I laughed harder than he would have expected. “I'm not an ARM. No authority at all. Do you want Fly-By-Night freed? Do you want your own freedom?”
“We had that! LE Graynor, when Fly-By-Night bought us from the orange underground market on Shasht, he swore to free us. On Sheathclaws chains of lakes run from mountains to sea. We would have bred in their lakes. All of the Jotoki populace of Sheathclaws would be our descendants. We have been robbed of our destiny!”
I asked, “Did Fly-By-Night take more slaves than just you?”
“No.”
“Then who did you expect to mate with?”
“We are five! Jotoki grow like your eels, not sapient. Reach first maturity, seek each other, cluster in fives. Brains grow links. Reach second maturity, seek a lake, divide, breed and die, like your salmon. LE Mart, you yourselves are two minds joined by a structure called corpus callosum. Join is denser in Kzinti, that species has less redundancy, but still brain is two lobes. We are five lobes, narrow joins. Almost individuals cooperate, Par-Rad-Doc-Sic-Cal, Doc talks, Par walks, Cal for fine-scale coordination. Almost five-lobe mind, sometimes lock in indecision. In trauma or in fresh water we may divide again. May join again to cluster differently, different person. You perceive?” Futz, it was an interesting picture, but I'd never grasp what it was like to be Jotok. The point was that Paradoxical was a breeding population. I asked, “Are you hungry? What do you eat?”
“Privately.”
“Didn't Fly-By-Night see you eat?”
“Only once.”
I'd put a handmeal in my pocket, but I wouldn't eat in front of Paradoxical after that. “Orange market?”
“An extensive market exists among the Shasht Kzinti. They trade intelligence, electronics, stolen goods and slaves. Shasht the continent is nearly lifeless. They seeded several lakes for our breeding and confinement, but without maintenance they die off. The trade could be stopped. Our lakes must show a different color from orbit. I surmise the law has no interest.”
“You once held an interstellar empire—”
“My master tells me so. The slavers don't teach us. Properly speaking, they do not hold slaves at all. They hold fish ponds. When a purchaser wants a Jotok, five swimming forms are allowed to assemble. Our master is the first thing we see.”
“Who chose your name?”
“My master. I am free and slave, many and one, land and sea dweller, a paradox.”
“He really does think in Interworld, doesn't he? They must teach kzinti as a second language.”
A magnetic grapple locked in place, and the first module came free. My pocket computer dinged. We listened:
Longest War, a political entity never named until after the Second War With Men, has since been claimed by many Kzinti groups. It may appear in connection with piracy, disappearing LEs or disappearing ships, but never an action against planets or a major offensive. Claim has been made, never proved, that Longest War are any Patriarch's servants whom the Patriarch must disclaim. We surmise also that the Longest War names any group who hope for the eye of the Patriarch. Events include 2399 Serpent Swarm, 2410 Kdat…
Fly-By-Night had drifted so far that he was hard to find, just a twinkle of lensed light as starfog glow passed behind his vac refuge. Why didn't they retrieve him? Was it really Fly-By-Night they wanted, or something else? I watched Stealthy-Mating's boat retrieve a second cargo module. They weren't being careful. Two of those boxes held only Fafnir's thousand varieties of fish, but the other… was in a quantum state. It held and did not hold Sharrol/Milcenta and Jenna/Jeena, until some observer could open the module. In all the years I'd flown for Nakamura Lines, I had never seen a vac pack used. Light-years from any world, miles from any ship, with nothing but clear plastic skin between me and the ravenous vacuum… it seemed a good time to look it over.
This wasn't the brand we'd carried. It was newer, or else a more expensive model.
Loops of tough ribbon hung everywhere: handholds. Air tank. A tube two liters in volume had popped out. Inner zip, outer zip: an airlock. We could be fed through that, or get rid of wastes… a matter I would not raise with Paradoxical just yet.
A light. A sleeve and glove taped against the wall, placed to reach the outer zip. Here was a valve… hmm… a valve ending in a little cone outside. Inside, a handle to aim it.
To any refugee there might come a moment when a jet is more important than breathing-air.
Not yet.
“Why would you want to rescue my master?” Paradoxical asked.
“They have my wife and daughter and unborn, one chance out of three. Two out of three they're still safe aboard Odysseus. Would you bet?”
“No Jotok knows his parent. Might you find another mate and generate more children?”
I didn't answer.
“How do you like your battle plan so far?”
I couldn't hear sarcasm, but I inferred it. I said, “I have a spare vac pack. So does Fly-By-Night. Did you see what he did? He triggered a pack on the wall. Kept his own. And Heidi passed me something.”
“What did the girl give you?”
“Might be some kind of toy.”
The Jotok said, “Mee-rowreet means make slaves and beasts go where can be killed. Not Envoy. Whasht-meery means infested or diseased, too rotted or parasitical for even a starving predator. Prey that dies too easily, opponent who exposes belly too soon, is suspect whasht-meery.”
I waited for our spin to hide me from Stealthy-Mating's telescopes before I pulled Heidi's gift free.
It was foam plastic, light and bulky. A toy needle gun. If this was real, her parents… Wait, now, Heidi was almost forty years old!
They wouldn't think quite like human adults, these children, but their brains were as big as they were going to get. Their parents might want them able to protect themselves… and if not, she and her brother had spent decades learning how to manipulate their parents.
I couldn't test it.
“Needle gun. Anesthetic crystals,” I told Paradoxical. “They won't get through armor. One wouldn't knock out a Kzin anyway. Better than nothing, though. Where is Fly-By-Night's w'tsai?”
“You saw.”
“Paradoxical, we are in too much trouble to be playing children's games.” Paradoxical said nothing.
Stealthy-Mating's boat locked on to the third cargo module.
I said, “That was fun to watch, though. Giving Packer silverware!” Paradoxical rotated to show me his mouth.
I saw a star of tentacles around a circle of lip enclosing five circles of tiny teeth in a pentagon. Something emerged from one circle of teeth. Paradoxical vomited up a long, narrow, padded mailing bag. I pulled it free, unzipped it, and had a yard of blade and handle.
The blade looked like dark steel. The light caught a minute ripple effect… but it was all wrong. To my fingertip's touch the ripple was just a picture. The blade weighed almost nothing. The weight was all in the handle.
In the end of the hilt was a small black enamel bat. Bats exist only on Earth and in the zoo on Jinx, but that ancient Batman symbol has gone to every human world. Fly by night.
Futz, I had to try it on something.
My lockstep ring had a silver case. That's a soft metal, but the blade only scratched it. I tested my thumb on the edge, gingerly. Blunt.
Customs change. A weapon can be purely ceremonial… but why make the handle so heavy? Why was Paradoxical watching me?
Because it was a puzzle.
Push the enamel bat. Nothing.
Wiggle the blade. Push it in, risk my fingers, feel it give. A Kzin could push harder. Nothing? Pull out, and my fingertips felt a hum. The look of the blade didn't change. Carefully now, don't touch the edge…
It sliced neatly through my lockstep ring, with a moment's white sputter as circuitry burned out. The cut edges of the classic silver band shone like little mirrors. There should have been some resistance.