Nils Rykermann had had the caves gazetted as a wildlife sanctuary and restricted area long before the war, but now, when they still contained many dead bodies and many live munitions, that restriction was taken more seriously. None of the students had the authority to question Cumpston's ARM credentials, but they insisted he take mask, lamp, compass, helmet and utility pack and provided him with a guide. The Rykermanns were at the site of one of the old morlock "towns." Long-dead bodies lay around stilclass="underline" dead morlocks, dead humans, dead kzinti. Lights shone off grinning skulls with peeling crusts of blackened skin, on corpses cuddled over sheaves of bare ribs, on long, naked limb bones. "A lot of old friends," said Rykermann, when the guide had left. "We keep rediscovering unknown or forgotten chambers. It was a long war."
"Well," said Cumpston, "it's over now."
"Is it?"
"It is for this planet. And against the hyperdrive the kzinti don't have much chance in space."
You think so? We're going to drop out of hyperspace and say to them: 'Nice planet you've got here. Just hand it over, if you wouldn't mind?' And they'll say: 'Oh indeed, Noble Monkey! Anything to oblige!' It's going to be like that, is it? Do you know how many we lost taking Hssin? Not even a proper planetary base, just a collection of bubble habitats? Have you heard any reports on the fighting on Down?" Cumpston said nothing to Rykermann's sarcasm. He had, he told himself, sometimes regretted opening his mouth, but had never regretted not opening it. His first remark had been to test Rykermann's reaction, in any event. "I can tell you about Down," he said. "My information's fairly up to date."
It's not over," said Rykermann. "And as for this planet, it won't be over while kzin are on it."
Nils!" Leonie Rykermann's voice could have been conveying a number of things, but her body language betrayed distress.
"I'm sorry… " said Nils Rykermann. "I get a bit emotional sometimes…" And then, as he saw a couple of the small decorations Cumpston had made a point of wearing for this visit: "You were there on Hssin, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"Then you know how ferocious they are. And what fighters. Every male trained in high-tech warfare, and practically every male who lives to adulthood, even the telepaths or computer nerds, who are considered feeble and ridiculous by kzinti standards, capable of dismantling a tiger in claw-to-claw combat."
"I think I've known that for quite a while. Hssin wasn't the first fight I've been in."
"These morlocks tend to be more complete than a lot of the other remains," said Rykermann. "But we'll have to find out more about their life cycle before we can try to re-create the species."
How interesting a species are they? Are they worth re-creating?"
"I was interested, before the Invasion, in seeing how intelligent they were. They gave us a surprise in the fighting by using stone weapons. I also noticed a great variety of noises they made. There's a strong possibility they had language. And the fact that they broke the legs of prisoners to stop them escaping while they kept them alive and fresh to eat shows a certain capacity to plan and anticipate behavior. They're a species, however unattractive, with minds, however dim, and no threat to us now. Given that, perhaps we have some sort of duty to re-create them."
"I see. How effective were their weapons?"
"You see these scars?" Rykermann touched his neck and shoulders. "Most of them are from morlock blows. The kzin who was with us got a similar collection, even prettier."
"Do you happen to know that Kzin's Name?"
"Just a minute!" Rykermann suddenly drew himself up and stared at Cumpston as if seeing him for the first time. The tall Wunderlander easily overtopped the stocky Earthman. "What's this about? Who are you? What are you doing here? This is a restricted project!"
Cumpston produced a card and shone his light on it. Nils Rykermann inspected the card in silence, showed it to Leonie and handed it back.
Rykermann drew a deep breath. "All right," he said more calmly. "I'll ask again. What do you want?"
This was quite a long hike for me," said Cumpston, "and breathing the dust on the way is thirsty work. You wouldn't have anything like a cup of tea, would you?"
Leonie looked at him gratefully. Nils Rykermann breathed heavily for a moment, then he seemed calmer. Cumpston remembered that Rykermann was now also a politician.
"All right," he said. There were a couple of camp stools set up in one corner with a small utility module. Cumpston sat himself on a thick section of broken stalagmite column. Leonie poured the tea, which, from his dossier, he knew she was fond of. With the skulls and the mummies staring at them under the harsh lights, it was, Cumpston thought, a strange place for a picnic.
Rykermann seemed to welcome the chance to talk now. Cumpston drew him out on the battles that had been fought in the caves. After some time he brought the talk back to the kzin soldier who had fought with them against the morlocks.
"Was that Raargh?"
"Yes… "
"He seems to have been a reasonable ratcat. Didn't you save each other's lives?"
"How did you know that?"
"I know things. Records are my business. Who knows, I might write a history of the war someday."
He was on an operation to wipe us out in the caves."
"You don't look wiped out from where I'm standing."
"I repaid him… I suppose there was one other thing I owe him for, though. He saw me when I was being treated and told me his Name. Orderly who sewed me up wanted to castrate me to make me more docile if I was to be allowed to live, but Raargh told him it was incompatible with Fighters' Privileges and didn't seem to work with monkeys anyway. As well as being Sergeant, Raargh had just got his Name, and Orderly took notice. I was grateful for that." Rykermann laughed sardonically. "Apart from anything else, we had no transplant facilities for any subsequent… rectification."
"If I may ask in turn, how did you know what they were saying?"
"I'd been studying the Heroes' Tongue as well as the slave language ever since the Invasion. It had been a long war even then."
"I remember. Did you have dealings with Raargh again?"
"I kept out of all kzinti's way. We both did."
"You never thought about him?"
"Why should I?"
"I think I would have, in the circumstances… wondered what made up such a creature, and so on."
I knew all I wanted to know about the kzinti. I'd been involved in ground fighting from the first. We… someone else and I… got away from Manstein's Folly just before they nuked it. As for Raargh… Kzin NCOs tend to be… something like human NCOs. Tough. Capable. It's rarer for them to become full officers, because of the immobilist nature of Kzin society. I had to study them once. I don't have to now. I've got enough to think about here."
"Raargh-I only discovered his new Name later-saved us both," said Leonie. "I'd given no word not to fight, and I'm not sure the Kzinti would have taken the word of a female Man anyway, but… I didn't want to fight him."
"Have you seen him since?"
"No. Is that why you're here?"
"Yes. I gather he may be looking for you-not as an enemy, I might say. He's lived with humans successfully since the end of the fighting. Actually, I think he wants to ask your advice." Rykermann shrugged. "If you're what your credentials say you are, you know our interests. Apart from my Parliamentary duties I'm interested in these caves and in my students." He watched Leonie move away to take recordings from some instruments, then continued: "I've no time for or interest in ratcats. I've seen enough of them to last me the rest of my life. When we get the ecosystems of these caves functioning again I've plenty of other projects. One of my first dreams as a young naturalist was to explore and classify Grossgeister Swamp properly. But it's a little below the caves in my list of priorities now-and it breaks my heart to see it. Our furry friends boiled the center out of Grossgeister with their heat-induction ray when some Wabbits took refuge in it. A great biological paradise, a Golconda of new species, only a short flight from Munchen, and more than half of it sterilized by them! Rehabilitating Grossgeister will be my next project, though there's no way I can bring back the lost species there-we don't even know what most of them were! Classifying Grossgeister was going to be my greatest project, but they've destroyed its heart as they've destroyed so much of our lives. And once a thing is lost… it's lost."