It was a huge room, furnished simply in slashtooth fur and kudlotlin hide rugs, wooden chairs, tables. The ceiling frescoes blazed from curved arches that rivaled the sky. A gravitic sleeper, elaborately inlaid, peeked from behind a screen—he was clearly equipped to work here for long periods. A huge flatplate dominated his desk, wooden, cluttered. Ostentatious kzinretti tents filled a distant corner. An orange and yellow striped kzinrett lounged before the flaming hearth that fed into its chimney’s giant tower.
Nobody had given Grraf-Nig instructions. His inclination was to crawl forth on his belly, but the Patriarch stood and beckoned him forward across that great expanse of territory with the age-old sign of well-met in the wilderness. The grizzly old kzin next to him did not move. That would be High Admiral Ress-Chiuu.
It took all his willpower not to crawl but he did stop at a distance to give his snappiest slashing claw-across-the-face, first to the Patriarch and then to Ress-Chiuu. The impatient Patriarch summoned him again. The Riit did not even bother to introduce himself or the admiral. Instead he turned with happy ears to the reclining kzinrett by the fire. “My gift to you. From my harem. Well trained, docile. She will serve your every need. She’s been trained to do an extraordinary number of tricks. Lismichi.”
At the sound of her name, Lismichi looked up with large yellow eyes that peered out between her languid ears. The ears waved sensually.
“Come here, wench. Meet your new mount.” She rose and came. “Lie.” The Patriarch indicated a chair for Grraf-Nig—and Lismichi lay beside it, ready to have her back scratched or not. “Horowrrr!” exclaimed the Patriarch, “I believe you are more comfortable now than when you entered my lair. I smell more raunch than fear!” His ears were flapping, not nearly such beautiful ears as those of Lismichi.
Grraf-Nig remained speechless.
Ress-Chiuu was ready to begin serious discussion. “My engineers have interviewed you and believe that you can help us to build one of those ghostships that come and go. They’ve been a fearsome puzzle to us. I understand from Hwass-Hwasschoaw that you worked on a similar program at W’kkai. If we give you the whole of our resources, can we catch up? I dread to see those W’kkaikzin in a position of dominance. A brash, superficial culture ignorant of its birthing nest. Hwass tells us that W’kkai will field a major ghost fleet within an octal year. Is this truth or fantasy? In these grim days we have few sources of good information.”
“Truth. When I first arrived at W’kkai I thought in hopeful despair that it would take us an octal-squared of years to achieve our goal, and only then if we could draw upon the smuggled covert creativity of the entire Patriarchal realm. W’kkai’s naturalists astonished me with their technical powers. My best estimate is that Si-Kish’s arm is as long as his ambition. His numbers, you see, are the very numbers gave him. I will add that I expect your naturalists to astonish me, too.”
The Patriarch cleaned his fangs with black claws. “We have different strengths. The W’kkaikzin have always enjoyed puzzles and the abstract whim of symbol. Our muscle lies more in the practical, though we do have a mathematical tradition that extends back to the time of Chmeee the Blind. You’ve never been to Kzin? You must visit the caves of the Mooncatcher Mountains where the Weirdmind-Hunters chiseled the tenets of their geometry into the walls. They flayed their better theorems onto the pelts of enemies but unfortunately few such hides survived the coming of the Jotok.”
Lismichi was placidly out of the conversation but she was winding her tail up between his legs and flicking its tip. The sensation was very distracting.
Ress-Chiuu had more on his mind. “Hwass brought us an analysis of the situation on W’kkai that is disturbing, but he also brought us another very peculiar document that may mean something to you. It means nothing to any of our engineers—who claim that only a major research project can translate it into something they can even read. You were present during the humiliation at Ka’ashi. Did you ever smell the urine of Ulf Reichstein Markham?”
“On a distant breeze. He was a feral-slave who preyed in the Serpent Swarm. There was a reward offered to any kzin who brought in his head.”
“He is now Interworld Space Commissioner for the man-beasts. We have had very peculiar dealings with him. He sent us messages via Wunderland repatriates. We ignored him.” Ress-Chiuu switched into the Mocking Tense. “But he will not be ignored; we are to conquer the galaxy together with animal curiosity and Heroic discipline.” The admiral paused, as if trying to comprehend something incomprehensible. “Lately he begins to suggest that he might be able to cooperate with us—against Man-home. Monkeys delight in betraying each other. What could we lose by encouraging such folly?”
“You have contact with the tree-swingers? At W’kkai there is none.”
“At W’kkai they are wasps, swarming at every prod. We have no choice but to make contact and restrain our patrols. The MacDonald-Rishshi Treaty was written here. It needs adjusting, discussion, concession. Markham has helped us with some commercial deals. We are cut off by the blockade and are forced to use human ships for trade. Our trade is stifled, theirs prospers. They forge wealth at our expense. We tinker a little money, too, with cooling iron castoffs in a cold corner of the mongery—but it is their money which must, in the end, be spent on them. We sent Markham some money to grease our pitiful trade interests. Strangely, he has just sent us a document via Hwass.”
“Hwass mentioned some nonsense. I mean no offense—was the Markham-beast offering human subservience and tribute to the Patriarchy?”
Ress-Chiuu stood up to pace. “ ‘Subservience and tribute’ is not the correct translation of the word”—he butchered his attempt at English—“ ‘peace.’ I refer you to the linguists. But let us not deal with incomprehensible alien psychology. Let us deal with this manuscript that our engineers cannot understand.” He pulled out a thick sheath of paper. “The document is also available electronically for quick scan, but I want you to sniff through the paper version and give me a quick opinion. What is it?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now!” snarled Ress-Chiuu impatiently.
Grraf-Nig read bits and pieces, skipping pages. “It is pedantic and in the high formal English grammar,” he said. “I have my troubles speaking the language but no trouble reading it.”
“Good. Does it amount to gibberish about alien harmony and the music of the spheres and astrological farting among the thistles of prescient weeds—or does it have any red meat? My engineers say it contains equations but the notation is unfamiliar to them. I understand that the monkey astrological texts also contain equations.”
Moments later Grraf-Nig lifted his muzzle in astonishment. “It’s a discussion of hyperspace mechanics!”
“Markham’s meanderings said as much but we are not altogether ready to believe a monkey who makes his way across the battlefield singing to birds!”
“What now?”
“Read on, you begat of a lice-infested female kshat. Is this meat or is it mushroom?”
Grraf-Nig read, all the while wishing he could nail Shakespeare-Newton to Hwass’s Kdapt cross so that he might save himself from the agony of their notational sins. Patriarch and admiral waited as if they could hear approaching prey in the bushes. Lismichi rubbed her head against his leg. He located a likely-looking equation and painfully translated it into kzinti script. It still didn’t make sense but it was exactly the equation one would use for a rotation into hyperspace if such a thing had meaning.