"Truce! Truce!" The female gasped. Sergeant was irritated. He, a Hero, did not need to be reminded of such things. Then he saw the male human beside him.
"I do that," said the male human. "Heroes better at fighting."
The female's torn costume was stained with spreading blood. She had some deep lacerations. The male tore it open and sprayed her with something that stopped the bleeding, though it seemed nearly exhausted. Sergeant thought the male would have done at least as well to use it on itself. "Can you walk?" it asked the female.
"Yes, I think so."
"Go. 14-K. The third north tunnel. You'll come to a marker. Tell them to use plan Marigold. Go. Hurry. I will delay them."
"No. You have no chance. If the morlocks don't get you, the kzin will."
"Go, Leonie. Those are my orders."
The female put her arms around the male for a moment, made a peculiar sound, and staggered away in the characteristic shuffling run of an injured thing that screamed to every one of Sergeant's hunting instincts for a pouncing strike. He fought them down. He heard her for a minute in the tunnel, and then the rustle of morlocks among the complications of the roof again, as well as a chinking noise which he now recognized as meaning they were carrying the heavy calcite crystal missiles. There was no more fighting at the amphitheater, only the morlock rustling, and no lights but their own. Well, it had simply been a place to die in, not much better or worse than any other in these caves. He could just make out the human.
"Can you see me?" he asked.
"A little," said the human. "A thing in the dark. I see your eyes. A little while ago I would have feared the sight of kzin eyes in the dark more than all fears. Now… "
"Others dead." said Sergeant.
"Does kitten still live?"
"If morlocks not kill it, kitten alive."
"Now it is just us," said the human. "If the truce between us holds, I intend to buy time."
Time? For what?"
"For Leonie to escape. There is another thing. When we found the kzinrett kitten-I will not lie to you-I would have killed it. Leonie stopped me."
"Why?"
"Partly she hates all killing, though she is a good fighter. Yes, she hates killing even kzin. Partly, she had seen young kzin and human ferals sharing a cave. She hoped… well, she hoped for something I think impossible. But for her sake I will say that I fight to defend the kitten as well. And if you live, Kzin, tell your kind that monkeys have Honor too."
"You tell them." Try to keep the creature's spirit up, he thought. "Live for your Leonie Manrret."
I am wounded. Getting old if my treatments stop. Weak now. Lucky to have lived so long. Lucky not to have died in these caves long ago. Lucky to have a few geriatric drugs. Lucky see many sunrises. Lucky Leonie may live. Many friends dead. Not ask for too much."
A cloud of morlocks struck them, burying them under a heap of bodies, biting jaws, striking stones. Sergeant ripped and slashed his way out of the heap, turned, and dragged the human free. He turned and swam into the morlocks with a scream, and scattered them. There was his beam rifle, its stock-lights glowing yellow, but still with some heat left in it. He fired it at point-blank range, heedless of the exploding stone. They fought together till the human collapsed and the bodies were piled high. Sergeant leaped to the top of the heap of bodies. His beam rifle was exhausted now, but he had his w'tsai and his teeth and claws. At his feet the blood-soaked human had partially revived and was still using its knife.
The morlocks were gathering again, and there was movement among the formations of the cave roof above. For the moment they were holding back, but plainly their numbers were gathering. The situation, he realized, was hopeless. He would go to the Fanged God this day. Well, thanks to the Leonie human it was a far better death than it might have been pinned under the rock. No Hero should ask for more than to die in battle. He began to chant Lord Chmeee’s Last Battle Hymn as he slashed. The morlocks drew back a moment, and the human spoke.
"So we die together, cat and monkey."
True, and no point in raising false hopes of life now. "Have you a human 'name'?" One should know who or what one died with.
"Rykermann. Nils Rykermann. A 'Professor' went in front of it once. And you?"
"Sergeant."
"Sergeant. I see. So that is how important we are? They sent a Sergeant to flush us out."
Platoon Officer died on the wire. Many Heroes dead. Many monkeys will pay. Urrr."
But you saved Leonie?"
"The female? She spared young one. Helped me. Is debt, even to female. I do not know if she lives but she has chance. Urrr."
"I will remember that."
"You will not have long life to remember, I think. But maybe you go to your monkey-god." The human staggered to its feet. It leaned heavily on a stalagmite column. It was deeply bitten and lacerated, bone showing near both its shoulders. Cloth bound some of its wounds but not all. It could have little blood left.
"I was going to end truce and kill us both with this," said the human, producing a nitrate bomb. "But I will spend it to buy her more time. She may get away." It armed and threw the bomb in a single movement.
Sergeant went down in his explosion reflex. The human went down more slowly. Sergeant had a moment to screw his ears tightly shut before the pressure waves in that confined space burst them. He thought for a moment that the blast would bring down the whole cave roof. Even with his ears closed, he was deafened, and he thought the deafness was permanent until he strained his ears and one by one he heard sounds return: the stream, the human's panting breath, distant feet far up tunnels, rustling and slithering. It was right for a kzin at the point of death to reflect upon his life. His had been short and nameless, but, he hoped, not shameful. The human's head was sinking down onto its chest. It was still bleeding copiously from its many wounds. Perhaps as soon as it died he should eat it to give himself strength for his last stand, though it would have little blood left. Fumes clearing. He knew exhaustion had nearly finished him. No sound of the enemy for a time, only the breathing of the two of them. A rustling, repeated like an echo.
"Morlocks return," he said.
The human raised its head.
"Come then. Let us show them what cat and monkey can do."
They came again against the two screaming, blood-soaked sapients. The human fought until it went down and Sergeant glimpsed morlocks ripping at its flesh again. Then they were upon him. His w'tsai was gone. His claws were so clogged with morlock flesh and tissue now that his swipes at them were almost ineffectual. Blows on the head and shoulders, heavy blows of rocks. He leaped forward but his knees gave way at last and he fell. They smothered him, biting, tearing, hammering.
Modern lamps blazed out. Sergeant closed his eyes in time not to lose his night vision. He contracted his pupils to slits and when he opened them again saw morlocks blundering about, burning and falling, as half a Company of kzin infantry, Hroarh-Officer at their head, fired into them with short, professional bursts of dialed-down plasma guns, backed up with beam rifles. There were no morlocks left to attack them from above. The multitude of kzinti's lights flooded the cave.
He leaped forward to join the battle, but stumbled again and fell in a pool of blood. It was, he could tell, kzin blood, mingled with human and much morlock. Further, he could tell that the kzin component was his own. His circulatory system was banging emptily. His wounds must have nearly bled him out. He tried to rise and could not. He groped for the Caller on his belt which would alert any medical personnel, perhaps before he died.
"Most of the morlocks died here," said Hroarh-Officer. "Your Heroes accounted for many eights squared. You held the biggest morlock force. And I see you accounted for many personally. Urrr." He pulled some of the clotted tissue from Sergeant's claws. For an officer to do that was a compliment worth having.