“Beyond madness.”
“There's no point anyway. If we could take the boat, we still couldn't break lightspeed, because the hyperdrive motor is on the ship. We'd die of old age here in the Nursery Nebula.”
“You don't have a plan?”
I was still feeling it out. “The only way out has us waiting for these bandits to berth the boat to Stealthy-Mating. Maybe it's a good thing Fly-By-Night doesn't have his w'tsai. Kzinti self-control is… there's a word—”
“Oxymoron. But my master integrates selves well.”
“They'll have to move the cargo modules inside the ship. Can't leave them where they are, they're blocking the magnets, the docking points. Where does that leave us? Whatever we do, we want the ship and the boat. After they berth the boat, likely enough they'll still leave the cabin in vacuum and us in these bubbles.”
“My kind can survive six days without food. Two without water.”
Two of the Kzinti crew might have been asleep. The third wasn't doing much. One presently stirred—Envoy, by his suit markings—got up and disappeared into the big box with a door in it. Fifteen minutes later he was back. Wouldn't a shower or a toilet have to be under pressure?
I watched my alien companions and my alien enemies. I watched the magnificent pageant of stars being born. I thought and I read.
Read everything.
Covenants of 2505. Commentary, then and recent. Kzinti sociology. Revisions: what constitutes torture… loss of limbs and organs… sensory deprivation. Violations. The right to a speedy trial, to speedy execution, not to be evaded. What is a Legal Entity…
Male Kzinti were LEs. A computer program was not. Heidi and Nicolaus were not, poor kids, but Kzin kittens weren't either; it was a matter of maturity as an evolved being. Jotoki and Kdat were LEs unless legitimately enslaved. Entities with forged identities were not. Ice Class passengers were LEs. Good! Was there a rule against lying to hostages? Of course not, but I looked.
Paradoxical produced a computer from his backpack and went to work. I didn't ask what he might be learning.
I did not see Fly-By-Night tearing at his prison. When I caught his eye, I clawed at my own bubble. Our captors might be reassured if they saw some sign of hysterics, of despair.
He didn't take the hint.
Maybe I had him all wrong.
A telepath born among the Kzinti will be found as a kzitten, conscripted, and addicted to chemicals to bring out his ability. Telepaths detect spies and traitors; they assist in jurisprudence; they gradually go crazy. Alien minds drive them crazy much faster.
If a telepath feels an opponents' pain, he can't easily fight for mates. For generations the Patriarchy discouraged their telepaths from breeding. Then, battling an alien enemy during the Man-Kzin Wars, they burned them out. Probably Envoy had spoken truth: what the Kzinti wanted from Fly-By-Night was more telepaths.
They'd get the location of Sheathclaws out of him. After they had what they wanted, they'd give him a harem. They'd imprison him in luxury. Envoy had said they wouldn't force the drug on him; it might be true.
A Kzin might settle for that.
I could come blasting out of my plastic bottle, screaming my air away, w'tsai swinging… cut him loose, and find myself fighting alone while he blew up another bubble for himself.
Fly-By-Night floated quite still, very relaxed, ears folded. He might have been asleep. He might have been watching his three captors guide the boat toward Stealthy-Mating.
I watched their ears. Ears must make it hard for a Kzin to lie. Lying to a hologram might be easier… and they wouldn't have called him Envoy for nothing.
Flick-flick of ears, bass meeping, a touch on the controls. We were flying through a lethal intensity of gamma rays.
The Jotok's armtips rippled over his keyboard. His computer was a narrow strip of something stiff; he'd glued or velcroed it to the bubble wall. The keyboard and holoscreen were projections. I knew the make—“Paradoxical? Isn't that a Gates Quintillian?”
“Yes. Human-built computers are superior to Patriarchy makes.”
“Oh, that explains the corks! Fly-By-Night's fingers are too big for the keyboard, so he puts corks on his nails!”
The Jotok said, “You are Beowulf Shaeffer.”
I spasmed like an electrocuted frog, then turned to gawk at him. “How can you possibly…?”
How can you possibly think that a seven foot tall albino has lost fourteen inches of height and got himself curly black hair and a tan?
Hair dye and tannin secretion pills, and futz that, we had real trouble. I asked, “Have you spent three hours researching me?”
“You are the only ally at hand. I need to understand you better. You are wanted by the ARM for conspiracy abduction, four counts.”
“Four?”
“Sharrol Janss, Carlos Wu, and two children. Feather Filip is your suspect coconspirator. ARM interest seems to lie in the lost genes of Carlos Wu, but Sharrol Janss is alleged to be a flat phobe, hence would never have left Earth willingly.”
“We all ran away together.”
“My interest lies in your abilities, not your crimes. You were a civilian spacecraft pilot. Were you trained for agility in free fall?”
“Yes. Any emergency in a spacecraft, gravity is the first thing that goes.”
“You're agile if you've escaped the ARM thus far. What has your reading gained you?”
“We have to live. We have to win.”
“These would be good ideas—”
“No, you don't get it.” The Jotok had to understand. “The Covenants of 2505 permit taking of hostages. They only put restrictions on their treatment. I've played those futzy documents three times through. Odysseus is hostages-in-a-box, live and frozen. They won't starve. Envoy can take Fly-By-Night anywhere he likes, however long it takes, then come back and release Odysseus. It's all in the Covenants.”
“If anything goes wrong,” Paradoxical said, “they would never come.”
“No, it's worse than that! If everything goes right for them, there's no good reason to go back unless it's to fill the food lockers! The Covenants only apply when you're caught. My family is one hundred percent dead if we can't change that.”
“Envoy's word may be good. No! Bad gamble. We should study the pot odds. Beowulf, have you evolved a plan?”
“I don't know enough.”
The three crew were awake now, watching us as we watched them, though mostly they watched Fly-By-Night.
Paradoxical's talker burst to life. My translator said, “Tell us of the fight that injured you.”
Fly-By-Night was slow to answer. “Sheathclaws folk are fond of hang gliding. We make much bigger hang gliders for Kzinti, and not so many of us fly. I was near grown, seeking a name. My intent was to fly from Blood Park to Touchdown, three hundred klicks along rocky shore and then inland, at night. Land in Offcentral Park. Startle humans into fits.”
Packer snarled, “Startling humans is no fit way to earn a name!” and the unnamed Kzin asked, “Wouldn't the thermals be different at night?”
Fly-By-Night said, “Very different.”
“Your second naming quest brought you here,” Envoy stated.
“Yes. I hoped that a scarred Kzin might pass among other Kzinti. Challenge would be less likely. Any lapse in knowledge might be due to head injury. I might pass more easily on a world part Kzin and part human, like Shasht-Fafnir.”
“You dance lightly over an important matter. Who lifted you from your world?”
“Where would be my honor if I told you that?”
“Smugglers? Bandits? What species? You will give us that too, Nameless.” We heard the click: communication severed.
One of the Kzinti stood up. Another slashed the vacuum, a mere wrist gesture, but the first sat down again. The stars wheeled… and something that was not a star came into view, brilliant in pure laser colors: Stealthy-Mating's riding lights.