“Good lass.” The older woman had squeezed her hand before asking the captain: “If we don’t want to be found, shouldn’t we fetch back the relay from above?”
Saxtorph had considered. The same sensitivity which had received, reconstructed, and given to the boat a radio whisper from across more than two hundred million kilometers, could betray his folk. After a moment: “No, leave it. A small object, after all, which we’ve camouflaged pretty well, and its emission blends into the sun’s radio background. If the kzinti get close enough to detect it, they’ll be onto us anyway.”
“You don’t imagine we can hide here forever.”
“Certainly not. They can locate us in two, three weeks at most if they work hard. However, meanwhile they won’t know for sure we are on Tertia. They’ll spread themselves thin looking elsewhere, too, or they’ll worry. Never give the enemy a free ride.”
“But you say you have something better in mind than simply distracting them for a while.”
“Well, I have a sort of a notion. It’s loony as it stands, but maybe you can help me refine it. At best, we’ll probably get ourselves killed, but plain to see, Markham’s effort to cut a deal has not worked out, and—we can hope for some revenge.”
Laurinda’s albino eyes had flared.
– “Aloha, hoapilina.—”
Crouched over the communicator, Saxtorph heard the Hawaiian through. English followed, the dragging tone of a broken man: “Well, that was to show you this is honest, Bob, if you’re listening. The kzinti don’t have a telepath along, because they know they don’t need the poor creature. They do require me to go on in a language their translator can handle. Anyway, I don’t suppose you remember much Polynesian.
“We’re orbiting Tertia in a boat from the Prowling Hunter warship. ’We’ are her crew, plus a couple of marines, plus Arthur Tregennis and myself. Markham stayed on Secunda. He’s a kzin agent. Maybe you’ve gotten the message from Fido. I’m afraid the game’s played out, Bob. I tried to resist, but they tortured not me—poor Art. I soon couldn’t take it. He’s alive, sort of. They give you three hours to call them. That’s in case you’ve scrammed to the far ends of the system and may not be tuned in right now. You’ll’ve noticed this is a powerful planar ’cast. They think they’re being generous. If they haven’t heard in three hours, they’ll torture Art some more. Please don’t let that happen!” Ryan howled through the wail that Laurinda tried to stifle. “Please call back!” Saxtorph waited a while, but there was nothing further, only the hiss of the red sun. He took his finger from the transmission key, which he had not pressed, and twisted about to look at his companions. Light streaming wanly through the westside port found Dorcas’ features frozen. Laurinda’s writhed; her mouth was stretched out of shape.
“So,” he said. “Three hours. Dark by then, as it happens.”
“They hurt him,” Laurinda gasped. “That good old man, they took him and hurt him.”
Dorcas peeled lips back from teeth. “Shrewd,” she said. “Markham in kzin pay? I’m not totally surprised. I don’t know how it was arranged, but I’m not too surprised. He suggested this, I think. The kzinti probably don’t understand us that well.”
“We can’t let them go on… with the professor,” Laurinda shrilled. “We can’t, no matter what.”
“He’s been like a second father to you, hasn’t he?” Dorcas asked almost absently. Unspoken: But your young man is down on Prima, and the enemy will let him die there.
“No argument,” Saxtorph said. “We won’t. We’ve got a few choices, though. Kzinti aren’t sadistic. Merciless, but not sadistic the way too many humans are. They don’t torture for fun, or even spite. They won’t if we surrender. Or if we die. No point in it then.”
Dorcas grinned in a rather horrible fashion. “The chances are we’ll die if we do surrender,” she responded. “Not immediately, I suppose. Not till they need our corpses, or till they see no reason to keep us alive. Again, quite impersonal.”
“I don’t feel impersonal,” Saxtorph grunted.
Laurinda lifted her hands—The fingers were crooked like talons. “We made other preparations against them. Let’s do what we planned.”
Dorcas nodded. “Aye.”
“That makes it unanimous,” Saxtorph said. “Go for broke. Now, look at the sun. Within three hours, nightfall. The kzinti could land in the dark, but if I were their captain I’d wait for morning. He won’t be in such a hurry he’ll care to take the extra risk. Meanwhile we sit cooped for 20-odd hours losing our nerve. Let’s not. Let’s begin right away.”
Willingness blazed from the women.
Saxtorph hauled his bulk from the chair. “Okay, we are on a war footing and I am in command,” he said. “First Dorcas and I suit up.”
“Are you sure I can’t join you?” Laurinda well nigh beseeched. Saxtorph shook his head. “Sorry. You aren’t trained for that kind of thing. And the gravity weighs you down still worse than it does Dorcas, even if she is a Better. Besides, we want you to free us from having to think about communications. You stay inboard and handle the hardest part.” He chucked her under the chin. “If we fail, which we well may, you’ll get your chance to die like a soldier.” He stooped, kissed her hand, and went out.
Returning equipped, he said into the transmitter: “Shep here. Spaceboat Shep calling kzin vessel. Hello, Kam. Don’t blame yourself. They’ve got us. We’ll leave this message replaying in case you’re on the far side, and so you can zero in on us. Because you will have to. Listen, Kam. Tell that gonococcus of a captain that we can’t lift. We came down on talus that slid beneath us and damaged a landing jack. We’d hit the side of the canyon where we are—it’s narrow—if we tried to take off before the hydraulics have been repaired; and Dorcas and I can’t finish that job for another several Earth-days, the two of us with what tools we’ve got aboard. The ground immediately downslope of us is safe. Or, if your captain is worried about his fat ass, he can wait till we’re ready to come meet him. Please inform us. Give Art our love; and take it yourself, Kam.”
The kzin skipper would want a direct machine translation of those words. They were calculated not to lash him into fury—he couldn’t be such a fool but to pique his honor. Moreover, the top brass back on Secunda must be almighty impatient. Kzinti weren’t much good at biding their time. Before they closed their faceplates at the airlock, Saxtorph kissed his wife on the lips.
Shadows welled in the coulee and its ravines as the sun sank toward rim rock. Interplay of light and dark was shifty behind the boat, where rubble now decked the floor. The humans had arranged that by radio detonation of two of the blasting sticks Dorcas smuggled along. It looked like more debris than it was, made the story of the accident plausible, and guaranteed that the kzinti would land in the short stretch between Shep and glacier. Man and woman regarded each other. Their spacesuits were behung with armament. She had the rifle and snub-nosed automatic, he the machine pistol; both carried potentially lethal prospector’s gear. Wind skirled. The heights glowed under a sky deepening from royal purple to black, where early stars quivered forth.
“Well,” he said inanely into his throat mike, “we know our stations. Good hunting, kid.”
“And to you, hotpants,” she answered. “See you on the far side of the monobloc.”
“Love you.”
“Love you right back.” She whirled and hastened off. Under the conditions expected, drive units would have been a bad mistake, and she was hampered by a weight she was never bred to. Nonetheless she moved with a hint of her wonted gracefulness. Both their suits were first-chop, never mind what the cost had added to the mortgage under which Saxtorph Ventures labored. Full air and water recycle, telescopic option, power joints even in the gloves, selfseal throughout… She rated no less, he believed, and she’d tossed the same remark at him. Thus they had a broad range of capabilities. He climbed to his chosen niche, on the side of the canyon opposite hers, and settled in. It was up a boulderfields gulch, plenty of cover, with a clear view downward. The ice cliff glimmered. He hoped that what was going to happen wouldn’t cause damage yonder. That would be a scientific atrocity.