Bigs snarled, a sound like ripping canvass, Spots snorted, a flupp sound. “None taken,” he said.
“Besides which,” she went on, “I know about it,, and it’s my duty to see that the most responsible authority takes charge of it for the benefit of Wunderland- of everyone, eventually. That means Montferrat. Of course, you could kill me and bury my body.” She leaned back against her saddle. “Up to you, mein herren.”
Blast, she had to go and say it, Jonah thought His palms were damp. I’m a-moderately-law abiding type, he mused. And normally, I’d be against offing anyone that good-looking on general principle. But Finagle there’s a lot at stake here!
Odd, how ambition struck. He had never been conscious of wealth as something he lacked, before. Enough to be comfortable, yes; the loss of that had been shocking when Early had him railroaded out of the UN Space Navy and then blacklisted. A little more of the gold, yes; independence had looked awfully desirable. The tnuctipun’s secrets were more than wealth, they were power. The problem was, they were proportionately risky.
“Ja, Fra Nordbo,” Hans said mildly. “Those look to be the alternatives, don’t they?” Tyra stiffened; she had not meant to be taken literally. “If you’d let us talk it over in private, for a minute?” He waggled his pipe towards the kzinti; it would be futile to try and run in the dark, with them ready to scent-track as accurately as hounds and with intelligence to boot.
As soon as she had withdrawn, Bigs spoke: “Kill him. I mean her.” Kzinti females were mute and subsentient, probably another consequence of genetic engineering, and kzintosh-male kzin-had trouble remembering that sexual dimorphism was not so extreme among the race of Man. The matter was academic to them, of course. “We owe the monkey-hrreaheerr, Montferrat human only money. We can pay him off with gold. The secrets in that craft will make us Patriarchs!”
“Or make us dead,” Hans said. “Killing the girl-the Provisional Gendarmerie, they don’t worry about trifles like proof. They just shoot you. Can’t spend if you’re dead. I wish we hadn’t found it, I truly do.”
“I also,” Spots said surprisingly. “But it is done.” His breed wasted little time on regrets. “My sibling is right
– in potential. Hans-human is also right-as to the risk. I scratch dirt upon the dung of risk… but there is no glory in defeat It is a difficult matter.”
“We can’t kill Tyra-the girl,” Jonah said reasonably.
The two kzin looked at each other. Bigs rolled his eyes toward Jonah and made a complex gesture, involving fingers wiggling at the muzzle, flapping ears, a ripple of the fur and an arch of the back. It meant mating frenzy; also stupidity and madness.
“Hrrrr.” Spots lay his chin on his hands and turned his eyes on Jonah. “We must agree, whatever we do. Or else fight each other.” He added kindly: “If all agree to kill the female, we will do it; you need not watch. We will even forgo eating it.”
“Bleeping hell you-“Jonah forced calm. Breath in. Breath out. Ommmm-“Look, I know it’s tempting for you, but I’ve decided; we really can’t do anything but sell to Montferrat. Wunderland’s our only market. They won’t let us get off planet! Montferrat is the only market on Wunderland that won’t slap us in a psychist’s chair. And kill you two, by the way.”
“I think Fra Nordbo should go,” Hans said. He gestured with his pipe as Jonah stared round. “Nothing against her personal. No, seems a nice enough sort Still, I’m a Wunderlander-commoner, like my parents before me. Don’t like the thought that we hand this to the new government; too cozy by half with the Earthers. Don’t like the idea of the Herrenmann getting it, either-tired of them running things, and throwing us scraps.” He smiled across at the kzin without showing his teeth. “Since you fellers’ friends back home can’t get it, that don’t come into the picture.”
Tanjit! Jonah thought. Aloud: “Look, we’ve had a long day. What say we turn in? She isn’t going anywhere. We can consider it in the morning.”
“Logic will be the same in the morning,” Spots said reasonably. “Also, you will not find the decision easier once you have mated.”
“I don’t intend to mate!” Jonah snapped. Although Finagle knows I’d like to. Aliens had trouble with the details of human social interaction. “And I say let’s think it over in the morning.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Spots-Son of Chotrz-Shaa whimpered softly in his sleep. He was hiding from his father. Chotrz-Shaa had seen the vids from the Fourth Fleet sent against Man-Home. Three elder sons and a brother had sailed with the Fourth Fleet; Ssis-Captain, Second Gunner and Squadron Analyst. Chotrz-Shaa raged through the home complex; the scent of his anger was terrible. In the palazzos of the harem, mothers tucked their kittens into cupboards or piles of pillows and yowled their fear and defiance, prepared to fight to the death to keep the enraged male from eating the young. That was an instinct older than the Patriarchy, older than speech and tools.
Spots-Son followed in his father’s wake; the smell of killing rage repelled and led. Occasionally a faint euuuw-euuuw trickled past the young kzin’s lips; his brother the Big One gave him a contemptuous look, that was the infant’s distress call. They followed down corridors of black basalt with trophies of ceremonial weapons, into the communications room. Sometimes their father brought them there for lessons with the teaching machines, but now it was in turmoil; smashed crockery, modules thrown here and there. A human servant huddled bleeding in one corner, then scuttled out as the youngsters entered.
Pictures were up on the wall holo. For a long time the two youngsters stared at them without comprehension, until Spots recognized the face in one.
“Uncle Ssis-Captain!” he cried. “Sire’s Brother!”
Bigs reared back beside him with a reeearrwowow of protest, hair bottling out and tail stiff. Uncle Ssis-Captain was dead. He was floating in zero-G, with the bottom half of him gone. The brothers were old enough for preliminary education; they both knew about spacecraft, and kzinti anatomy.
“But… but Uncle Ssis-Captain went to conquer the monkeys!” Spots wailed.
Uncle Ssis-Captain had picked him up and swung him around, and promised him an elephant-hunt when he came to visit on the estate on Earth…
“The monkeys killed Uncle Ssis-Captain,” Bigs said shakily. “That -.. that is Brother and Brother.” The other two forms in the bob were calcinated to ash and bone, but one had a chased-tungsten arm ring. Their father had given that when the Fleet left on its mission of conquest.
Two shrill cries of grief and rage rose, higher and higher until an adult mar cut them off.
“What are you doing here?” it bellowed.
Spots threw himself down flat, paws over eyes and fur laid flat. Bigs was more reckless; he stood upright, met his father’s eyes.
“I shall kill all the monkeys-they killed Uncle and-”
“Silence, cub!” Chotrz-Shaa bellowed, backhanding the youngling into the wall and whimpering silence. The huge face bent low, filling Spots’s vision, all glaring eyes and teeth and rage-smell.
“No, Father!” he cried, and woke.
I detest that dream, he thought, shaking his head and rolling up to all fours.
It was the hour before dawn, with the moon down and the air chilly; it felt good to be comfortable in his fur, and scents were marvelously clear. Eyesight was flatter and less color-sensitive than in daylight, but otherwise not much less as the pupils of his eyes expanded until the iris was only a yellow thread around the black pits of sight. Something moved, a human-he sniffed deeply-yes, the blander, earthier odor of the female.
Good, he thought. That dream usually came when something serious disturbed him in his sleep. If the human-female was trying to escape, he could kill it without angering Jonah-human; that would be best. Jonah is a fine monkey, he thought. If the thought were not slightly blasphemous, one could wish that he had been born a Hero, I will make him my Chief Slave when we reconquer Wonderland. As they would, if Bigs was right. If only. My liver says yes, but my brain disagrees. Enough. The longest leap begins with setting your hindclaws. First the Tyra-human.