The idea of any non-kzin having a Name was, to a kzin of the old school, a contradiction in terms, though after two wars devastatingly lost to the humans some kzinti attitudes were changing, and not, Trader thought, only among the Wunderkzin-the Kdaptist families of Wunderland, like his own. Kzinti had, for purposes of identification and communication, in their first major war against a spacefaring enemy since they overthrew the Jotoki millennia before, come to identify human warships by their own odd names: Missouri, Graf Spee, Ark Royal, Yamato, Blue Baboon, Male Mandrill, and so forth, and individual humans as welclass="underline" simply to refer to "the monkeyship" or "the dominant monkey" had been unsatisfactory for military intelligence purposes. But on a backwater planet like Kzrral he had not expected the old ways to have altered so.
"They give themselves names. To tell one another apart, I suppose, since they cannot smell and their sight and hearing are poor," Hunt Master said. "It seems the easiest thing to do. Since they attach no honor to them there is no dishonor in us using them."
So even in these circumstances they are subverting your culture a little, Trader thought.
He left the bodies to the trophy-takers and they hurried on to follow the hunt on foot. In the dark trees ahead and above them was a confusion of cries. Another young kzin fell not far away, fangs and claws tearing at a monkey that in turn still slashed with a knife that looked the size of a w'tsai. There was also a commotion on the ground under the dark bushes away to the left. Trader, night-eyed, saw three young kzinti struggling on the ground with the shapes of Jotoki. Hunt Master must have seen it too, but he affected not to notice. Young kzinti caught and killed-or were killed by-their own prey. Trrask-Rarr was dismembering another simian.
"They're certainly tool-users," said Trader.
"Oh yes, there's even a lot of standardization in their gear." They crossed to the combatants, who had fallen silent.
"I'd like to get one of those knives of theirs. I will gladly part with a piece of gold."
"Take that one, then." He gestured at the two still forms of kzin and simian on the ground, locked together in death. "Neither of them will be needing it again. Two pieces of gold."
"Indeed, it does not become me to offer a warrior such as yourself less than a fair price. Two pieces it shall be."
A crescendo of simian and kzinti screams filled the night. Again the whistle and thump of arrows came to the felinoids' ears. There was the roar of kzinti rifles.
"That sounds like their counterattack," Hunt Master said, "as I warned the kits."
"Counterattack? Is that common?"
"The monkeys often have a reserve waiting. They watch and see what they're up against. If it's seasoned warriors they pull back. If it's kits and youngsters they'll wait till they are engrossed in the chase and scattered, then come up. You see a kit who collects kz’eerkti ears here can feel he's earned them."
"It sounds like a properly organized military culture."
"It is. Well, Trader, how does their potential strike you? Nice house slaves for Kzinhome? Decorous tenders of the Nobility's harems? Would this-" he turned the female over with his foot, its bloody head and slack, splayed limbs flopping and twitching. "-have made a groom for the Patriarch's favorite kzinrett?"
"I suppose it's a matter of catching and training them young, like Jotoki… "
"There!" Hunt Master leapt vertically, claws slashing at something like a huge black starfish in the bushes above.
"Speaking of Jotoki," he remarked, disentangling himself from the pieces, "there was an old rogue. Ready to drop on us. Well, Jotok and monkey meat for all survivors tonight!"
IV
"Seven kz’eerkti dead at least," said Ginger as he reentered the groundcar and closed the hatch, "and eleven kzinti-though eight were kits on their first hunt, and of course it's important to cull the unfit early. But from the kzinti point of view, not a very successful kill ratio. There might have been more kz’eerkti dead that the others carried away. But a successful night for Warrgh-Churrg."
"How so?"
"One of the adult kzinti who died was a small landowner. He had an estate that borders on Warrgh-Churrg's and owed him money. Warrgh-Churrg will pick it up without trouble now. Plus the harem, of course, and the kits if he should happen to want them-and the deceased landowner's eldest kit was among the other dead. A fairly easy night's work for Warrgh-Churrg, letting the kz’eerkti expand his estates for him."
"But a casualty ratio like that? There was nothing like it in the wars, even when human troops were well equipped. How do you account for it?" asked Perpetua. She had kept the car locked in Ginger's absence and herself crouched down inside it, well out of the sight and the attention of the guard-and especially of the furious wounded kzinti as they returned.
"The kzinti sought out the kz’eerkti on their own ground, as usual, and the kz’eerkti had well-prepared traps and ambushes-"
"As usual."
"Tactless, Pet. These kz’eerkti were exceptionally tough with it. And the kits, also as usual, were overexcited, overeager and inexperienced."
"And nobody told them?"
"Hunt Master believes there's no teacher like experience. Between you and me-which is a rather silly phrase in these circumstances-I think Hunt Master had directions to get a few knocked off. With modern life most affluent kzinti households grow up with too many male kits unless they are thinned out one way or another-and this helps thin out the slow and stupid, as well as the overeager who might grow up to be a nuisance by challenging their fathers. It's a rough and ready system, though. Among the kits who survived tonight were some I'd marked down as not the brightest."
"It sounds a pretty unstable society."
"It is, once you come to see it a certain way. Why do you think you humans keep winning wars? One reason my great-grandsire and a few others threw in their lot with humans after the Liberation was because they could see kzinti technology and culture were so grossly out of sync. We're barbarians with high technology, and we're lucky we didn't exterminate ourselves before space travel gave us elbow room.
"Perhaps you understand now something of what I was trying to explain before, about me. We Wunderkzin families are called the ultimate traitors to our species by the Patriarchy, but we believe we carry the best ultimate hope of our species' survival, because we see that hope as encompassing a society where half the male children don't have to be killed in the process of growing up; and where there are other ends in life beyond war and hunting. But I'm getting off the point."
"I don't mind, it's all new to me still. I'm eating it up."
Ginger curled his ears at her briefly, then said, "You omnivores have some disturbing turns of phrase. Anyway, Hunt Master limited the technology they used-with modern weapons and detection equipment it would have been a different story and no hunt at all. The kz’eerkti were tough for humans, and had resourcefulness and cooperation. And those Jotoki cooperating with them were very aggressive and well trained. They accounted for several of the young kzinti on their own. Also, they're good in trees; I think it was a Jotok that acted to create a diversion in the branches, to draw the hunt away from the human withdrawal. I've not known them to cooperate with another species before, apart from those specially trained by kzinti slave masters."
"Kz’eerkti on Kzinhome don't speak, do they?"
"Not really. A variety of squeals and grunts. I guess if any evolved speech or intelligence in the past they would have been jumped on pretty quickly."
"And yet these talk?"
"Oh, yes, no doubt about it! Damned cheek, some of it! I heard one of them calling me a-Well, I won't go into that."