Through introspective monologues Yankee drafted his conclusions, even his feelings, into frantic missives that he threw out by hyperwave to General Fry, one after the other without waiting for replies. The general wrote back expansively, in a less formal manner than his usual terse style. He was astonished by Nora’s feat and begged more details. Just knowing what had happened to her healed some wounds, but what had happened was not pleasant. Even the noblest of heroes does not always win. If she was still alive, which they doubted, her mind had been wiped clean and the only language that was left to her was a primitive female form of the Hero’s Tongue. And worse, from a strategic point of view brave Nora had not prevented the delivery of the Shark into Patriarch hands. Yankee’s worst nightmare had come true. And General Fry was no longer a man covering his bets by exploring all scenarios—he was Yankee’s open ally.
The ARM, as usual, suppressed the Hssin expedition’s news. Rear Admiral Blumenhandler’s voice was sealed. His marines were shipped to Barnard’s Starbase. The repatriation of Hwass-Hwasschoaw was so accelerated that upon the kzin’s return to Wunderland he was not even allowed to contact his fellow Wunderkzin; he had a final meeting with Interworld Space Commissioner Ulf Reichstein Markham and then was gone. Yankee was warned not to publish. Somehow the major saw the hand of Admiral Jenkins in all this.
Back at Gibraltar Base in Sol System, Yankee spent hours in discussion with General Fry in his small asteroid apartment. They were good friends by now. Yankee was appalled at the navy’s reaction to the Shark capture. In spite of the fact that there was “no news,” the news was getting around by rumor and gross speculation. The prevailing opinion was that the kzinti were too incompetent technically to duplicate a captured hypershunt.
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
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.