few incidents after the First War. When kdaptism got started there was a form that adopted crucifixion of humans as a means of prayer. Rare events, but memorable.”

“Indeed. It does sound like the same sect as his. Some time after we parted I understand he resumed a worship of death.”

“I wonder what happened,” Richard said absently, noticing something at the edge of the globe.

Slaverexpert was silent for a moment, then said, “I suppose you could call it an epiphany—”

“I think we're there,” said Richard. He pointed, then remembered and said, “Sorry.”

“As long as you're correct,” said Slaverexpert. “Take us to the edge and we'll drop out and look.”

Richard was no daredevil, but he was very intent on getting home. He let the line get almost to the shell before shutting down the motor, then lit the viewscreens.

Slaverexpert studied the dome, altered the perspective twice, then pointed. “That's the Axe, and that's the Puffball,” he said, indicating stars which suggested nothing to Richard, but were presumably grouped into constellations to the eye of a native of Kzin. “Well done, Richard Guthlac. Turn the Returning Vessel beacon to the fifth setting and pull twice.”

“I remember.” That was for Medical Assistance, Nonlethal. “What happened to the rest of your crew?”

“All but one are dead now,” Slaverexpert said, starting deceleration. “The last is a Patriarch's Counselor.”

“Wow.”

“What? Where?”

“No no, sorry, 'wow' is a human expression of admiration. I'm sorry.” Wow was also a kzinti exclamation, usually used when something was broken or lost.

Slaverexpert waved a hand in a very human gesture. “I'll live.” He began preparing a message giving details of their situation.

After far too many unpleasant surprises, only the latest of which had been the Wallaby incident, the kzinti were taking no chances. The lead team of the boarding party was four telepaths in powered armor, each with a fusion bomb and his own gravity generator. They flew through the Cunning Stalker's corridors on a swift initial survey and found them apparently clear. Three then stood guard while the fourth took out rescue bubbles, enclosed the four acting crew one by one, and linked them to retrieval lines that drew them to the intercept ship.

A judicious mixture of friendly persuasion and stunners got the other ten kzinti bagged and delivered. The telepaths packaged the items from the stasis box, followed by personal keepsakes, and sent those after the personnel. Then they flooded the Cunning Stalker with ozone, set off radiation flash bombs, let the atmosphere out, and did another inspection in vacuum. No green-scaled corpses were found, and they returned to the Excessive Force, which took the exploration vessel in tow.

The ARM general was keeping his voice and hands under control, but his body language would have started a fight in any bar on Kzin-aga. Probably on Earth, for that matter. “Our legal position is unassailable,” he insisted. “The Guthlacs were working as employees of the UN, and any bonuses due for their performance belong to the ARM.”

Charrgh-Uft replied cheerfully, “After five centuries of dealing with humans, the kzinti are well-qualified to state that no position is unassailable. You, personally, insisted on their military rank being officially acknowledged in all particulars for this mission. That makes them crew. They get prize shares.”

“If these things are as good as they look it's going to leave two people owning half a dozen of the biggest industries in human space!”

Charrgh-Uft was growing tired of the argument, and he played the trump the Patriarch had told him he could if necessary: “This is a matter of the Patriarch's honor.”

The gray-bristled human froze in place. The First War had dragged on well after it was lost, killing over a million kzinti, before a way was found for the then-Patriarch to surrender with honor. Weakly, he said, “All they wanted was enough money to start a farm.”

“They'll be able to afford quite a large one, I should think,” said Charrgh-Uft. “If I recall the invasion analysis correctly, there is an equatorial highland on Wunderland's second continent which could benefit from irrigation.”

“It's the size of France! A bubble asteroid would cost less to make!”

“Good idea. Every landowner should have a vacation home as well,” Charrgh-Uft said reasonably.

The Guthlacs had been given all the privacy they wanted, and had made enthusiastic use of it. After a week or so the pace slowed, and they began wearing clothing now and then, for meals and such.

“Slaverexpert must have some real pull to get us left alone like this,” Richard said at the end of one meal. “I'd have thought someone would have been giving us a very thorough debriefing.” He saw Gay's grin, and laughed, “Besides each other.”

The computer's message light came on, for the first time since they were given their quarters. Gay was closer, and lit the screen. It said:

“Lord Krosp requests the honor of your company at the receiving platform of his landing shuttle, sometime prior to sunset of the day after tomorrow, when he will be departing for his estate on Kzrral.”

“Who's Lord Krosp?” Richard said.

“He must be awfully important to get through to us,” Gay said. “And you did say you were getting a little sore.”

“Aren't you?”

“Yes, but you admitted it first.”

They got there the morning of the second day, after spending some time in a fruitless search for the whereabouts of Slaverexpert. Charrgh-Uft had contacted them briefly to let them know he would be fully occupied socially (translation: looking over the daughters that various nobles were offering him), but thanked them for their help and assured them of fair treatment. He signed off before explaining that last.

The attitude of the kzin they'd asked for directions had altered from barely-tolerant to deeply impressed when the Name Krosp was mentioned: “You know him? I will tell my sons that I met you!”

Gay murmured, “Who is this 'tosh?”—Wunderkzin equivalent of “guy.”

Lord Krosp's shuttle was a converted troop lander, and it had a place all to itself on the landing field. When their groundcar stopped, four kzinti formed an honor guard beside their path, and drew claws before their faces in salute as the Guthlacs got out.

Slaverstudent, in steel-studded harness with equipment pouches attached, marched out and said, “Welcome, Richard Guthlac and Gay Guthlac!”

“You're Lord Krosp?” Gay exclaimed.

“Hardly. I am his aide-de-camp. Hospitality!” he called out to the ship, and a dozen elegantly decorated Jotoki wearing Freed insignia deployed seats, table, dispensers, canopy, and windscreens.

Lord Krosp, resplendent in weapons belt and governor's sash, stepped out and declared, “My friends, and authors of my good fortune, be welcome!”

It was Telepath.

Naturally they were eaten alive by curiosity, but the manners they were raised with required him to bring it up first. Krosp knew it, and cheerfully tormented them by seating them and plying them with food and drink before sitting down himself. “I trust you have not been disturbed since we got back? I was most specific.”

“That was you? Thanks!” Richard said.

“I hope you made good use of the time—” Krosp jumped a trifle, then went on, “I see. It is well my family is in the shuttle and not the main ship.” He turned his head as a human would to ease a stiff neck, then said, “I wanted to thank you for your kindness, and inform you that should you ever visit Kzrral the governor's hospitality is open to you.”

“How did you get appointed governor?” Gay burst out, finally unable to restrain her curiosity.

“It was entirely due to the vivid and enthusiastic praise of my accomplishments, given me by my crewmates from the Cunning Stalker—Ah, this will be Weapons Officer,” he said, indicating a groundcar that was just approaching.

There was no honor guard for Weapons Officer, and Krosp did not get up. Ears mostly folded (and bats tattooed on his tail), Weapons Officer came up with a parcel and stood at attention.

“Relax. It is good to see you,” Telepath said in Hero. “I was just discussing our trip with the Guthlacs, who like the rest of us are going to be very rich from the salvage we brought back. Is that a gift?”

“Yes, sir,” said Weapons Officer, and held out the parcel. “It was my grandsire's.”

“I am certain it does us both honor. I hope for your part you will find this small item gratifying,” Telepath said, and took something from one of his belt pouches.

It looked remarkably like a recording crystal for a kzinti ship's log.

Weapons Officer accepted it, took a deep breath, let it out, and looked a lot less uncomfortable. His ears spread, and he said, “I am certain I will always be glad to have this. I have no doubt that you will fulfill the duties of your new post most capably,” he added in a decidedly dry tone.

“A generous parting wish,” Krosp said.

Weapons Officer saluted, and turned to the Guthlacs. “I hope you will enjoy your well deserved prosperity on Wunderland for many years to come,” he said in Interworld.

Richard, staring at the ear tattoos, couldn't think of a thing to say. Gay got the context, and recovered sufficiently to say, “I'm sure we will, though sadly our responsibilities will prevent us from returning here to visit you.”

With a distinct sigh of relief, Weapons Officer said, “We all do what we must,” and departed.

Richard was still getting over the tattoos. The right ear had been decorated with tiny stylized bats, but the left displayed a human face: Herrenmann white, but with long black hair and a heavy jawline. The eyes were faintly outlined in black, and their wild stare was an excellent complement to a deeply disturbing grin. “Who was that?” he finally got out.

“An Earth musician from the post-classical period, I believe,” Krosp said, opening the parcel. “Weapons Officer's family has considerable interest in the arts.” A Jotok picked up the wrapping as the gift was revealed: a fan of cords attached to a long frame, with a hollow box at one end. He plucked a string with a claw, and a pleasant tone came out. It was a musical instrument.

Richard suddenly laughed, getting it under control just as quickly.

Krosp didn't seem offended, just puzzled: “What's funny?”

“I was just thinking: all you need to join the Gasperik Society is a motorcycle.”

“What's that?”

“An outfit established a long time ago, even before space habitats, with the stated intention of being prepared for alien invasion. It was sort of a literary club, really. Every member was theoretically supposed to own, and keep in good order, a motorcycle, a guitar, a spacesuit, and an elephant gun. A kzinti sidearm could surely stop an elephant, we've seen your suit, and that ought to qualify as a guitar.”

“Yes, I know about the Gasperik Division,” said Krosp. “It was part of the Hellflare Corps. What's a motorcycle?”

“Oops. It's a vehicle with two wheels in a line, with a seat in between. Very popular in rough country. Blackmail?” Richard exclaimed.

“Oh, no,” Krosp assured him. “Blackmail is an insult that warrants death, being a threat to publicly claim that the victim is dishonorable. However, when the question is one of looking like a fool for the rest of one's life, solicitation of bribery is another matter entirely. I am pleased that you were here when he arrived, as it saved considerable explanation.”

Gay began to laugh. Richard, thinking of the abuse they had been unable to stop, joined in. Slaverexpert came over and said, “Lord Krosp, do you want to mention the plan?”

“Oh yes. Slaverexpert has—you have a question,” he said to Richard.

“I never heard the kzinti Name Krosp before,” Richard said, still laughing.

“It's not a kzinti Name. It was a character from human literature, a brilliant leader who provided calm insight and perspective when no one around him could see a solution.”

“What's it from?”

“I don't know. The Patriarch suggested it. Did you want to hear Slaverexpert's plan?”

“Sure.”

“Most of Kzrral is disagreeably hot. We plan to put gravity-planers on its moon, after which we will gradually drag it further from its primary over the course of the next few centuries—that is, Slaverexpert and my heirs will.”

The two humans goggled at him. Gay said, “That'll cost a fortune!”

“We have two. We expect to get another, as we will be able to improve the health and reliability of telepaths all over the Patriarchy.”

“How?”

“We're going to raise catnip.”