“It makes a loud noise that carries a long way.”
“I know that. Why would I need to?”
“Who knows? But if you did, and you didn't have a whistle, wouldn't you feel foolish?” Peace said reasonably.
He completed his inspection in silence, less disturbed by this logic than by his agreement with it. After closing the kit, he said, “That tasted surprised.”
“That's what I was trying for. I like meat to taste more exhausted, but then I used to be human.”
“I thought so,” he said sadly. “Should I have a Name?” he added, which would have given some people the impression he was changing the subject.
“Without a doubt,” she replied. “Humans get them at birth, and you're practically human in some ways. You don't attack when there's no chance of success, for example. And you make conversation, which is how humans keep constantly apprised of everything.”
The kzin needed time to get the implications of this, so Peace rose and ran to the next job. It wasn't immediately urgent, but nothing was at the moment, and it was important in the long run: producing a noncontagious Protector virus—that is, one that infected plants but not people—whose shell binding used a porphyrin nexus other than thallium. Cobalt looked good. According to Brennan, there had been cases of Pak Protectors dying of old age at 28,000 or so, but given the constant regeneration of tissues and reconstruction of the DNA therein this was obviously the result of cumulative trace thallium poisoning. Another tnuctip safety feature.
Manexpert had taken a lot of time to think, and the next morning he located Peace in yet another dome. It was a big dome, and it held an assembly that looked like an immense balloon tire, made of metal and lying on its side. The thing floated several feet off the ground, and Peace wore a harness that adjusted gravity so as to reach any part of the assembly. Manexpert was vaguely aware of the infeasibility of making a gravity planer that small, but by this point was so far beyond surprise at anything Peace could do that he would have accepted it without question if he'd been shown a groundcar and told that it was powered by its driver's sense of propriety. “Good morning,” Peace called to him. “Come up on a cargo plate.”
He saw what it meant, found the controls obvious, and went up to join it where it was working at an access panel. “You're defying your Maker,” he said without preamble.
“Sure am.”
“How is that possible?”
“It's called free will,” Peace said, still looking into the aperture its hands were in. “It's why you can talk to me instead of attacking, for example, which is what you were made for. It does help that you're more intelligent than your forerunners. They attacked humans without even wondering why. Died without reproducing, of course. Humans and kzinti have been very helpful to each other that way.”
“I don't follow you.” It would have shamed him to just admit that to a mortal being, but this was different.
“All the kzinti stupid enough to attack humans, and all the humans stupid enough to try to talk their way out of a fight with kzinti, have been removed from their respective species' gene pools. Both races average a little smarter with every War. If you people learn to tell tactful lies and pretend not to understand what you hear, you'll actually be able to engage in diplomacy.”
“I've heard the word before, but it didn't make sense until now.”
“You've heard diplomatic definitions, from humans. Most humans have a natural tendency toward diplomacy, to the point of believing their own reassurances.”
“Delusion?” Manexpert said.
“Of course. But usually ones that can be lived with. Kzinti have their own comforting delusions.”
Manexpert didn't say anything, experimenting with diplomacy.
After a moment, Peace asked, “If you had vastly superior weapons, perfect troop discipline, and overwhelming numbers, could you conquer humanity?”
“Of course.”
“With me on the human side? Look around you. How long do you think you've been in stasis and the autodoc?”
Manexpert halved his first guess, then halved it again. “Four years?”
“Forty-one days. I'd have made a lot more progress if I hadn't had to do all that medical research… Nobody is entirely in his right mind, kzin or human. Delusions keep people from going any crazier. Perfect sanity is a burden far too vast for a mortal mind to bear. The nearest humans ever get to it is a condition called paranoia, and that generally just decays into a more plausible set of delusions than is usual. Kzinti Telepaths are constantly on the verge of complete sanity, and it turns them into terrified wrecks. You would do well to avoid any mention of me when you get back to Kzin. Too close to absolute reality.” Peace was silent for a few moments, squinting as it worked, and said, “That'll have to do. Don't try to fly this thing through a star, though.”
“I'm not a fool.”
“But you're a kzin, and therefore fearless, right? That was irony. Follow me, we can see if your pressure suit needs improvements.” She led him to an entry hatch.
He had things on his mind, and couldn't choose between them. Peace took over the conversation to take the pressure off, so anything that really mattered to him would work its way out on its own. She took the time to show him such consideration. She liked him. He had a kind of feral innocence to him, and was sufficiently alien that she actually had to think a little to predict what he would do. He was smarter than the rest of his ship's company put together, as well—he kept thinking of surprise attacks, which was merely brighter than average, but he kept figuring out why each one wouldn't work, too, which was unique.
Also, he was fluffy and smelled like gingerbread.
“I made the sleeves and leggings short so the gloves and boots would stay on by themselves, the way the short torso keeps the helmet seated,” she showed him. “I noticed the combat team were all chafed bald where the straps went around their wrists and ankles. Your tools and fittings are all in front. The recyclers they had were really poor, not even as good as humans use, so I put this together. The backpack unstraps to swing around for access during use. That articulated hullmetal mail was pretty heavy, so I've just used layers of interacting polymers, which are actually better because hullmetal won't seal itself after a meteor puncture. I'm afraid the foodmaker is only one flavor; I didn't want to take chances on the cultures mutating. You can override the filters in the helmet to let in more light, but what gets in through the rest of the suit can't be increased. I didn't know your tastes in entertainment, but there's a crystal player, and some things I was able to salvage from your ship. These are for grooming, during extended stays in the suit—this paddle draws them along from outside, and as you see they return. There won't be nutritional deficiencies, but the suit's doc isn't up to much more than gluing broken bones and maintaining circulation in a crushed limb while it heals. If you stay out of trouble, though, the suit should be good indefinitely. Try it on.”
She waited for him to go through the checklist, even though she could see everything was right. She wasn't the one who needed to know it was right, in order for the suit to have any purpose. While he was doing that, she again speculated on the possibility that starseeds had been created as a genetic lifeboat for the tnuctipun, with Outsiders a machine lifeform created to guard them, immune like all machines to Slaver power. It was possible, but couldn't be checked without taking apart a starseed, and she still hadn't come up with a way to be safe from Outsiders if she did that. (Though if she cut into a starseed without being shot, sliced, blown up, neatly sorted out by isotopic weight, or accelerated off the edge of the visible universe, it would indicate that the theory was probably flawed. It was not an immediate concern.)