"I am a Hero," said Raargh indignantly, "And time is scarce."
"Even if we summon help immediately, it cannot get here for some hours," Rykermann said. "I advise you to rest. We cannot charge back through the caves as we are."
Raargh remembered his delusions in the caves. Certainly, it would be better if such things did not happen again. He knew there was not much the three of them could do by themselves, though had he been younger that might not have dissuaded him. "Think before you leap!" Chuut-Riit had told them. And the pain in his wounds was extreme. He growled a reluctant "Urrr" of assent.
The module's equipment included a large and versatile medical kit. He let Leonie apply a kzin-specific tranquilizer, pain killer and disinfectant and in a few moments-before he could ask Leonie for talcum powder-he was asleep on the floor of the module.
"We must start work early today," Patrick Quickenden said. "We've put in a good effort over the last few days, but this hospitality, not to mention seeing a beautiful new world… It could lull us into forgetting there's still a war on!"
"Something has developed," said Jocelyn, "that may be important. We'd like to take… er… Miss Moffet… to see something."
"She's a key member of this group," said Patrick. "I don't want her put at any risk. In fact I insist!" Jocelyn looked at Arthur Guthlac. She sent him a silent directive.
"There's no danger," Arthur told him. "Come yourself. It's a fairly short flight in a fast car."
I don't like it. There are still kzin on this planet. I've seen several already."
I take your point," said Arthur, "but I'm still a Brigadier. I'll lay on an armed escort."
I suppose you know what you're doing. But the rest of us will stay here and get started."
"Poor old ratcat!" said Leonie. "He's been through the mill. And even partial sensory deprivation is tougher on them than on us. It drives them crazy quicker." The old kzin with his prostheses looked curiously vulnerable asleep, curled something like a house cat in a basket, but with his artificial arm jutting out at an awkward angle. "It would have been more difficult for him than he'll ever admit to have gone so far through the dark and silence of the caves alone."
"They never admit weakness," said Nils Rykermann. "Perhaps they're afraid it would make them seem too… human." He paused and added suddenly: "You've never hated them as I have."
There's no danger of forgetting they're not human. And I tried to stop hating them after the cease-fire. It wasn't easy. If we'd had to live through the Occupation in the cities I don't think I could have even attempted it. And he helped, old Raargh. He had me at his mercy once, and here I am."
Mercy is not a concept they understand," he said.
"Maybe… and yet, here I am."
"Anyway, I wanted him out for the count. That's why I encouraged him to let you treat him. And all my best brandy from the monastery! Do you think he's telling the truth?"
"I've never known one to tell an absolutely outright lie. But what's he got to lie about? Why else should he be running about in the caves alone and without equipment? And those injuries are certainly real enough."
"But it's such an incredible story!"
"I'm not only your wife, I'm your chief research assistant, remember," said Leonie. "I've kept files. We know Henrietta was-is-probably the most hated of all the collaborators. It was an open secret among the Resistance that she was able to influence Chuut-Riit. There were even some Kzin who accused him of… of, well, you can guess. Perhaps she influenced him for good sometimes, but that wouldn't count. She was born and brought up under the Occupation and knew no life but that uniquely privileged one in a household of prominent collaborators, to whose headship she acceded. You know that after the Liberation there was a special price on her head. As for the atrocities committed against collaborators, we were lucky. We were in the hills and missed it all."
"It didn't seem lucky at the time. We were at our last gasp. And I wanted vengeance on collabos and on the Kzin… I still do!" he burst out.
"That won't bring her back," said Leonie quietly.
"It's the next best thing!" Nils Rykermann ground out. Then he bit the air and spun round to face her. He looked as if he had been struck a blow. "You… you knew!" he whispered.
"I always knew. Wasn't it always obvious? I knew when I was your student that you were in love with her… and since then that you always have been." She took his hand in both hers and kissed him. "Don't you remember my hair? How I wore it in those days… with a pink headband?"
"Yes."
"Why do you think I did that?"
"I never thought."
"Because that was how she wore hers. Stupid of me, to try to compete with Dimity Carmody!"
I didn't know."
"It didn't suit me, really. My hair's darker blond than hers was. My father always called me his little lion cub… I remember, I'd only been enrolled a few days, and I was sitting at one of the Lindenbaum's tables, with some of the other freshers. We were just getting to know each other and find our way around the class-rooms and time-tables, and suddenly we girls realized that all the boys were staring at this blonde two tables away… I'm sorry, I shouldn't go on."
"Yes… yes. Please. Go on."
"Who's she? I wondered. A Tridee-star? A fashion model a long way off her turf? Something dumb, anyway, I took for granted, with all my eighteen-year-old sophistication and judgment. The universe couldn't be so unfair as to give somebody looks like that and brains as well! I wasn't surprised when she ordered coffee in… in that funny little voice she had… Then somebody told me: 'Mathematics and astrometaphysics,' they said. I was taken aback and saw that the universe was that unfair. But… " She gave an uneven laugh. "They didn't let me have it all at once. Even then, in my teenage jealousy, I thought she was just a particularly bright student. You can't blame me: She was no older than I. She must be brilliant to be studying Carmody's Transform, I thought. And then I found out… What we put ourselves through as students!
"Then, of course," she went on, "we found out what an unfair universe was really like."
Yes, love, we certainly found that out."
"After the kzin destroyed her ship, I saw what happened to you… You told me something about it as we set up the first clinic at the refugee camp… Remember?"
"I remember," he said. "I thought at the time that only you would have thought in all that death and terror and chaos to bring low-tech medical supplies away, would have realized our autodocs would be useless without our civilization. But I was a walking dead man then."
"I saw the music box, that the kzin left for you. I knew it was hers. I'd seen her playing it at the Lindenbaum when you and she had coffee there together. I'd… I'd even thought of collecting music boxes, too, so you might notice me. I joined the chess club, too, for an excuse to hang around there, hoping you might one day come alone and notice me. But you never played chess."
"Because she didn't. It showed up her abnormality too much. She wanted to be normal. Do you know the last thing she said to me?"
"I'd like you to tell me."
"She said-sh-she'd already been injured then: 'It was hard, I know, for you to be in love with a freak. Know, at least, that the freak loves you.' "
"You've got a good memory."
"Too good."
"I love you, Nils. I loved you at the university and in the refugee camp and in the hills. That night in the hills when I told you I'd always loved you, I was telling the truth. It wasn't a student with a crush on her teacher. I'd been there and I knew the difference. And I saw you were falling apart. Don't forget, either, that I've been in bed beside you through a lot of nightmares. Or rather the same one. Oh, my darling, of course I've always known… I had to accept that she'd always be with you. What choice did I have? You can't fight the dead, you can only live with them.