More by touch than anything else, they gathered bundles of grass for a bower at the cave entrance, and Miss Kitty showed no reluctance in falling asleep next to him, curled becomingly into a buzzing ball of fur. But when he moved away, she moved too, until they were touching again. He knew beyond doubt that if he moved too far in the direction of his lance and axe, she would be fully awake and suspicious as hell.
And she'd call my bluff, and I don't want to kill her, he thought, settling his head against her furry shoulder. Even if I could, which is doubtful, I'm no longer master of all I survey. In fact, now I have a mistress of sorts, and I'm not too sure what kind of mistress she has in mind. They used to have a word for what I'm thinking. Maybe Miss Kitty doesn't care who or what she diddles; hell, she was a palace courtesan, doing it with males she hated. She thinks I'm t'r-ralap. Yeah, that's me, Locklear, Miss Kitty's trollop; and what the hell can I do about it? I wish there were some way I could get her back in that stasis cage… And then he fell asleep.
To Locklear's intense relief, Miss Kitty seemed uninterested in the remaining cages on the following morning. They foraged for breakfast and he hid his astonishment as she taught him a dozen tricks in an hour. The root bulb of one spiny shrub tasted like an apple; the seed pods of some weeds were delicious; and she produced a tiny blaze by rapidly pounding an innocent-looking nutmeat between two stones. It occurred to him that nuts contained great amounts of energy. A pile of these firenuts, he reflected, might be turned into a weapon…
Feeding hunks of dry brush to the fire, she announced that those root bulbs baked nicely in coals. “If we can find clay, I can fire a few pottery dishes and cups, Rockear. It was part of my training, and I intend to have everything in domestic order before we wake those two.”
“And what if a kzin ship returns and spots that smoke?”
That was a risk they must take, she said. Some woods burned more cleanly than others. He argued that they should at least build their fires far from the cave, and while they were at it, the cave entrance might be better disguised. She agreed, impressed with his strategy, and then went down on all-fours to inspect the dirt near a dry-wash. As he admired her lithe movements, she shook her head in an almost human gesture. “No good for clay.”
“It's not important.”
“It is vitally important!” Now she wheeled upright, impressive and fearsome. “Rockear, if any kzintosh return here, we must be ready. For that, we must have the help of others — the two prret. And believe me, they will be helpful only if they see us as their (something).”
She explained that the word meant, roughly, “paired household leaders.” The basic requirements of a household, to a kzin female, included sleeping bowers easily come by — and enough pottery for that household. A male kzin needed one more thing, she said, her eyes slitting: a w'tsai.
“You mean one of those knives they all wear?”
“Yes. And you must have one in your belt.” From the waggle of her ears, he decided she was amused by her next statement: “It is a— badge, of sorts. The edge is usually sharp but I cannot allow that, and the tip must be dull. I will show you why later.”
“Dammit, these things could take weeks!”
“Not if we find the clay, and if you can make a w'tsai somehow. Trust me, Rockear; these are the basics. Other kzinrett will not obey us otherwise. They must see from the first that we are proper providers, proper leaders with the pottery of a settled tribe, not the wooden implements of wanderers. And they must take it for granted that you and I,” she added, “are (something).” With that, she rubbed lightly against him.
He caught himself moving aside and swallowed hard. “Miss Kitty, I don't want to offend you, but, uh, humans and kzinti do not mate.”
“Why do they not?”
“Uhm. Well, they never have.”
Her eyes slitted, yet with a flicker of her ears: “But they could?”
“Some might. Not me.”
“Then they might be able to,” she said as if to herself. “I thought I felt something familiar when we were sleeping.” She studied his face carefully. “Why does your skin change color?”
“Because, goddammit, I'm upset!” He mastered his breathing after a moment and continued, speaking as if to a small child, “I don't know about kzinti, but a man can not, uh, mate unless he is, uh,—”
“Unless he is intent on the idea?”
“Right!”
“Then we will simply have to pretend that we do mate, Rockear. Otherwise, those two kzinrett will spend most of their time trying to become your mate and will be useless for work.”
“Of all the,” he began, and then dropped his chin and began to laugh helplessly. Human tribal customs had been just as complicated, once, and she was probably the only functioning expert in known space on the customs of ancient kzinrett. “We'll pretend, then, up to a point. Try and make that point, ah, not too pointed.”
“Like your w'tsai,” she retorted. “I will try not to make your face change color.”
“Please,” he said fervently, and suggested that he might find the material for a w'tsai inside the cave while she sought a deposit of clay.
She bounded away on all-fours with the lope of a hunting leopard, his jacket a somehow poignant touch as it flapped against her lean belly.
When he looked back from the cave entrance, she was a tiny dot two kilometers distant, coursing along a shallow creekbed. “Maybe you won't lie, and I've got no other ally,” he said to the swift saffron dot. “But you're not above misdirection with your own kind. I'll remember that.”
Locklear cursed as he failed to locate any kind of tool chest or lab implements in those inner corridors. But he blessed his grooming tool when the tip of its pincer handle fitted screwheads in the cage that had held Miss Kitty prisoner for so long. He puzzled for minutes before he learned to turn screwheads a quarter-turn, release pressure to let the screwheads emerge, then another quarter-turn, and so on, nine times each. He felt quickening excitement as the cage cover detached, felt it stronger when he disassembled the base and realized its metal sheeting was probably one of a myriad stainless steel alloys. The diamond coating on his nailfile proved the sheet was no indestructible substance. It was thin enough to flex, even to be dented by a whack against an adjoining cage. It might take awhile, but he would soon have his w'tsai blade.
And two other devices now lay before him, ludicrously far advanced beyond an ornamental knife. The gravity polarizer's main bulk was a doughnut of ceramic and metal. Its switch, and that of the stasis field, both were energized by the sliding cage floor he had disassembled. The switches worked just as well with fingertip pressure. They boasted separate energy sources which Locklear dared not assault; anything that worked for forty thousand years without harming the creatures near it would be more sophisticated than any fumble-fingered mechanic.
Using the glasslike cage as a test load, he learned which of the two switches flung the load into the air. The other, then, had to operate the stasis field — and both devices had simple internal levers for adjustments. When he learned how to stop the cage from spinning, and then how to make it hover only a hand's breadth above the device or to force it against the ceiling until it creaked, he was ecstatic. Then he energized the stasis switch with a chill of gooseflesh. Any prying paws into those devices would not pry for long, unless someone knew about that inconspicuous switch. Rockear could see no interconnects between the stasis generator and the polarizer, but both were detachable. If he could get that polarizer outside. Locklear strode out of the cave laughing. It would be the damnedest vehicle ever, but its technologies would be wholly appropriate. He hid the device in nearby grass; the less his ally knew about such things, the more freedom he would have to pursue them.