When the demon interrupted his thoughts, Swift-Son realized he’d been staring at the starship and ignoring his host/captor. Not the best manners.
“You are being a kzin. Where are you being from?” Well, that question was easy enough, if redundant.
“I am Swift-Son of Rritt-Pride. I am on my Namequest.”
Joyaselatak looked at its prisoner through three eyes at once. “What are you being hunting?”
Swift-Son began to relax. Another easy question, and asking about his Namequest was another honor. Clearly he had passed the demon’s tests. It was hard to keep the pride out of his voice as he answered, but perhaps the almost unearned honors were another, subtler test.
“I am in search of a magic totem for my pride.”
Joyaselatak was pleased. At last a response that didn’t raise more questions than it answered. True understanding couldn’t be far behind.
“What is for magic being by you sought?”
“Hrrr. The Mage-Kzin force us from the savannah to the desert like harried herd beasts. But with a magic totem we will regain our names and be warriors again. The Mage-Kzin will tremble at our might!”
A surge of comprehension/excitement ran around Joyaselatak’s torochord as its self sections realized the import of the kzin’s words. Trying to find meaning through the language barrier had delayed Joyaselatak’s realization of the goal of the kzin’s quest. Its use of the term “magic” had led the Jotok to believe the kzin was on some sort of religious journey. Of course the carnivore meant “technology”. It didn’t know the difference. That didn’t matter. What the primitive wanted was weapons. It clearly belonged to a marginalized breed that was in the process of being pushed from its last remnant of viable territory—no doubt the mining operations to the southeast were expanding—and it wanted “magic weapons” to push back.
That offered possibilities. One of the best ways to contain a hostile species was to disrupt their home planet. The normal technique of inciting dissent by supporting competing factions had already been judged unlikely to work here. The Patriarch’s court was already awash in plots, counterplots, honor feuds and no small amount of blood. What little fuel the Jotok could add to that inferno of intrigue would make no difference at all. There was no question of gifting one group with Jotok technology; the kzinti had already proven their ability to turn what they’d captured against its inventors. Furthermore, the Trade Council was wary of interfering with the ruling cliques. Currently most of the highly aggressive conquest effort was being made by young, ambitious but not well-connected kzin. The Jotok leaders didn’t want to provoke the higher echelons into throwing their full weight behind the drive to space.
And therein lay the prisoner’s promise. Supporting one kzin leader over another was hopeless; the names might change, but the interstellar expansion program would continue. The prisoner, however, existed entirely outside of the dominant kzin techno-sociological matrix. A push from external barbarians, suitably armed and trained with weapons and techniques they could not maintain on their own, might be just the thing to destabilize the kzin hierarchy. At the very least a swarm of such barbarians would make the kzin leadership turn much of the resources they now so offhandedly flung into space toward internal pacification. At best the primitives would actually triumph and take control— becoming thereby grateful and cooperative members of the Trade Council. Trade would flow, very profitable trade, and in the meantime containment costs would be kept low, increasing long-term margins on the entire operation. Best of all, the next time a race of upstart space-farers stuck its head up, the kzinti would be waiting for them as mercenary representatives of the Trade Council.
And if all that happened on the basis of Joyaselatak’s recommendations, it would be a much needed success for the probeship clanpod. That would be good for the Trade Council, of course, but it would also put an end to the powerful cruiser clanpod’s attempt to subsume the probeship role—and the probeship clanpod, too.
Joyaselatak considered its prisoner. “You are being seeking weapons?”
Swift-Son rippled his ears at the simplicity of the question. “I will earn a w'tsai with my name, of course. Rritt-Pride observes the traditions.”
“What is being w'tsai?”
The test purpose of such easy questions eluded Swift-Son, and he hesitated before answering, suspecting a hidden trap. Finding none, he spoke. “It is the symbol of honor and fealty. It will prove that I have earned my Name.”
Joyaselatak’s frustrated self sections bickered over the translation. Every topic seemed to lead back to the creature’s religion. The language barrier was proving too difficult. A demonstration was in order.
“You are being shown weapons. You are being waiting here,” it needlessly admonished the bound kzin before clambering up the side of the ship and through the airlock, leaving Swift-Son to ponder the vagaries of the Fanged God.
The spyship was cramped but not too cramped to carry several weapons. Joyaselatak chose a plasma blast gun. It was a short-range weapon designed for boarding actions, ideal for hull breaching, devastating in close combat. Acting in an atmosphere reduced its effectiveness considerably, range and destructiveness being lost to some rather spectacular visual and aural effects. The plasma violently stripped electrons from the gas molecules, rapidly giving up energy to produce a searing cone of superheated air that crackled with its own lightning bolts and left rolling thunder and the taint of ozone in its wake. Range was reduced to a good bowshot, but within that distance the target would be impressively immolated and combustibles near the line of fire would burst into flame.
It was just the thing to impress a primitive.
Joyaselatak lugged the heavy weapon out of its storage niche and outside. The kzin was still there, waiting impassively. The Jotok raised the plasma gun and pointed it at a sandstone boulder embedded in the side of the crater bowl. It aimed carefully, then in quick succession pressed the stabilizer switch, closed the eyes facing downrange so as not to be blinded by the flash, and pulled the trigger.
Swift-Son had no idea what was about to happen, so when the world exploded he was more shocked than terrified. At first there was only the searing afterimage of the plasma cone and the thunder of the blast wave. As the echoes faded, fear crystallized in his brain, but his belated reflex leap simply pitched him face-first into the sand. Fortunately, the sudden impact of his nose on a half-buried rock served to jolt him out of his blind panic. He took a deep, shuddering breath and managed to focus his eyes. Across the dune bowl, a massive boulder had been reduced to pebbles, some of which were still raining down on them even at this distance. The dry desert air smelled like the aftermath of one of deep summer’s storms. His very fur was standing on end, snapping at his skin with residual magic.
He suddenly understood how a grazing zitragor felt when it heard the hunter’s killscream. He knew this must be the magic that had destroyed Stkaa-Pride, and suddenly he mourned for Ktirr-Smithmaster’s pridemates, kzin who’d been dead before he was born. The legends said that one day the world began, and one day it would end. This, he realized, was how the world would die. He could not imagine a more terrible weapon.
“This is being magic such as is being object in your hunt?” The demon’s oddly inflected voice broke the breathless silence.
Still shaken, Swift-Son managed to stutter out an agreement. It was one thing to know one was in the presence of the Fanged God’s servant. It was another entirely to have its might demonstrated. Was there any power the demon did not possess?
“Yourself are being wanting of this weapon?” his captor asked.
Swift-Son could hardly believe his ears! The demon was offering him a weapon! It was asking him to pledge fealty to the Fanged God! Where Rritt-Pride would have given him an iron w'tsai, the demon was offering this totem of magical fire. That alone was beyond dreaming, but to sit at the Fanged-God’s pride-circle! That was an honor unheard of in all but the ancient sagas.