An alien race had sold them their technology eons ago and it hadn’t improved since then because they had no engineers.
They were all brawn and no brain-and brawn was never enough. Who had wiped out the big cats and the whales and the mammoths?
They were technologically stagnant and no longer had the will or the ability to change.
The Patriarchy was the degenerate remains of an ancient civilization. What would they do with the Shark? Who had ever heard of a curious kzin?
It would take them a millennium to duplicate the hyperdrive. Haw, haw, the kzinti were so dumb that when they got the hyperdrive they would ship all their warriors into hyperspace and not be able to bring them back! Half the time, a kzin had to stand on his head to screw in a lightbulb because he could never remember the direction of the screw.
“How long do you think it will take?” asked Fry.
“My odds are that they are tooling up a prototype out there right now. We’ll be hit with our tanks empty”
“Progress takes time. A lot of the younger officers are coming around to your viewpoint. It takes time, Yankee. Politics takes time.”
“Forget the kzin. How many men does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
“Granted that this younger generation knows what a bulb is. Yeah, tell me.”
“A thousand and one-five hundred with their hands on the bulb turning it counter-clockwise, and five hundred and one with their hands on the bulb turning it clockwise.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I lost Nora’s trail. If we knew where the Shark jumped to, we could blow the hell out of the place,” grumbled Yankee.
“And risk another war? No way.”
Yankee took on a distant look. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something. Our informant, that Hwass-Hwasschoaw, never did take his repatriation to Kzin. I hear rumors that he had himself dropped off at W’kkai Do you suppose he picked up something I didn’t?”
The general grinned. “I arranged that behind Markham’s back-as a favor to Hwass and maybe as a favor to myself. My file has our kzin born on W’kkai. I’m not sure he wanted to be repatriated to Kzin. That was Markham’s idea. Did you meet Markham?”
“Yeah. Tough old buzzard. I don’t think he’s happy with the turmoil on Wunderland. It’s against his sense of order. He has weird ideas of promoting a universal peace with Kzin and any other alien races we might meet out there. Maybe he’s feeling guilty about his bloody past. I don’t think his peace plan is very realistic.” Yankee paused, as if he were contemplating something incredible. “I hear he was using Hwass as a peace emissary between man and kzin.”
“That’s right. It is not so strange as you might think Markham has information that he is a very religious kzin. He has dreams of proselytizing the galaxy Markham thinks he is a secret convert to Christianity”
The major was amused. “Hwass as a peace emissary that’s got to be the laugh of the century. Don’t get me wrong. That old kitten and I got along. Shall we say we understood each other; he knew I’d order him killed if he stepped out of line, and I knew he’d kill me first chance he got. Peace emissary! Murphy have mercy on us!”
“He decided at the last minute that he wanted to go to W’kkai. So I arranged it. I thought we might just learn something if we let him follow his own nose. Just a shot in the dark. I gave him protocols and some unclassified equipment so that he could keep in touch. Did you ever tell that proud warrior about Nora? I mean Nora as kzin-killing terror.”
“Naw. I didn’t want to upset him while I was in the same room.”
“My little sweetheart clerk,” Fry reminisced with a smile, “going around upsetting a kzin’s macho sensibilities. I’ll tell you some good news. It is Nora who’s getting out the news about the Shark in spite of…“ The general pointed his finger at the ceiling in the general direction of The Powers That Be and rolled his eyes. “Even though the ARM is keeping the lid on the story, it is getting around via the bilge water. It’s all over Barnard’s Starbase. Who can resist the story? The kzin captured themselves a hypershunt with no one to stop them but a determined little woman. Without an official ARM account; the story gets wilder by the minute. Last time I heard it Nora killed thirty kzin on her way to the powder room. Each day the cats grow an inch taller, and she gets more beautiful. Those space cadets are making a warrior saint out of her.”
“She was no saint,” said Yankee, who remembered when she was ten years old.
“Couldn’t hold her down,” complained Fry. “I tried. I wanted to. Some women won’t let you keep them under control.” There was regret in the general’s voice.
“Maybe we’ll pick up her trail again,” said Yankee sadly.
“Maybe,” agreed General Fry, lost in old memories of romance.
Chapter 16
(2438 A.D.)
Hwass-Hwasschoaw was a celebrity when he was first delivered to the W’kkai’s singularity boundary by UNSN treaty warship and fetched home by a kzin patrol. For a while he gave long blunt talks on the Battle of Wunderland to whomever of the military cared to listen. When he learned what he most wanted to know, he disappeared as a wandering Truth-Preacher.
Hwass found the W’kkai coterie of the Patriarch’s Eye in the form of an ancient kzin of his father’s acquaintance who was still part of the old network. The Eye was in disarray, saved only by its inbred loyalty and ability to tolerate long delays. It had always needed a steady trickle of funds and talent from Kzin to keep it purposeful. And it had always needed fire-eaters like his father, who should never have left the organization to underlings while he took off on a wild adventure with the dashing Chuut-Riit.
Hwass could barely contain his claws when learning that the Eye was unaware of any hyperships sneaking through the blockade. A blind Eye? An outrage! Then doubt possessed him. He had found Trainer-of-Slaves’s navigation notes (without revealing them to Clandeboye) proving that this yellow devil had planned to take his captured UNSN ship to W’kkai! But had he ever arrived?
A little more sniffing was in order. He traveled to pastoral places as Truth-Preacher, his intent to “dig a few watering holes” that might prove useful in a Kdapt reformation. Hustling never hurt. A better class of kzinti stayed away from the cities and, being less crowded, were more open of mind and favors. Preaching brought in the little money he needed and provided ample opportunity for gossip. Two things he learned (1) for a defeated power, W’kkai was too confident and (2) a new schism was dividing the navy.
The overconfidence could be attributed to the arrogance of the haughty Patriarch’s Voice who wouldn’t know defeat if his severed head was floating in a wine barrel. Overconfidence is contagious and no one was untouched by the taste of the Voice. But what of Admiral Si-Kish? He was quietly building a navy-and it smelled like a navy more powerful than anything W’kkai had ever fielded But why such a navy unless there was a hypershunt motor to power it? Why such secrecy? Why weren’t the old naval warriors being brought into this new hunting ground? Odd smells for a humbled regime.
The buildup was being hidden from the Eye. Si-Kish shouldn’t even know that the Eye existed.
One thing at a time. After lecturing with great tact to some country squires about the nature of the God of the True Form, and passing a pleasant day hunting with his hosts, he spent time by himself with a cup of fermented milk and the local slavery poop sheets. Truth-Preacher wasn’t interested in buying slaves, and had no need for a personal slave-but he was looking for the spoor of Trainer-of-Slaves.
That yellow devil would have abandoned his trade for a more lucrative life, perhaps hidden behind some self important title of his own devising-but he would leave traces. Greed. How could he wholly abandon that sideline about which he knew so much?