"Jriingh, meet your new mounter."
"My hero," she purred.
Trainer-of-Slaves was horrified. "You stole an illustrious one's wife? Or worse, a daughter?"
Ssis-Captain's ears flapped while he rumbled in his throat. "He gave her to me. She's a little terror. She spits and hisses at his wives and fights with them. She kept chasing his favorite off into the woods of his estate where he couldn't find her. She boxes the heads of his daughters and tries to take his sons down under the bridge."
"An ideal mother for great fighting Heroes!"
"It didn't work that way. All her sons got killed as kits in rage-fights. Crazy, the lot of them. Her mate backhand-cuffed her often enough, without profit, but he's too soft-clawed to kill her. I reasoned that you and I could solve his problem."
"Do you suppose the man-beastesses give their males as much trouble as ours?"
"Worse! A manrret is smart enough to pick the lock on her door!"
Jriingh stepped gracefully from the polarizer housing, haughtily exploring her new abode, sniffing warily. She was half the size of a male kzin and probably twice as agile. She snapped up a baby Jotok that had escaped from its wire run, and swallowed five arms in one bite and then peered into the smelly tank, pondering ways to catch more.
"She's being boarded on the Blood of Heroes, of course."
"Against regs. You'll have to keep her."
"It's against regs to keep her here, too."
Trainer-of-Slaves was beginning to feel angry.
"Hr-r, yet you do have the space, a corner somewhere with a lock and key."
"But I won't be able to keep her pheromones out of the air!"
"You won't have to. That's the whole beauty of this sally."
"I'm supposed to give this little hissing terror the run of the place?!
"It's not a problem. She likes males. She just doesn't like females. Fix up a room. Give her some nice things. We'll run a beneath-the-grass pride to keep her happy. Let her keep your feet warm. We need a beneath-the-grass pride out here card-tricks, music war stories, ch'rowl. Do you think a Conservor will come here and give you a lecture on the One True Way of Honor and the nature of the Furry God?"
Trainer-of-Slaves settled into himself giving way just a little. He was not used to such camaraderie and he liked it. Yes, he wanted to conquer Earth with this warrior and own a huge hunting preserve in the Amazon next to France with hundreds of pink, tailless slaves tending to his animals. Of course, Long-Reach would always be his top slave.
For two years High Conquest Commander Chuut-Riit had been caught in the snare of a painful power struggle. Then the first news from Man-sun burst from the Tightbeams, 4.3 years after the fact: the Kzin had dealt a great surprise victory in the first skirmish. The Third Fleet was positioning itself for battle.
Wunderland kzinti forgot all else. Even Chuut-Riit paused. Infighting died. The Radio-Operators became the Heroes of the Moment, drifting in space at the instruments of their huge antennae pointed at Mansun.
The good news did not last.
By the end of the month the extent of the disaster was evident. Trainer-of-Slaves was outraged at the man-beasts. Kzinti became morose. They grinned more often, thoughts of monkeys on their minds. And Chuut-Riits situation changed dramatically. There was no longer any question that he was Governor of Alpha Centauri. There was no longer any opposition to his design for the Fourth Fleet, or to his date of launching.
Trainer put in for a transfer to the Blood cuff Heroes.
CHAPTER 12
(2402 A.D.)
Ssis-Captain arrived at Fortress Aarku with a new uniform, slightly non-standard. The padded underarmor vest was a too-rich shade of mauve with sapphire blue trimmings. The buttons on his epaulets were Wunderland jade from mines in the Jotun Range. The eight-pointed captain's star radiated from a real diamond. Pagoda style three-quarter sleeves were of the satin one might find on a kzinretti bed. The accurate leather cuffs of the undershirt, setting for his chronometer/comp, were tooled from high quality kz'eerkt the tanned hides of Wunderland criminals, selected to be without blemish or lash mark.
"Impressive," said Trainer-of-Slaves.
"I am determined that you shall have your fleet rating!" Ssis was flicking the tip of his tail back and forth in agitation as he paraded to show off his tailoring.
"Hr-r. Yet I have sworn enemies who would make it difficult."
"Harrgh! I have proper papers here for you that will make it all easy, letters of introduction and recommendation." He began to purr. "And a pass to Wunderland! I don't dance around, I just leap right in. They have to give you to me. I need you."
"Friend, I shall be satisfied with the trip to Wunderland."
"Not after you've served as my gunner!" The elegant captain lifted his bushy head and with a great grin emitted a spitting-yowling imitation of the sounds of battle. "We're going to carve up some asteroids on the way in. Great sport."
Trainer-of-Slaves decided that he could leave Long-Reach in charge of polarizer repairs, and took his chief slave on a tour of the shop. One giant field-generator was suspended in the light gravity of Aarku while two of the five-armed Jotoki slaves worked to replace its laminated planers.
Long-Reach stood proudly on four wrists while pointing with his fifth arm. "This unit will be ready for testing in two days," said skinny(arm). "I am honored by your trust in me, brave master," interrupted short(arm), checking various screens by taking control of three eyes. "Alf will go well with the polarizer repairs. We are expecting another unit for overhaul at the end of the day. And my duties among the juveniles?"
Trainer-of-Slaves trusted Long-Reach with all but one thing the Jotok transients. "Just keep the life support functional. Change the filters again. ' It would never do to have one of those curious five-armed, five brained fledglings fixate upon a mature Jotok as parent. "Third-Teacher-of-Slaves will be in charge. Your first duty is to the shop."
"You will be traveling to Wunderland? The crew has checked over the engines of the Blood of Heroes from finger-tip to elbow. They hum. Do tell Ssis-Captain to stay within specs."
The gravitic polarizer was the foundation stone of the Patriarchy and of warrior military superiority. In its stationary version it made artificial gravity possible, but its most useful application was as the reactionless space drive which allowed vehicles to accelerate in "free fall": one gravity for the lumbering freighters, sixty or seventy gravities for the faster military warships.
These kzin craft bewildered the Wunderland defenders at the time of the 2367 A.D. conquest. They darted about with incredible velocity and acceleration changes, yet ejected no reaction mass, and didn't seem to-need refueling even after maneuvers that would have exhausted the tanks of a torchship. The kzin warships could be goaded and provoked and then harassed like a bull in Old Spain, they could be burned, but they couldn't be chased. They didn't seem to obey the laws of physics.
For years after that terrible six months, war-impoverished professors from the Munchen Scholarium gathered in the cafes along Karl-Jorge Avenue in Old Munchen, writing equations and speculating with preposterous assumptions while they sipped their schnapps. Research equipment can be confiscated. Equations and speculation are free. When Alpha Centauri B was in the night sky, wan but brighter than any streetlight, each new theory about kzin technology was carried like an epidemic between the sidewalk cafes until second sunset when the nightlife of Munchen died.
Given that a reactionless drive did exist they eventually sketched out the beginning of an understanding that had a sound theoretical footing by the time Chuut-Riit arrived as governor. The human mind, unlike the kzin mind, is obsessed with resolving the contradictions between what it observes and what it thinks it should be seeing.