“We were alone. Time passed. We hunted and survived. Those of us who could operate the ship's radios listened for orders from our masters, for words of others of our kind, but we heard nothing.
“Many more Jotoki died then of masterlessness. We, and some like us, did not. We knew we had no living masters. And we and those who are like us prepared to strike back.
“We have journeyed far from the ship. We have killed the kz'eerkti and the kzinti. We feast on them and on the swimming creatures. This realm we make our own.
“We see the pictures that the kz'eerkti transmit. We have learnt from them a little of what was taken from us. We, and the Jotoki species, have learnt of revenge!”
Swirl-Stripes moaned again. Vaemar was suddenly aware of Anne beside him. “Keep him talking,” she mouthed. His acute hearing just picked up the words. He wondered if the Jotok could lip-read human speech. It seemed highly unlikely. Everything so far had been said by it—by them?—in an odd blend of the slave's patois with additional odd and insolent importations from the Heroes' Tongue.
“This realm we make our own…” Hardly. And perhaps he could do worse than point that out right away.
“The disappearances in Grossgeister Swamp are already starting to attract attention,” he said. He spoke straight up at the image, though he did not know from where he was actually being observed. “That is partly why we are here. If we do not return without further harm, more will come in greater force. Your realm will not last long.”
“I see you have kz'eerkti slaves working for you now that you have abandoned us,” said the Jotok. Vaemar disentangled resentment in the scrambled tenses. Have these Jotok become jealous of humans? Certainly, it was plain they had no idea how things really stood on Wunderland. I can hardly expect them to think like us. And then he thought: They have only seen the world from the point-of-view of kzinti techno-slaves. They know nothing of how things really are. And almost like us when we collided with the humans, no real experience of war except the old style of kzin wars of conquest. Ambushing paddlers in the swamp is not war. Even at the very first, they were traders, not warriors… And that led to another thought.
“Do you seek to trade?” he asked.
“Trade?”
“Your ancestors traded.”
“We seek revenge for our ancestors. We are angry. We have much to avenge.”
“So do we!” He thought of the flayed kzinti corpses in the compartment below. But vengefulness was the most dangerous of all emotions for a kzin on Wunderland. There was a lost war to avenge, and for all kzinti that was a demon living in their minds that needed strong caging. It sometimes escaped.
“Our vengeance has begun,” the Jotok replied. “As we begin to understand what we have lost.”
“Your ancestors were traders. We offer you trade again.” So, I must become an instant expert on another alien psychohistory, he thought. As if having to learn to live among humans as an equal was not enough. Yet perhaps what he had learned among humans was a help. He was practiced in thinking the unthinkable, in saying the unsayable, in dealing with members of an alien species rather than taking them automatically as slaves and prey. He could at least talk to the Jotok. The creatures were silent for a moment, as if in thought. Then they asked: “What have you to trade?”
“The oldest trade there is. Our lives for yours.”
“Say on, kzin.”
“Kill us, and others will follow us to this ship. Next time they will be shooting as they come. Release us, and you may live.”
“Zrrch! So a kzin begs for its life!” Could there be a deadlier insult? Vaemar felt his ears knotting with the effort as he again fought down the urge to scream and leap at the image. I am Vaemar! I am Vaemar-Riit! I am Son of Chuut-Riit! I can control my emotions!
“For the lives of others!”
The Jotok seemed to hesitate. Presumably its brains were conferring among themselves.
“We have killed kzinti,” it/they replied. “We know kzinti. Kzinti will not forgive!”
That was true.
“Also we have killed kz'eerkti, kzinti's new favorite slaves. Kzinti will not forgive.”
A certain information gap there, thought Vaemar. But basically this monstrosity is right. They have done too much to be allowed to live. Besides, I have no authority to make a binding deal with them. And the monkey-trick of lying is not available to me.
“And I have no authority to deal,” added the Jotok, as if echoing Vaemar's own thoughts. Was that some dim race-memory of a civilization that had had organization, consultation, hierarchy? “Only to kill.” This was in the Heroes' Tongue, nearly pure. “And to tell you, kzinti, before you die, of the wrath and vengeance of the Jotoki, whom you have twice betrayed! Take that message to your Fanged God! You will die, kzinti, but you will know your killers.”
Its mouths struggled with an untranslatable alien word: “Rrrzld… stand clear!”
“There!” Anne pointed.
The Jotok was on a small gantry near the deckhead, largely concealed in the shadows cast from the patch of sky. A Jotok band might once have played there for the pleasure of the Captain. Vaemar jumped and fired the beam rifle with kzin speed an instant before the Jotok could operate its own weapons. The Jotok, hit in its center by the beam, staggered to the edge of the balcony, drew itself up, and fell. In a convulsive spasm its toroidal neurochord ruptured, its five arms separating themselves into the individuals they had originally been. Vaemar's Ziirgah sense reeled for a moment under the psychic blast of their agony. For a hideous second he almost understood what it was like to be a colonial animal torn apart, and not for the first time gave an instant's thanks he was not a telepath. Other Jotok—large, mature Jotok—appeared, running for the balcony which, they saw, carried a set of heavy rifles, mounted in quad. Anne and Hugo shot them down with the strakkakers. Karan screamed and leapt. Vaemar spun on his hind-legs. Three more Jotoki rushed out of the darkness at them, kzin w'tsais whirling in their hands. Vaemar leapt after Karan. Together they dismantled them.
There was silence on the bridge for a moment, save for rustling like forest leaves as the small Jotok fled, and thrashing of severed Jotok arms and brains, their voices diminishing into death. Behind and below them were more purposeful sounds.
“We must get out now!”
The hole in the deckhead was not an impossible leap for a kzin in Wunderland's gravity, but it was far too high for a human, even if Hugo had been unwounded, and there was the dead weight of Swirl-Stripes. The tough sinews and central nerve-toroids of the dead Jotok, however, when separated by Vaemar's w'tsai and razor-like claws, plus the expedition-members' belts, plus the humans' clothes knotted together, made a sling. Modern fabrics could stand huge stresses without tearing. While the humans held the Jotok back with short bursts from their weapons, Vaemar and Karan scrambled to the gantry, and leapt to the opening. They hoisted the others out one by one.
Coming into the bright sunlight, with the wide rippling blue-green water and the wind from the sea, was for a moment like leaping into a new world. But it was, Vaemar thought, as he hefted the rifle again and surveyed the situation, a world they might not enjoy long.
They were on the upper part of the kzin cruiser's ovoid hull, which curved down to the water a dozen yards away. The surface would hardly have afforded a purchase for feet or claws were it in pristine condition, but it was pitted by minor damage and there was a build-up of molds and other biological debris.