“Yes. Have you seen much of this home of yours, Raargh-Sergeant?”
“I have been in the Patriarch's Forces since I was a youngster. I have gone where I was sent.”
“The mountains?”
“Yes, of course, as I said. I was made Sergeant and Raargh-Sergeant in campaigning.”
“There could be good hunting there, for man or kzin.”
“Yes.”
“There still can be.”
“I do not understand.”
“No place for you here now. No place for you on Kzinhome. The hills are wide.”
“And what of Hroarh-Captain?”
“The UNSN will need him, and all the very few kzin officers who have survived, to administer the kzin population. Montferrat-Palme has made arrangements.”
“As the Jorg-human was needed by us?” So the humans' highest controller had been a secret feral too.
“No. Come a proper peace settlement, the kzin will not be enslaved. In any event, they could not be… That kitten, is he your son?”
“No. A war orphan.”
“So he will die?”
“Male kits who lose their fathers too soon usually die, unless a kzintosh without get of his own adopts them.”
“There must be many orphans on this planet now.”
“Many indeed.”
“I suppose the UNSN will be sitting up orphanages for kittens as well as children. It will be interesting to see the results in a generation or so.”
“You would turn our children into monkeys?”
“No. Take your hand from your w'tsai. It would be futile to even try. But you asked of Hroarh-Captain. I see a place for him.”
“And the Jorg?”
“A traitor. He goes to the Free Wunderlanders.”
“He dies.”
“I will not kill him. But I will shed no tears for him. How would you feel about a kzin who did what he has done?”
“I do not know tears. But you monkeys are hard to understand. No Hero would do what he has done.”
“Raargh-Sergeant…”
“Raargh-Sergeant no more. There is no force for me to be Sergeant.”
“Raargh, then.”
The single, rankless Name hung for a moment in the air as the kzin tasted it. “Raargh, I cannot allow you to spill more human blood. You understand that.” Jocelyn strode to them.
“Raargh-Sergeant! There can be no further delay. It is time for your kzin to hand over their weapons now! We have two gun cars outside now. And there are more humans all round the monastery, armed. If you refuse I will take it as an act of war, and one UNSN officer and one geriatric priest will not interfere.”
Think quickly, he told himself.
Then: “Very well.”
He spoke to the others in the Heroes' Tongue, using the ordinary dominant tense in which military orders were given.
“Step back from the weapons.”
“And your own, Raargh-Sergeant!”
He set down the beam rifles.
“I suppose you had better stay here for the time being. I have no facilities for these wounded. You may be moved to a holding camp later.”
“Jocelyn-Captain… the Ptrr-Brunurn. He is a trophy of the Sergeants' Mess.”
“I said he could remain. I will abide by my word.”
“But there is no Sergeants' Mess now, only a few wounded kzinti who will soon be gone I know not where. We can no longer toast him with ritual and honor him and Kzarl-Sergeant. I give him back to you, so humans at least may honor him as he deserves. He is at risk of being dishonored otherwise.”
“Very well.”
“There is another matter. Chuut-Riit's urine.” He indicated the ceremonial jar.
“What do I want with cat piss? We will clear that stink away from this world.”
“It was a great gift to the Mess, presented in token of our Honor and Valor. Again there is no Mess. You are the conqueror. Do with it what you will, but it is a great trophy and thing of pride for us. A great night it was.” Of feasting, too, though I should not say that, lest she think upon that feast. But, oh, my Sire, and O Honored Chuut-Riit, it tears my liver and shaves my mane to do this thing! Know that I pick my way as best I can along trails of Honor that have grown twisted. “A gift from an old ratcat who tried to fight with Honor.”
“Very well.” She passed her beam rifle to a trooper and took the jar, noting, perhaps, its intricate carvings and inlays. She gestured at Jorg von Thoma. “Come.”
The human party turned and walked towards the car. Staff Colonel Cumpston lingered, looking back at the collection of wounded kzinti.
“I will carry the Ptrr-Brunurn,” said Raargh. He beckoned to the kit. “Vaemar,” he said, “give me good help to move this honored human. For you see my arm and legs are little use.” To the colonel he said, “There is a debt.” The human nodded just perceptibly. “I know that Heroes are honorable in their debts,” he said, “for good or ill. I may collect this debt one day… In the meantime, your Name as your word that you will harm no more humans?”
“My Name as my word. Save in defense.”
“I have been a sergeant myself. If I may say so, perhaps old sergeants of all kinds tend to understand one another. It is a thankless job.”
“Thankless? We of the Patriarch's forces do not serve for thanks but for knowledge of Honor upheld.”
“I know.”
“And sometimes for the loot, of course… Centurion.”
“You know that word? Yes. I see the jar is heavy.”
They followed the other humans to the cars. The rear part of the second was already filled with the human and kzin remains that had been retrieved from the aerial combat, scorched, smoking, smelling like… a smell that Raargh realized he had had too much of, in the last few weeks and the last few years. I have had enough, he realized with amazement. He and Vaemar-Riit worked Peter Brennan's block into the small area that was left. He turned to the colonel. “I ask you, one more thing. Not for myself, but for him: he has no colored ribbons for bravery like you but see that he is not buried as you bury humans under white stones.”
“I will speak to the abbot. He will be reopening the monastery as it was. It will be up to him, I think. You know that you kzinti made us religious again.”
“Farewell.”
His w'tsai was out in a blur of light. He flung it with inhuman accuracy into the small intake port of the car. He seized the kit in one arm, Jorg in the other. A standing leap took him into the cockpit of the other car. He slammed the canopy closed, struck at the switches with claws and prosthetic hand that moved too fast for a human eye to follow. The glass and Teflon needles of a strakkaker sizzled into the car, turning half the canopy behind him opaque. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jocelyn drop the precious jar and snatch for a beam rifle. But the second's delay was enough. The car was already airborne, accelerating away at full thrust.
He dived, pulling out centimeters above the roofs of the human shanties. A couple of bolts came after him, but the buildings and then the smoke blinded the shooters. He banked away from an approaching human ground vehicle with red crosses on its sides and, hugging the ground, zoomed towards Grossgeister Swamp, swerving to left and right as they passed the first surviving trees. The car buffeted and boomed into supersonic, reached full acceleration.
The monastery left behind, he climbed fast, eye flickering to the fuel gauge. They could travel a long way yet. The landscape opening up below was pockmarked with craters, and there were scattered fires and drifting smoke, but the smoke was lit by the passage of no lasers and there were no new explosions. Across Wunderland the cease-fire seemed to be holding.
The UNSN would be sending radio warnings about him, but as long as he headed away from militarily sensitive areas, they would probably not shoot him down. They would have much else to do and a crippled sergeant and a human would hardly be worth the effort. Still, he stealthed the car.
The silver water and dark vegetation of the swamp flashed below, then open parklike land again, in the Wunderland multicolor of plants, the local red, the green of Earth and the orange of Kzin. A purplish tinge of night was beginning to appear in the sky and Alpha Centauri B stood forth in its glory. He turned to his passengers.