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?
…and there it was. A tiny advertisement for a tribe of handsome, hardworking, truly unique human slaves to be sacrificed by their despondent owner at auction for any reasonable price. Five members of the Eye as well as Hwass were at that auction. Among the beasts for sale was one furred female man and a host of bewildered youngsters.
The fine fur on her body left him certain. He had owned human slaves and knew that human females were not furred, even if the auctioneer did not. Trainer-of-Slaves had experimented on his females and one of his favorite experiments had been a technique for activating the latent fur genes of the man-beasts. This was Lieutenant Nora Argamentine, had to be, mind-wiped, late of the United Nations Space Navy. A very valuable prize indeed.
Hwass encouraged one of his associates to examine the firmness of her musculature and the condition of her teeth. He was instructed to be subtly indelicate. She bit his finger while it was still in her mouth. (Any high quality kzinrett, breeder of warriors, would have done the same.) It was a slave-buying trick Hwass knew—it served the purpose of lowering her price.
The auctioneer and Hwass’s ringer had an altercation. The auctioneer, in a reckless rage, swore by the sharpness of the teeth of his merchandise while the ringer stalked away with his bloody finger in the air, complaining loudly about the quality of the slaves to all the buyers who would listen. Hwass and his cohorts bought the entire lot of humans for a price that the impoverished Eye could afford.
Now he had a weapon he could use against Clandeboye. The God of the True Form had favored him mightily. All his supplications and prayers and sacrifice had born fresh meat. The treasure would be complete once his slaves led him to the hypershunt. Where was Trainer-of-Slaves? Trainer would not have let these slaves go so cheaply.
The female was a useless source of information, but her eldest male probably knew something. It was the boy who was most afraid of him, the boy who watched him, the boy who stood ready to protect his mother and siblings. A mind he could use. Perhaps he could even make a Kdaptist of him, to plead the kzin case before God.
Along journey by gravity car took them along the coast. He tried a few words of English on the terrified boy, but the little monkey clearly did not understand. He tried a kzin’s version of that odd mixture of Danish and Plattdeutsch that had passed for a language among his Wunderland slaves. Still nothing. Hard to find the right language for a slave muted by terror.
He watched the sea go by beyond a rocky shoreline of wet boulders, glancing sometimes into the dark interior of the car where his slaves cowered bravery. There was always a way to work fear. In the meantime, soothe your prey before its taste went bad. He noticed that the Nora-beast was thirsty. An opportunity. He held out water to the boy and spoke the kzin word for water and then gestured at the boy’s mother. Thirst and hunger could reach through terror. Politely, in the dominated tense, the boy asked for water for his mother. His accent and grammar were atrocious; he seemed to speak some form of the Jotoki slave patois, but he could be understood. Progress.
They reached their isolated retreat of massive stone, once the fortress of some mighty kzin, now a safe house for the Eye. He took the boy to the newly designated slave rooms and put him in charge of the settling of his family. He gave the boy control over the food. In that way he seduced Monkeyshine to his cause.
Hwass chose mealtime to talk to his slave, just before the boy was ready to feed his family. He didn’t make a big issue of it, but a slave doesn’t deny his master a few civil words if that’s what it takes to get the food on the table. The conversations grew longer. Monkeyshine grew less afraid.
One day Monkeyshine told him all about Hssin, and Hwass reminded him about special places among the rubble that he knew about too. Monkeyshine remembered the rug in the palazzo. Hwass described the scenes of the hunt woven all through the rug. It wasn’t long before Monkeyshine was avidly telling about his adventures in hyperspace with Mellow Yellow while Hwass listened with ardent attention.
“And where is your Mellow Yellow? He seems to be missing.”
Monkeyshine went white at his mistake. He hadn’t realized that he had used the Jotoki name for the master. “I’m so sorry, sire. My abject apologies. I will not forget henceforth to use the title Grraf-Nig.”
“Ah, yes. Hshumph. His title. Of course. But since he is not here we can call him what we please. On Wunderland we called him Grass-Eater behind his back.”
“Oh, no, sire!” said a shocked Monkeyshine.
“What happened to him? Did he forget his waistcoat at the Palace? Pick his nose?”
Monkeyshine was now very wary of a kzin who would use a name like Grass-Eater for his Mellow Yellow. “Do you want him in prison?”
“So that’s where he is! No, I don’t want him in prison! He’s the only hyperspace pilot I know. What prison? Have you heard?”
“In the Rival’s Range. The Conundrum Priests have him.”
“Who told you?”
“My master.”
“I’m your master!”
“The kzin who sold us,” Monkeyshine amended quickly.
“If the Conundrum Priests have him, I’ll probably have to look elsewhere for a pilot,” grumbled Hwass in irritation.
“You won’t help him escape? I promised myself I’d be a warrior and cut off the heads of the Conundrum Priests one by one until they let him go.”
Hwass threw up his hands in a very frightening way. “If you use the word ‘warrior’ one more time in the wrong tense, I’ll have you for lunch, Walking-Meal.”