Another orange movement in the vegetation. There was Corporal, bounding in, also brandishing w'tsai alone. These kzinti, with their limited combat experience, had not learned that humans often called guns “equalizers.” The human jumped back, firing as it turned. Its bullets struck Corporal on the helmet. He went down then, shaking his head, was back on his feet again, roaring. No use for the w'tsai now. His sidearm seemed to flash into his hand.
Trooper had his own sidearm clear. Its bullets were kzin-sized, cored with osmium backed by Teflon needles. He fired.
Sergeant and Corporal fell together. The human stood looking at them for a moment, then dropped its weapon, stood for a moment clutching at itself, and then collapsed too. As it fell, Trooper saw that Sergeant's w'tsai had slashed it deeply. Its own blood was spurting out now in rhythmic gushes, and white things, that he took to be the severed ends of the creature's oddly arranged bones, stood out along the wound in its chest. Then it began to crawl toward him. Somewhere, far off, there were explosions, human cries, the roars and screams of kzin.
Trooper's vision was contracting now, and a great cold was descending upon him. The journey to the Fanged God was not unwelcome, but it would be lonely. The human was quite near now, reaching toward him.
“Thank you.”
Over Sergeant's fallen comlink the pilot's voice hissed and snarled, calling for support.
The surviving human guerrillas entered the clearing. They were guiding two gravity sleds from the transport, piled with kzinti arms, equipment, and supplies. They halted at the sight of three dead kzin and a dead human.
“Well, Boyd certainly did all right,” said the leader.
“I didn't know he had it in him,” said the second-in-command. “Not bad going to take out three! I've never heard of such a thing. And look at his bayonet!” The weapon was dripping with purple and orange kzin blood. “That's some use of cold steel! Three! I didn't think it was possible.”
The leader pointed to the badges on the bodies. “More than that! Two of them are NCOs. I'd say that biggest one must been have been in charge of the section. No wonder they weren't coordinated!”
“And I thought he was too soft for this. I wish I'd treated him better now.”
“We owe him big time,” said the leader, bending to close the dead man's eyes. And then: “There can't be many of them left at the base.”
“With these,” he said, patting some prize booty—the smart mortars that were sometimes misnamed plasma guns but which though they did not actually fire plasma were quite deadly enough in their own right, “and these,”—the high-tech beam-weapons—“we can take out the whole base. And be a long way away before any other ratcats realize it.”
Then he saw something else that made no sense. The human and the smallest of the kzin were lying together in a pool of mingled blood, and, bizarrely, the right hands of the two were clasped together. Between them lay a triangular piece of metal which none of the humans recognized.
But there was no time to stay and wonder. The guerrillas knew more enemy might arrive at any time. They moved quickly to add the dead kzinti's ears and weapons to those they already possessed. The intelligence specialist stripped the bodies of comlinks, recorders, and other electronics.
The next lot of kzin, when they arrived, should see the earless bodies of the dead kzin NCOs, that was obvious and elementary psychological warfare, but they would have no monkey meat.
The humans and the sleds were already laden with as much booty as they could carry, and Boyd's body could not be added to the load. The leader waved the beam of a newly acquired handgun over it, cremating it instantly. Then, moved by an odd impulse, waved it again, cremating the smallest kzin with him. The smoke from the two bodies drifted away, its dispersing particles to mingle above the treetops with the smoke of the burning transport.
String
Hal Colebatch and Matthew Joseph Harrington
2895 CE
“This will be a change from your last assignment for us,” the puppeteer said. The grizzled ARM general apparently standing beside it nodded agreement. Given modern medical techniques, not even counting whatever the ARM kept for themselves, the gray had to be pure theater, to establish dominance via human respect for elders. It wasn't that effective—there were too many elders these days.
“It had better be,” said Richard Guthlac. “The last was not something we'd like to repeat.”
“You did well enough then, though your companion did better,” it replied. “A great menace was destroyed. That is one reason you have been chosen again. That and the fact Charrgh-Captain asked for you.”
Richard and Gay exchanged eloquent looks. Charrgh-Captain had been the Patriarchy observer assigned to accompany their small human-Wunderkzin team to the last stasis box to be found.
“He evidently appreciates your resourcefulness,” the puppeteer went on. “More, by the terms of the treaty they are only obliged to accept one observer, but he said you were a mated team. Unasked concessions like that from a kzin of the Patriarchy, an officer very much of the old school, are too rare to be lightly set aside.”
Richard and Gay nodded. They and Charrgh-Captain had been through a memorable time together.
“This time,” the general said, “it's been the kzinti's turn to find a stasis box. You will be the human observers attached to a kzinti expedition.
“Of course you don't have to go,” he went on. “But the pay will be good.”
“For sharing a ship with a crew of kzinti of the Patriarchy? It had better be!” Richard exclaimed.
“For sharing a ship with a crew of kzinti, and for facing a possibly very dangerous unknown at the end of it. But you know that better than I can tell you.
“Anyway,” said the general, “it appears the kzinti are abiding by the treaty like good little kitties. They have informed us of the discovery, have given you time to join them, and, of course, have agreed that you will have diplomatic status and immunity. Your reserve ranks will also be respected, so you will be entitled to fighters' privileges, though I hope it won't be necessary for you to invoke them.
“The box will be opened where it is, not taken to Kzin-aga. In some ways that has problems, but both sides insisted on it, neither trusting the other, and it's written in. High Admiral Zzarrk-Skrull has given his Name as his Word that the box has not been surreptitiously opened already and then closed again for our benefit. I don't need to tell you to try discreetly to confirm that if you can,” he said, telling them anyway. ARMs. “But I think the kzinti are genuinely wary about bringing home stasis boxes to open, and in this case I think their paranoia is justified—pretty much everybody's had problems in that direction in the past, as you probably know. There's no reason why it shouldn't all go according to the protocols.”
“Charrgh-Captain,” said the puppeteer—its pronunciation of the kzinti Name was as perfect as its contralto Interworld—“has assured us that he is aware of human requirements and comforts. You will have your own cabin and kitchen.”
“I don't suppose the job includes having bombs implanted in us in case the box turns out to hold something really dangerous?” asked Richard.