The war and Occupation on Wunderland had gone on for not four years, but more than fifty, growing bleaker and grimmer in every one of them. Could I have lived fifty years under the Kzin and stayed sane? he wondered. Under a sometimes desperately maintained veneer of normality, madness was rife in many circles. Not that Earth and Sol were free of such problems. Few people knew how close collapse had been when the Crashlanders had arrived from We Made It with the hyperdrive.
He looked back at Leonie's mention of the incident in the caves battle, then put in a couple of keywords and searched Rykermann's speeches inside and outside the Parliament. There was nothing comparable, no mention of the time, however brief and however secondary to the main campaigns, when the two humans and the kzin had fought as allies. No mention of Leonie's experience. There were, however, several references to the deceased Professor Carmody, "murdered by the Kzin."
Colonel Cumpston activated a higher security clearance. Buford Early's square dark face appeared on the screen. Cumpston wondered for a second if the general ever went off duty. Early turned toward him and removed a cigar from his mouth. It was an invitation to speak. Early expressed no surprise at Cumpston's request. He just nodded, heavy, impassive, a little frightening even to those who thought they knew him well.
Raargh and Vaemar were still heading south. Cumpston took off and headed southwest, toward Munchen.
Chapter 4
The Glory Bee had dropped out of hyperdrive beyond Alpha Centauri's vast singularity and commenced its slow fall through the double star's gravity well several days previously.
Now Wunderland's surface filled most of the bridge's view-ports. Dawn was approaching Munchen but the city's lights could be made out at the edge of the retreating crescent of night. They were cleared to land in a few hours.
"Well, does any of it come back?" Patrick Quickenden's voice was tender.
She gazed down with wide eyes. "The sky… some of the sky is familiar, I think. I remember the constellations."
"That's good."
"I hope so. I've read enough to be apprehensive."
"There's been a lot of rehabilitation and rebuilding in the last five years."
"There must have been. That looks like a big city."
"We'll know the details of it soon enough."
"It's a strange feeling, Paddy. I can't tell you… It's frightening."
"I think I can guess something of it. But there's no need for fear."
"Nightmares of great tiger-cats, for years." She gave a little off-key laugh. "Death, flames. Comforting myself when I woke up with the thought that they were only nightmares. And then finding they were all real… I have one flash often, of a horrible scene in a burning street. And… seeing a flash that I know is a deliberate nuclear explosion. I'm frightened of the tigers, still. Silly of me. But they were with me in that coldsleep coffin. They've got deep into what's left of my brain."
"There's no need for fear now," he told her gently. "Remember, the Kzin are beaten on Wunderland and humans are pushing them back across space. Thanks to you. We'll push them farther yet, again thanks to you."
"I'm afraid that I shouldn't have come back, though I was the one who insisted on it." She gripped his hand tightly, her free hand brushing at her head with a nervous gesture. Her fingertips touched scars, invisible under plastic surgery and under the gold of her hair.
"We've got a job to do," he said. "I know you'll do it."
"Brain… my brain's still pretty good, isn't it?"
"Well, if you don't strain it too much, it can handle little jobs like building the engine that shatters the light barrier from nothing but an alien manual. I'd say that's at least a reasonable performance. About average for someone of your IQ, perhaps-if there was another human being to take an average from."
I always hated being… abnormal… But now it's the absence… that chunk of memory that's gone… What was I?"
"When they pulled you out of the coldsleep tank on that derelict, your alpha-wave was still off the scale. No one, no one, else could have done what you did! Don't you know why they sometimes called you Lydia Pink?"
"I did hear that name a couple of times when we were on Earth. I didn't know they were referring to me. I remember somebody said it and you shut him up pretty quickly. I wondered about that at the time."
I suppose I'm overprotective. There are security considerations, and… other things. But if you've any doubts about your mind… "
"What's it mean? I suppose compared to a Jinxian I'm pink. I don't live under Sirius."
It's from a very old song someone rediscovered. Under Templemount, the Pychwar people on Earth went through all the ancient army and navy songs they could find when keeping morale up was a tough business. It wasn't one of the useful ones then, but somebody kept it in mind. Only the first three lines are relevant:
"So we'll drink drink, drink
To Lydia Pink, to Lydia Pink, The savior of the Human Race…
"Dimity, don't cry, please!" He kissed her forehead. "Anyway, there are good reasons why your identity, and certainly your precise role in the scheme of things, shouldn't be publicized too widely. Call me paranoid, but I'd rather the Kzin-and some humans, for that matter-didn't know the interpreter of the Outsiders' manual,-the chief builder of the hyperdrive, was in space, even now.
"Don't worry," he went on, "songs round a piano don't carry over four light-years, and both the hyperwave and the ship traffic is monitored. No one here knows who you are who shouldn't…"
It's not that sort of fear. Do I go to Wunderland under a false name?"
"A good idea if we can keep it up. There are still kzin on Wunderland. It's well-named, by all accounts. A beautiful, glorious world: open skies-I hope I can get used to that-low gravity. Can you sleep for a while? I'll make you something?"
"I'm still afraid. I don't know why. Please, hold me, Paddy."
Jocelyn van der Stratt read the details of the We Made It party with considerable interest. She called up some verifying information, and then confirmed to her deputy that she would join Arthur Guthlac and the Wunderland Science and Industry Authorities' delegations in meeting them personally. She also called Ulf Reichstein Markham and canceled their meeting that evening. She had not changed her mind about his usefulness as a tool, but he could be put into reserve. It looked as if another and possibly neater solution to the problem of Leonie Rykermann might be in the offing.
Arthur Guthlac should be brought more firmly on side. That could be accomplished. You'll be harder to seduce than Markham, I guess, she thought, but I've had bigger challenges before. You're not bad looking either. I don't think the kzinrett-suit for you. Not the first time, anyway. I've never had a Flatlander, or a Brigadier, or, unless I miss my guess, a virgin. But you might find you get lucky on Wunderland tonight. She dressed, again with some thought, and put a call to Guthlac on her vidphone. Postwar Wunderland lacked such luxuries as transfer booths but, she was sure, he would come quickly enough.
Colonel Cumpston landed his car near Grossdrache, the cave mouth that was the main entrance to the great complex of the Drachenholen. He had changed into UNSN field dress with the badges of his rank discreetly visible. Students were still shrouding the human mummies. One armed with a strakkaker disposed of a small pack of snuffling advokats and a couple of the even more detested zeitungers, also poisonous little carrion eaters and disease reservoirs but with, in addition, a limited psychic power of broadcasting depression to humans and other sophonts.
The kzin fragments had been stacked in one of the many blast craters nearby and burned, without deliberate insult if without particular reverence or ceremony. In any event, cremation was common among kzinti.