Hwass accepted a Kahlua and cream for himself in a kzin-sized cup. He was tempted to push his muzzle close into the major’s space, to play with the fear he smelled there, but such behavior would not advance his cause. He restrained himself admirably and sat down across from the table, rather than next to the major. “You,” he said, “iss the man-thing I am interested in for you iss failed approve my return to Kzin.”
The major seemed startled. “You’re the heroic Hwass-Hwasschoaw?” He glanced up at Brobding Shaeffer in mute appeal, then returned his gaze to the eyes of Hwass before he shuddered and dropped it to the watery ring that his infant’s cup had made. “I apologize for that.”
It was the second astonishing apology Hwass had received for this act of human duplicity. They promised you freedom, whacked off your head—and apologized. He gazed at this marvel who could not have survived for a heartbeat without the aid of the Great God who seemed to have a fortress in his liver for sniveling weaklings created in His image. “Continue.”
“I have no desire to abort your journey to Kzin.”
Kzinti nostrils flared. That was the first lie. The next sentence would contain the second lie. The warrior waited.
Major Clandeboye was struggling with the simplified, non-idiomatic grammar used to converse with the kzin. “I have determined that you have information we need and have been looking forward”—he shuddered—“to a friendly conversation.”
“I iss not gravitics expert,” Hwass replied curtly. “I fly ships; I not build them.”
“Gravitics is Shaeffer’s concern, not mine. You were in Intelligence?”
“All carnivores iss intelligent,” grumbled Hwass, misunderstanding the statement.
“Excuse me. I meant that you are a student of spoor.”
How had the UNSN guessed that? The kzin used his tongue to flip a taste of his drink into his toothy mouth. “Yess, I iss been known to be observant. Iss you expect me betray my Patriarch?”
“No. We are at peace. It is in both our interests to cement the peace with acts of goodwill.”
There they were again—peace and goodwill. Hwass-Hwasschoaw did not quite understand what he was being told. The only translation he had for the human word “peace” was the word from the Hero’s Tongue for “subservience.” The nearest translation he had for “acts of goodwill” was “tribute.” He replied carefully. “What information that you wish as tribute to ensure my voyage toward Kzin?”
“I require nothing of you. I only wish to ask you a few questions.”
You lie! thought the kzin, enraged, his lips twitching as he tried to suppress a smile.
Brobding nudged his companion. “You are being unnecessarily polite.”
Yankee retorted, “I’m allowed to be polite to a kzin—especially when he is so much bigger than I am.”
“The tense is wrong. Interworld is deficient in tenses. So far as a kzin is concerned, the direct tense is the only ‘tense’ it has. I’ll explain to you later.” What Brobding meant to say, and what he was not going to say in front of a kzin, was that politeness required the use of the Dominant/Dominated Tenses, and since the humans were the victors, they would only be able to speak insults while Hwass, who was the defeated, would be restricted to the groveling politenesses. He could see that Yankee was lost. “Recall, my friend, that politeness in the Direct Tense is a form of lying.” Yankee paled.
Brobding Shaeffer turned his attention casually to their kzin host to smooth the conversation. “My companion was using an idiom that you do not understand. Humans have been lying for so long that we have standard lies which everyone understands. Since the second meaning of such a lie is known, it is no longer a lie.” The crashlander had the kzin’s full attention. “Let me illustrate. When my companion said that he required nothing of you, he was using an idiom to tell you that if you do not answer his questions, he will never allow you passage to Kzinhome.”
Hwass calmed at this clear truth and his claws, which he had kept hidden, were retracting naturally. “You iss already promised me the passage. Now you retract your promise. You iss without honor.”
The crashlander spat out a phrase in the Hero’s Tongue which roughly translated as, “The victor has room to roam.” Then he resumed in Interworld, “I believe the basic nature of the promise remains intact. Answering my companion’s questions may taste like leaves but there will be no trickery in them. Am I correct, Yankee?”
“My questions do not form a conundrum prison. They are answerable by an honorable kzin. Is it not true that an honorable warrior will not abandon his warrior mate in battle? Some of our warriors feel the same. I seek information about a fallen comrade.”
“I iss not the God who iss seeing every fallen warrior.”
“But you were a member of the Third Black Pride at the time of the Battle of Wunderland?”
“I be.”
“And the Third Black Pride captured prisoners.”
“We capture prisoners. All iss destroyed when our Pride iss destroyed. I not know details.”
“But there were survivors. You, for instance.”
“I not know details. You iss recall that the climax of battle occurs as I iss the unconscious companion of my laser-fried companions, and furthermore iss dying in damaged spacesuit. I not recover consciousness until weeks beyond the battle ending.”
“The Third Black Pride was the first to capture a prisoner—long before the Pride left its station to reinforce Traat-Admiral.”
“The records iss destroyed.”
“Not all of them,” insisted Yankee. “We are still piecing together records from your burnt-out hulks. The old codes are no longer secure. Your security officers did an excellent job of sending sensitive information to computer heaven, but not all ghosts make it to heaven. I am interested in your first prisoner.”
“Yess, I iss remember her much well.” Hwass was thinking furiously as he talked. They were not interested in the prisoner; she was the one captured with a more-or-less intact hypershunt three-man scout ship. They were interested in the fate of their ship.
Yankee interrupted. “You just used the word ‘her.’ Kzin tend to make mistakes with that word. Are you talking about a female prisoner?”
“Yess. I remember such detail much well. We iss all astonished that humans try use females in combat role.”
“What was her name?”
“I iss not remember such detail like that.”
“Was it ‘Nora Argamentine’?”
“I iss not know.”
“What became of her?”
As long as this monkey was asking only about the female, Hwass was willing to answer. “She iss be destroyed in the battle.” Along with the hyperdrive scoutship, alas.
“But you have no personal knowledge of that?”
“No.”
“What happened to her after she was captured?”
“Chuut-Riit established the unit to study animal behavior. She is put in thralldom to animal-trainer who iss been given authority conduct behavior research.”
“Ship-based, or on Wunderland?”
“Ship-based. That iss why I say she iss destroyed. All kzin ships iss destroyed in battle. None does surrendered.” He spoke with pride.
“But you have no personal knowledge of this?”
“How iss I know such thing? I iss critical wounded before battle iss taken to disastrous end.”
“To what ship was she assigned? Our records are complete on the fate of every one of your warships. We can determine her fate.”
“Our Third Pride has large mother ship,”—large enough to hold the hyperdrive scout in her maintenance womb. “Trainer-of-Slaves worked from there. I iss not recall its title.”