Weapons ready, they landed. Movement near the water. The snout of an automatic gun—illegal for outdwelling kzinti—was tracking them. In the instant it took Vaemar to identify it he knew that, had it been set to fire, they would have been already dead. On examination it had no ammunition. Fences carried lethal electric current but the gate was open. The main door was not merely unlocked but part open as well. Vaemar's fur bristled. This was an unheard-of thing among kzinti, save when a great one wished to show either his overwhelming security or to be extravagantly hospitable.
The racks of drying fish, some glowing brightly in decay, had attracted a multitude of small creatures apart from those circling and fighting in the air. The operating log of the processing machinery which converted the fish into highly flavored bricks much enjoyed by some kzinti, both by themselves and as a relish to ice creams and other foods, showed it had not been in use for several days.
“I estimate this operation was run by about five kzintosh,” said Vaemar, when they assembled in the main building. “In addition there were kzinretti and kittens.”
That would not have been the case before Liberation. High kzin nobles had extensive harems. Kzin kittens were usually born as male and female twins and the daughters were a valuable commodity for their fathers, negotiable instruments and presents to both superiors and clients. A mid-ranking officer of partial Name might have a clawful of females, including some from the harems of any rivals he might have quarrelled with successfully. The military hierarchy had its own system of allocations. What one human student had called “honored upper lower middle-class” kzinti—NCOs of partial name, for example—might be allotted a single female each. Naturally these tended to be both less attractive and less fertile than those the nobles kept for themselves. But since the Liberation things had become very different—so many high kzin nobles, officers, and indeed kzin males in general, were dead that there were enough kzinretti for even kzinti in trade, like these fishermen. The human government had encouraged this change in customs for several reasons, partly on the theory that females and offspring of their own would tend to give more kzintosh a vested interest in stability. Anyway, the small factory and the attached dwellings were empty.
“We stay together and search,” said Vaemar. As Marshy had told him that some of the swamp folk were inclined to blame the human disappearances on the kzinti, it had occurred to him that humans, Exterminationists or vigilantes, might very well be responsible for the disappearance of the kzinti. But humans could not fight kzinti without weapons, and there was no obvious sign that weapons had been used here—no sign of blast damage or burning from beams or plasma-guns. No lingering molecules of poison gas were detected, though their safety equipment included a highly sensitive analyzer. The empty gun was a puzzle. Had it been put there by the kzinti as a bluff, or had it in fact fired off its charges in battle?
Within the main building there was a computer, a standard kzinti Naval model with an interface to human hardware, but it was dead. In fact, upon examination it seemed to have been deliberately wrecked by someone who knew what they were doing. Otherwise there was nothing like gross damage or blast craters to suggest a violent attack. Here and there in walls and in the windows of some outbuildings were small round holes, but they did not look like the effect of any modern weapon. He took the computer's memory-bricks. They also found a telephone, but no relevant calls were logged on it. There was a kind of odd, unhealthy peace about the place. He even wondered if the whole group had simply abandoned the enterprise and moved somewhere else. But why had they left their possessions, including the costly car?
Swirl-Stripes called him. There, in a small puddle, were the bones of a very young kitten. Proof of violence and killing at last. But with no other information. The bones had been covered with small carrion-eating animals which had entirely destroyed the soft tissue and had made considerable headway in destroying the bones themselves. He put them, with a sample of the muddy ground they lay on, in a collecting-box for police attention when they returned to München. Only a small box was needed. The humans seemed saddened by the fact the kitten had still been clutching a toy prey in its hand—both Rosalind and Hugo had remarked on it.
Here and there amid the marks of various swamp-creatures there were a few old kzin tracks discernible to a trained hunter but no other recognizable tracks or footprints to give a clue what had happened. Toby suggested flying the air-car to München at once, but there was no key for it, and kzin cars were generally left in such a state as to very definitely not be vulnerable to theft or tampering.
“There appears to be ssome dangerrous enemy,” said Vaemar. His kzin accent was a little stronger now. “Swirl-sstripes and I know our duty is to hunt down this killerr of kzinti and kittens. But as Marshy hass reminded me, I am in charge of the human lives here as well. Do the humans wish to rreturn to summon help?”
“I cannot speak for the others,” said Hugo, “but I do not think I should care to have it said of me that I refused to follow where a Hero led because I was afraid.” The other humans made a nodding gesture of agreement.
“This killer of kzinti might be human,” said Vaemar.
“That is another reason we should be there,” said Hugo.
“Or send a message?”
“Let us wait and see what message we have to send.”
Rosalind appeared poised to say something, but looked at the grim, set faces of the others and evidently decided that any comment would be redundant.
“Let us move!” said Swirl-Stripes. “Every moment we stand speaking our prey may be escaping us.”
They headed deeper into the swamp. They saw no more dwellings. There were countless wild creatures, large and small, but none that presented an obvious threat to them in their strong-hulled boat, armed and alert. They saw no kzinti or humans.
The swamp changed. Channels grew wider and deeper, but the life about them grew less abundant. They were approaching the dead heart of Grossgeister. When the kzinti had concentrated the heat-induction ray on it, most of the vegetation had been too wet to burn quickly, but the waters had boiled, including the liquid that made up a good part of the internal volumes of the typical Wunderland swamp-plants. Tides and currents since then had washed away most of the masses of dead animal and vegetable organic matter, and some life-forms had begun to re-colonize the area.
With the channels generally wider here, the water was clear and empty down to a pale sandy bottom, though processions of large fish could now at times be seen swimming in from other areas. The stands of vegetation on the islands were mostly dead and crumbling. Among the grey of the dead plants on the islands some new red shoots were now beginning to appear. Crocodilians and other large animal life-forms which had scrambled or somehow flung themselves ashore in an attempt to avoid the boiling water were skeletons lining the island banks. There were human skeletons among them, too. It had, after all, been humans the kzinti had been after. Once they saw sunlight gleaming on metal among the bones: a pair of dolphin hands. Apart from the sound of the waters this part of the swamp was still very silent. The flying things stayed where there was more food.