Ingrid spoke softly to the computer, and another portion of the screen switched to an exterior view of the Free Wunderland ship. An airlock door swung open, and figures spewed out into vacuum with a puff of vapor; some struggled and thrashed for nearly a minute. Another murmur, and a green line drew itself around the figure of Markham. Stress-reading, Jonah reminded himself Pupil-dilation monitoring -I should have thought of that. Interesting, he thinks he's telling the truth.
One of the gray-clad figures gave a dry retch at her console. "Control yourzeff, soldier," Markham snapped. To the screen: "Wit all the troubles, the kzin are unlikely to have noticed your, ah, sudden deceleration. " The green fine remained. "Still, ve should establish vectors to a less conspicuous spot. Then I can offer you the hozpitality of the Nietzsche, and we can discuss your mission and how I may assist you at leisure. "
The green line flickered, shaded to green-blue. Mental reservations. Not on board your ship, that's for sure, Jonah thought, smiling into the steely fanatic's gaze in the screen. "By all means," he murmured.
"… Zo, as you can imagine, we are anxious to take advantage of your actions," Markham was saying. The control chamber of the Catskinner was crowded with him and the three "advisors" he had insisted on; all three looked wirecord-tough, and all had stripped to useffilly lumpy coveralls. And they all had something of the outer-orbit chill of Markham's expression.
"To raid kzin outposts while they're off-balance?" Ingrid said. Markham gave her a quick glance down the eagle sweep of his nose.
"You Vill understant, wit improvised equipment it is not always possible to attack the kzin directly," he said to Jonah, pointedly ignoring the junior officer. "As the great military tinker Clausewitz said, the role of a guerrilla is to avoid strength and attack weakness. Ve undertake to sabotage their operations by disrupting commerce, and to aid ze groundside partisans wit intelligence and supplies as often as pozzible. "
Translated, you hyack ships and bung the crews out the airlock when it isn't an unmanned cargo pod, all for the Greater Good. Finagle's ghost, this is one scary bastard. Luckily, I know some things he doesn't.
"And the late unlamented MeAllistaire?"
A frown. "Vell, unfortunately, not all are as devoted to the Cause as might be hoped. In terms of realpolitik, it iss to be eggspected, particularly of the common folk when so many of deir superiors haff decided that collaboration wit the kzin is an unavoidable necessity." The faded blue eyes blinked at him. "Not an unreasonable supposition, when Earth has abandoned us… until now… zo, of the ones willing to help, many are merely the lawless and corrupt. Motivated by money; vell, if one must shovel manure, one uses a pitchfork."
Jonah smiled and nodded, grasping the meaning if not the agricultural metaphor. And the end justifies the means. My cheeks are starting to hurt, "Well, I have my mission to perform. On a need-to-know basis, let's just say that Lieutenant Raines and I have to get to Wunderland, preferably to a city. With cover identities, currency, and instructions to the underground there to assist us, if it's safe enough to contact. "
"Vell." Markham seemed lost in thought for moments. I do not believe ve can expect a fleet from Earth. They would have followed on the heels of the so-effective attack, and such would be impossible to hide. You are an afterthought. " Decision, and a mouth drawn into a cold line. "You must tell me of this mission before scarce resources are devoted to it." "Impossible. This whole attack was to get Ingrithe lieutenant and me to Wunderland. " Jonah cursed himself for the slip, saw Markham's ears twitch slightly.
His mouth was dry, and he could feel his vision focusing and narrowing, bringing the aquiline features of the guerrilla chieftain into closer view.
"Zo. This I seriously doubt. But we haff become adept at finding answers, even some kzin haff ve persuaded." The three "aides" drew their weapons, smooth and fast; two stunners and some sort of homemade dart-thrower. "You will answer. Pozzibley, if the answers come quickly and wizzout our having to damage you, I will let you proceed and giff you the help you require. This ship vill be of extreme use to the Cause, vahtever the bankers and merchants of Earth, who have done for us nothing in fifty years of fighting, intended. Ve who haff fought the kzin vit our bare hands, while Earth did nothing, nothing… "
Markham pulled himself back to self-command. "if it is inadvisable to assist you, you may join my crew or die. " His eyes, flatly dispassionate, turned to Ingrid. "You are from zis system. You also will speak, and then join or… no, there is always a market for workable bodies, if the mind is first removed. Search them thoroughly and take them across to the Nietzsche in a bubble." A sign to his followers. "The first thing you must learn, is that I am not to be lied to."
"I don't doubt it," Jonah drawled, lying back in his crashcouch. "But you can't take this ship."
"Ah." Markham smiled again. "Codes. You vill furnish them."
"The ship," Ingrid said, considering her fingertips, "has a mind of its own. You may test it."
The Wunderlander snorted. "A self-aware computer? Impossible. Laboratory curiosities."
"Now that," the computer said, 1. could be considered an insult, Landholder Ulf Reichstein-markham."
The weapons of Markham's companions were suddenly thrown away with stifled curses and cries of pain. "Induction fields… your error, sir. Spaceships in this benighted vicinity may be metal shells with various systems tacked on, but I am an organism. And you are in my intestines."
Markham crossed his arms. "You are two to our four, and in the same environment, so no gasses or other such may be used. You vill tell me the control codes for this machine eventually; it is easy to make such a device mimic certain functions of sentience. Better for you if you come quietly." "Landholder Markham, I grow annoyed with you," the computer said. "Furthermore, consider that your knowledge of cybernetics is fifty years out of date, and that the kzin are a technologically conservative people with no particular gift for information systems. Watch. "
A railgun yapped through the hull, and there was a bright flare on the flank of the stubby toroid of Markham's ship. A voice babbled from the handset at his belt, and the view in the screen swooped crazily as the Catskinner dodged.
"That was your main screen generator," the computer continued. "You are now open to energy weapons. Need I remind you that this ship carries more than thirty parasite-rider X-ray lasers, pumped by one-megaton bombs? Do we need to alert the kzin to our presence?"
There was a sheen of sweat on Markham's face. "I haff perhaps been somewhat hasty," he said flatly. No nonsentient computer could have been given this degree of initiative. "A fault of youth, as mein mutter is saying." His accent had become thicker. "As chentlemen, we may come to some agreement."
"Or we can barter like merchants," Jonah said, with malice aforethought. Out of the comer of his eye, he saw Ingrid flash an "o" with her fingers. "Is he telling the truth?"
"To within 97% of probability," the computer said. "From pupil, skin-conductivity, encephalographic and other evidence." Markham hid his start quite well, "I suggest the bargaining commence. Commandant Reichstein-Markham, you would also be well advised not to… engage in falsehoods."
Chuut-Riit always enjoyed visiting the quarters of his male offspring. "What will it be this time?" he wondered, as he passed the outer guards. The household troopers drew claws before their eyes in salute, faceless in impact-armor and goggled helmets, the beam-rifles ready in their hands. He paced past the surveillance cameras, the detector pods, the death-casters and the mines; then past the inner guards at their consoles, humans raised in the household under the supervision of his personal retainers. The retainers were males grown old in the Riit family's service. There had always been those willing to exchange the uncertain rewards of competition for a secure place, maintenance, and the odd female. Ordinary kzin were not to be trusted in so sensitive a position, of course, but these were families which had served the Riit clan for generation after generation. There was a natural culling effect; those too ambitious left for the Patriarchy's military and the slim chance of advancement, those too timid were not given opportunity to breed.