“Wait,” Locklear said in his most commanding tone, the only one that Puss seemed to value. “The kzintosh will be searching for me. They have magic’s that let them see great distances even at night, and a big metal airboat that flies with the sound of thunder.”
“I heard thunder this morning,” Puss admitted.
“You heard their airboat. If they see you, they will probably capture you. You and Boots must be very careful, Puss.”
“And do not hesitate to tempt males into (something) if you can,” Kit put in.
“Now you would teach me my business,” Puss spat at Kit, and set off down the ravine.
Locklear moved to the outer doorway, watching the sky, listening hard. Presently he asked, “Do you think we can lay siege to the birthing bower to get that transmitter back?”
“Boots is a suckling mother, which saps her strength,” Kit replied matter-of-factly. “So Puss would fight like a crazed warrior. The truth is, she is stronger than both of us.”
With a morose shake of his head, Locklear began to fashion more arrows while Kit sharpened his w'tsai into a dagger, arguing tactics, drawing rough conclusions. They must build no fires at the manor, and hope that the searchers spread out for single, arrogant sorties. The lifeboat would hold eight warriors, and others might be waiting in orbit. Live captives might be better for negotiations than dead heroes. “But even as captives, the bastards would eat every scrap of meat in sight,” Locklear admitted.
Kit argued persuasively that any warrior worth his w'tsai would be more likely to negotiate with a potent enemy. “We must give them casualties,” she insisted, “to gain their respect. Can these modern males be that different from those I knew?”
Probably not, he admitted. And knowing the modern breed, he knew they would be infuriated by his escape, dishonored by his shrewdness. He could expect no quarter when at last they did locate him. “And they won't go until they do,” he said. On that, they agreed; some things never changed.
Locklear, dog-tired after hanging thatch over the gleaming windows, heard the lifeboat pass twice before dark but fell asleep as the sun faded.
Much later, Kit was shaking him. “Come to the door,” she urged. “She refuses to come in.”
He stumbled outside, found the bench by rote, and spoke to the darkness. “Puss? You have nothing to fear from us. Had a change of heart?”
Not far distant: “I hunted those slopes where you said the males left you, Rockear.”
It was an obvious way to avoid saying she had reconnoitered as he'd asked, and he maintained the ruse. “Did you have good hunting?”
“Fair. A huge metal thing came and went and came again. I found four warriors, in strange costume and barbaric speech like yours, with strange weapons. They are making a camp there, and spoke with surprise of seeing animals to hunt.” She spoke slowly, pausing often. He asked her to describe the males. She had no trouble with that, having lain in her natural camouflage in the jungle's verge within thirty paces of the ship until dark. Must've taken her hours to get here in the dark over rough country, he thought. This is one tough bimbo.
He waited, his hackles rising, until she finished. “You're sure the leader had that band across his face?” She was. She'd heard him addressed as “Grraf-Commander.” One with a light-banded belly was called “Apprentice Something.” And the other two tallied, as well. “I can't believe it,” he said to the darkness. “The same foursome that left me here! If they're all down here, they're deadly serious. Damn their good luck.”
“Better than you think,” said Puss. “You told me they had magic weapons. Now I believe it.”
Kit, leaning near, whispered into Locklear's ear. “If she were injured, she would refuse to show her weakness to us.”
He tried again. “Puss, how do you know of their weapons?”
With dry amusement and courage, the disembodied voice said, “The usual way: the huge sentry used one. Tiny sunbeams that struck as I reached thick cover. They truly can see in full darkness.”
“So they've seen you,” he said, dismayed.
“From their shouts, I think they were not sure what they saw. But I will kill them for this, sentry or no sentry.”
Her voice was more distant now. Locklear raised his voice slightly: “Puss, can we help you?”
“I have been burned before,” was the reply.
Kit, moving into the darkness quietly: “You are certain there are only four?”
“Positive,” was the faint reply, and then they heard only the night wind.
Presently Kit said, “It would take both of us, and when wounded she will certainly fight to the death. But we might overpower her now, if we can find the bower.”
“No. She did more than she promised. And now she knows she can kill me by smashing the transmitter. Let's get some sleep, Kit,” he said. Then, when he had nestled behind her, he added with a chuckle, “I begin to see why the kzinti decided to breed females as mere pets. Sheer self-defense.”
“I would break your tail for that, if you had one,” she replied in mock ferocity. Then he laid his hand on her flank, heard her soft miaow, and then they slept.
Locklear had patrolled nearly as far as he dared down the ravine at midmorning, armed with his w'tsai, longbow, and an arrow-filled quiver rubbing against the zzrou when he heard the first scream. He knew that Kit, with her short lance, had gone in the opposite direction on her patrol, but the repeated kzin screams sent gooseflesh up his spine. Perhaps the tabbies had surrounded Boots, or Puss. He notched an arrow, half climbing to the lip of the ravine, and peered over low brush. He stifled the exclamation in his throat.
They'd found Puss, all right — or she'd found them. She stood on all-fours on a level spot below, her tail erect, its tip curled over, watching two hated familiar figures in a tableau that must have been as old as kzin history. Almost naked for this primitive duel, ebony talons out and their musky scent heavy on the breeze, they bulked stupefyingly huge and ferocious. The massive gunner, Goon, and engineer Yellowbelly circled each other with drawn stilettos. What boggled Locklear was that their modern weapons lay ignored in neat groups. Were they going through some ritual?
They were like hell, he decided. From time to time, Puss would utter a single word, accompanied by a tremor and a tail-twitch; and each time, Yellowbelly and Goon would stiffen, then scream at each other in frustration.
The word she repeated was ch'rowl. No telling how long they'd been there, but Goon's right forearm dripped blood, and Yellowbelly's thigh was a sodden red mess. Swaying drunkenly, Puss edged nearer to the weapons. As Yellowbelly screamed and leaped, Goon screamed and parried, bearing his smaller opponent to the turf. What followed then was fast enough to be virtually a blur in a roil of Kzersatz dust as two huge tigerlike bodies thrashed and rolled, knives flashing, talons ripping, fangs sinking into flesh.
Locklear scrambled downward through the grass, his progress unheard in the earsplitting caterwauls nearby. He saw Puss reach a beam rifle, grasp it, swing it experimentally by the barrel. That's when he forgot all caution and shouted, “No, Puss! Put the stock to your shoulder and pull the trigger!”
He might as well have told her to bazzfazz the shimstock; and in any case, poor valiant Puss collapsed while trying to figure the rifle out. He saw the long ugly trough in her side then, caked with dried blood. A wonder she was conscious, with such a wound. Then he saw something more fearful still, the quieter thrashing as Goon found the throat of Yellowbelly, whose stiletto handle protruded from Goon's upper arm.
Ducking below the brush, Locklear moved to one side, nearer to Puss, whose breathing was as labored as that of the males. Or rather, of one male, as Goon stood erect and uttered a victory roar that must have carried to Newduvai. Yellowbelly's torn throat pumped the last of his blood onto alien dust.