Momentum did not appear to be conserved by the reactionless kzin ships, but the gravitic field equations upon which the polarizer was based invoked negative space curvature, a necessary element of any reactionless space drive. Normal intuitions about momentum fail in the presence of negative curvature momentum then has a direction opposite velocity but the equations of momentum conservation still hold.
Trainer-of-Slaves took up his gunner's berth on the Blood of Heroes. He was outfitted with mask-goggles. They imposed diagrams upon his visual field which supplied all that he might need to know while firing. During check-down he had time to make simulation runs with his goggles feeding him the dangers of a virtual world. It gave the liver a jolt to kill monkeyships even if they were only program-generated ghosts.
The five spherical ships of the hunter-pack drifted into position. There was ear-bulb chatter as the captains readied themselves for the three light-hour sweep from Alpha Centauri B across to Alpha Centauri A, roughly the equivalent of a run from the distance of Uranus to Man-home. The Serpent's Swarm would give the sweep realism, though it contained hundreds of times the mass and debris of the Solar Belt.
Because of this plethora of asteroids, the Kzin Training Command was able to designate as many target asteroids as it pleased without disrupting the economy of the Swarm. Fourth Fleet attack-training stressed destruction of the kind of asteroid defensive installations which the monkeys used extensively to protect the north and south approaches to Man-home.
At maximum acceleration the Blood of Heroes could make the three-light-hour trip from B to A in less than two days at a turn-around velocity a tenth the speed of light, but this was not common practice because of the density of maker in the Centauri System which created field energy losses.
The gravity polarizer of the kzin high-velocity drive contained a natural mechanism to protect the ship from impact by gas and micrometeoroids. The offending particle was violently accelerated as it entered the field while, at the same time, the ship reacted to the added mass by recoiling. In the exchange, field energy was re-converted to mass. The particle size was not critical unequal masses accelerate at the same rate within any gravitic field.
Unfortunately, atoms impacting into a polarizer's field generated a weak electromagnetic interaction which drained field energy into radiation. Inside a planetary system this could have been a serious problem if high velocities had been desirable. Between the stars, where high velocities are desirable, kzin ships weren't able to travel much above eighty percent of light speed through normal densities of interstellar gas without bleeding to death from "blue shine."
While a gravity polarizer was accelerating it converted mass to energy, when it decelerated it converted that same energy back to mass. Its power requirements were orders of magnitude less than a torchship, needing power only to make up for the losses involved in field interactions with the local media.
The hunting pack was practicing the standard maneuver. Come in high over the Swarm, then aback down through it at a moderate velocity. There was much bantering back and forth between the offensive team and the defensive team during an "engagement" debriefing. All kzin insults weren't delivered in anger the real meaning lay in the inflections of the spit-hisses. Ssis-Captain was fond of calling his opponents baboons because they had been ordered to "think like monkeys." Amiably they dubbed him "Kshat-Lunch," referring to a herbivore who was known to eat offal.
It took them twelve days, not two, to work their way across the Swarm on patrol/attack status, instruments scanning at full vigilance. The Blood of Heroes recorded static from the Tiamat industrial world: instructions to some lonely Rockjack in his torchship, calls for part replacements, a medical emergency. Doppler shifts alerted monitors.
Of the man-ships they saw only glimmers flicking across detection screens. Somewhere among the stones armed feral humans grubbed about, plotting revenge but the Blood of Heroes saw none, though its instruments were looking. These sullen beasts were mostly no more of a nuisance than fur-ticks but they made good target practice when found. On this run the Heroes sparred only with tumbling rubble.
Trainer-of-Slaves was an experienced gunner by the time they reached the cloud-streaked globe of Wunderland. He was not yet an experienced politician.
CHAPTER 13
(2402 A.D.)
In its simplest design, the kzin gravity polarizer just floated. If it was shoved toward a mass, energy was fed into its polarizer field which forced it to rise. If it was pushed away from a mass, energy was drained from its polarizer field which forced it to fall.
The shuttle "platforms" that transported freight and passengers into and out of Wunderland's mass-well were straight modifications of this primitive device. Descent was controlled by electromagnetically bleeding the field to charge molecular distortion batteries. Ascent was controlled by feeding the field from those same batteries. Horizontal velocity was controlled by a torsion field interaction that spun-up or spun-down Wunderland's rotation.
The cycle was highly efficient, leaking some spillover energy at the electromagnetic-gravitic interface and some in tidal friction. When dropping from orbit around Wunderland to the surface, the shuttles polarizer rose only a few degrees in temperature.
Munchenport was a depressing introduction to the fabulous wealth that Trainer-of-Slaves had heard about all his life. A proper spacedrome had yet to be constructed. They settled onto an open field that was serviced by extruded buildings of recent fabrication, all square and ugly, all laid out and finished by forced labor. The Wundervolker wryly called it the "Himmelfahrte" both because it was from here that one ascended to the heavens and because so many of them had "gone to heaven" building it.
The number of unleashed man-beasts was appalling, lined up with their baggage, milling around, shuffling through the weapons scanners, arguing with attendants. Most of them were looking for work in the military industries of the Serpent's Swarm, needing the wages badly enough to be willing to build weapons that would be used against their father system. They smelled of unwashed bodies and poverty, a peculiar sweet-sour odor blending with the machinery-and-synthetics smell of the building and the residual ozone from cheap electric vehicles.
Ssis-Captain knew the routine. He hired some manbeasts of burden to carry his and Trainer's luggage to the aircar terminal. The clean cool breeze inside the car was a relief. "We'll go to the old city. It's better there," he said.
To a Hero born in space on a hostile outpost near a dying star, Munchen was odd for a city. This was a city? The low-pitched tile roofs weren't airtight and the windows opened to the atmosphere. From some views the buildings were hidden by the trees that shaded streets. The broad blue waters of the Donau cut through parks of palms and blooming frangipani. Of what use was the steel steeple of the Saint Joachim cathedral?
Ssis-Captain found a room for them in an old four-story brick mansion that had been converted for kzin use by knocking out the tops of all the interior doors.
He gave their luggage to an old man-female who staggered under the load, finally setting* down to breathe before dividing her job into two trips.
"She's ready for the glue-factory, commented Ssis, who was three times her size.
"It's a she? But she took your instructions!" Of course."
He stared at the old lady. Dumb male-animals Trainer-of-Slaves could understand, but females who comprehended sentences' He tried to imagine his mother speaking in whole phrases. He had talked enough to her, and sometimes… sometimes he had imagined that she was listening, such big round eyes she had.
It was a powerful deception. A kzinrett always gave the impression of being intelligent. Once as a spoiled hit in the Chirr-Nig household he had been so taken by this illusion that he had given his mother an adventure picture-book to read to him at nap-time. She had chewed the book to pieces.