"Ferals? Human cubs and kzin kittens? Together?"
The human looked at him. This time he detected something complex in the emotions emanating from it, but it was as if he had passed some kind of test. It reminded him of the feelings of old Kiirg-Greater-Sergeant when he survived his recruit training.
"How close together I do not know. They were in the same part of the cave system. But morlocks got them anyway. They will be back soon."
"Lift this rock off me!"
"I cannot. And if I could, it would not be wise."
"I fight morlocks. Morlocks eat you."
"You would eat us too."
That was certainly true.
"Give me your word that you will not fight me and I will not eat you now," he said. "We need to fight morlocks."
"Better for me to kill one kzin than an eight-squared of morlocks. And morlocks are victims like humans. They fight invaders of their world."
He had no idea what the word "victims" meant but he saw the human's military logic. Indeed he appreciated it. Arguing with a monkey! he thought. Still, I must get this creature to be of use. My duty is to return to my Heroes.
"Kill me and they kill you," he replied. "Break legs like kitten, like monkey."
"Instead of kzin killing us? What difference does it make?"
The voice reminded him again of old nurse-slave, and he repeated something it had once said. "Live to fight another day." It was not an argument that would affect most kzintosh, but he thought he knew something of human psychology. He thought of something else, but it was difficult to say it without giving the impression that he was trying to beg for his life. Better a thousand times to die at the hands of a monkey than that a monkey should think that. She was raising the beam rifle.
"Kzin remember," he said.
That made her hesitate.
"You will not harm me," she said. "Your Name as your Word."
"I have no Name. My Rank and my Sire's Honor as my Word. Release me I will not harm you while we are in this cave, or during the day that we leave it."
He saw her dial the rifle down. Did she mean to cook him slowly? Then she fired it into the ground beside him, the blast digging a shallow pit. Slowly, she moved the beam an inch or two toward him, the heat of it scorching his fur and skin. Then, staying out of reach of his claws, she climbed onto the pillar, and smashed the butt of the rifle down onto the crust of flow-stone that remained. She dialed the rifle up to full beam and showed him the lights on the stock indicated that it was fully charged. She crouched and held it on him with one hand, steadying its weight on her bent leg, while with the other hand she scraped smashed rock away.
"Stay still," she ordered him. She backed away, then settled herself into a bay of rock that protected her back and flanks.
"Now move," she said.
Lurching and twisting, he was able to get to this cavity and work himself free. The human lay prone, pointing the beam rifle at him. Her finger was pressed on the firing-button and the light on the stock showed it was at first pressure. The dot of its laser sight was on the fur in the center of his torso. Deliberately, he turned away from her so that he could not spring.
"We fight morlocks now," he said.
"So be it," she said. She stood on her hind legs, but with the weapon still held ready. "We fight morlocks. Poor bastards! They did us no harm."
Sergeant felt an odd conflict of emotions in this human. It must have been strong to register with him. He continued speaking to her in an attempt to steady her, asking the question which another kzin would find of the greatest importance and which he assumed mattered to monkeys equally. "You have human Name?"
"Leonie."
"What does it mean?"
"Lion."
"What is lion?"
"A cat. A big, ferocious cat."
"Is that a joke?"
"No. We used to think cats were beautiful…"
He recognized the emphatic human past tense but did not pursue the matter. Something had evidently happened to make them change their minds.
"Truce now," he said.
"Yes, truce now. I find I do not want to die in this stinking hole. Does our truce hold into the next cave?"
No sense if it does not."
"I suggest it holds until we both agree to end it. Your Rank and your Sire's Honor as your Word."
Yes. And yours."
"Yes. If you trust a monkey."
"You could have killed me already. I trust."
"Markham told us kzinti keep their word when it is solemnly given, usually."
"Usually. But do not trust too much."
"The main tunnel seems blocked," she said. "There are others. We should go before the morlocks return. But we cannot move the kitten. Broken legs. Marrow get into blood. Die."
"She is kzin. She is female but she is brave. Other Heroes will get her. Or she will die like kzin."
We could move her slowly and carefully into a shallow hole. It may kill her but it is a chance we must take. Then with your Hero's strength you could move a big rock across the entrance. Too big for Morlocks to move easily."
"Then, if we die, Heroes not find her. She starve. She die." He realized with an odd feeling that he had just said "we" to a monkey-a feral, at that.
"It would not be a perfect seal. Just to delay the morlocks getting to her. If we die she can scream and alert other kzin when they come. But I suggest we hurry. This is not the place for us to be caught by the morlocks in our turn."
The tunnel she led him through was long and winding. At certain places he saw that something-humans, he guessed-had widened it. With the human going ahead he did not fear wires. There was the tunnel mouth. He poised to leap.
"No! There!" she pointed. He could not see it but guessed there was a wire. "There!" Putting his life in the monkey's hands, he charged, bursting out through a curtain of straw stalactites and a lacy stone shawl, sending crystal fragments flying.
The great cave had far fewer lights now, only a few swirls and flashes of beams and glow-lamps from a single source, a high place beside one of the cave streams. It formed a natural amphitheater, and Sergeant had briefly noted it previously. But he could see the swift dark shapes of morlocks attacking from the roof and through the stalagmite groves. And there were two very distinct sets of voices coming from the single patch of the lights.
"Listen," Leonie said. "It sounds as if human and kzinti have made a truce there, too."
Urrr. Should turn up lights. Blind morlocks."
"More likely to blind themselves if they do. Morlocks don't like light but have thick eyelids. I think with most cave lights, they can close eyes and simply stay in total dark. Need very bright light to drive away."
You know lot about morlocks. Urrr."
"I've dissected them. I told you I was a student of life once."
"We join companions. Come."
They got most of the way to the amphitheatre before the morlocks rushed them. They came from above and behind, piling on the human female first. She snarled and screamed in a way that reminded him she was named for a cat. He turned and saw she was fighting, but giving ground. There were too many morlocks for her. He screamed and leaped into the fight.
Now it was the morlocks who were giving ground. Or rather, dying where they stood. There was a trail of the things dead and dying behind him, but as he advanced alone into the thick of them he was being outflanked. In a moment, he knew, he would be surrounded. He began to back away. Then he stumbled over a torn, writhing body, slipped in the blood now covering the cave floor, and fell. As he tried to rise morlocks leaped onto his shoulders from behind, biting at his throat.