I don't! But there's one reason for me against just sitting back, my love: If Henrietta is there I'm going after her! Alone if need be! But I suppose it would be silly to resent reinforcements." As Cumpston had a habit of pinching his lower lip when thinking, Arthur Guthlac had a habit of sticking his out. Jocelyn leaned closer to him, bit it gently between her teeth, then licked his face. She thought of how Markham had enjoyed that.
"Leonie liver not happy," said Raargh in his blend of Wunderlander and the former slaves' patois. It was a statement, not a question, the vocabulary somewhat broken down. Leonie was not as fluent as the colonel.
"No," she said, "Leonie liver not happy."
"We go into battle," said Raargh. Even though Leonie was a female, it-she-was a fighter, and surely the prospect of action should rouse any fighter's spirits. "Good for soldier to go into battle with high liver. Fight best… Memory Raargh and Leonie fight morlocks?… Why Leonie not happy? Leonie just mate. Mating make females happy."
"How did you know that?"
"Ziirgah sense," he told her. "Not telepath," he emphasized. "Not tell thoughts. But tell feelings. Leonie happy when Raargh wake. Now… "
She laughed.
"Why Leonie discharge from eyes? That also show humans not happy, Raargh know… Once, Leonie dig Raargh out of trap. Once, Raargh help Leonie breathe. Leonie female, but still Leonie and old Raargh companions, Raargh thinks."
"Yes, Leonie and Raargh companions," she replied. "Life was simple then. But Leonie is stupid manrret."
"Some manretti not stupid," he told her. "Some manretti clever. Leonie clever… Some mans," he went on, "like clever manretti."
"Yes, Raargh," said Leonie. "That is problem. Some mans like clever manretti. Hard to explain to Hero." She put out a hand and scratched the great scarred head under the lower jaw. Raargh resisted an undignified temptation to purr.
"Raargh companion," he said.
"Yes, Raargh companion."
"Leonie have enemies, Raargh have enemies. Raargh eat! Raargh have long fangs, sharp claws." He demonstrated. "Raargh old, but Raargh quick!… Is Jocelyn manrret Leonie enemy?" he asked hopefully.
"You would, too, wouldn't you? No, companion, it's not that simple. Leonie has no enemies. Not here."
Leonie not want to kill kzinti… kill ratcats. Raargh knows."
"No. But I will fight if I must today… Otherwise… maybe disaster."
"Yes. Raargh knows."
Very carefully, imitating a gesture he had seen among humans, Raargh laid his great clawed hand on Leonie's shoulder. Surprised, she turned her tear-streaked face to him. Arthur Guthlac entered. His own eyes widened for a moment at the scene.
"We're ready!" he barked. "We're all going!"
"Shouldn't we leave someone here?" Leonie asked.
"We're too thin on the ground to divide our forces any further. Professor Carmody is our guest on this planet, and I'm charged with keeping her out of danger. But leaving her here with or without a guard is hardly a practical option. In any case, she has said she doesn't want to be left here and she'll come. But I want no lives lost. Remember, we're not going to fight, but to blockade them till Early's troops arrive. "Raargh," he went on, "I am declaring this a military situation. Will you take orders from me?"
Yes." Five years had accustomed Raargh to humans' notions of discipline. The old kzin did not even growl. And that, thought Arthur Guthlac, weakens me as an Exterminationist a little more. I am a soldier, and that old ratcat becomes one of my troops. Honor is a tanjed awkward thing. And what was the old ratcat doing just now? It looked for a moment as if he was comforting her… But why?… Of course! As the song goes: 'What kind of fool am I?'… and it took a kzin to see it!
"Let's move out!" he snarled.
"What now?" Vaemar asked Colonel Cumpston.
"Waiting is very difficult. At the moment it is all we can do."
"I think they are listening to us."
"Yes."
"It does not matter," said Vaemar. "Seizing me by a trick and insulting my Honored Step-Sire Raargh-even insulting you, my chess-partner-is not the way to gain my cooperation…"
If she and Emma have you, they can use your Name to the other kzinti."
"And what you said… that Emma's plans would destroy every kzin on Wunderland… Do you believe that?"
"Yes, Vaemar. Worse, it would mean no peace between our kinds would ever be possible. That will be difficult enough as things are."
"It surprises me, that she should behave so."
"Not me, so much, perhaps, but I have read more of human history. And lived longer."
Do you think Henrietta is truly loyal to my Honored Sire?"
"She probably thinks she is. Whether he would approve of what she says in his name is another matter… Suppose, Vaemar, suppose against all odds Emma's plans succeeded-that the Kzin revolted and captured the hyperdrive. How would you feel?"
"I am a kzin. I am Chuut-Riit's son. But I am also a kzin of Ka'ashi-of Wunderland. I know you and other humans… difficult."
"According to the holo, your honored Sire Chuut-Riit knew Henrietta had influenced him. And he wanted her, if he died, to influence his own sons and Traat-Admiral. He was looking-as far as being what he was allowed him to look-as some sort of eventual partnership-or at least I know of no other notion that described it more closely. His ideas were perhaps not so far removed from those we now hear from Markham and a few others-save, of course, that he saw the Kzin as the utterly dominant ones and the humans existing on sufferance-slaves perhaps at best one day a little above the Jotok." And monkeymeat if they were fractious, he thought. But if we ever get out of this, I want this young ratcat thinking about a human-kzin relationship on more positive lines. Civilize them for a few-perhaps more than a few-generations, and who knows?
"Yes," said Henrietta, stepping into the room, Emma beside her. "Chuut-Riit knew I influenced his policies, knew I helped him understand humans. He accepted it. But listening to you has told me a good deal. I seek to stop the secret manipulation of the human race as well as the Kzin. It appears my daughter has an altogether different agenda."
"There is no point in hiding it any longer," said Emma. "It is I who am truly loyal to the Patriarchy, and the memory of the Riit."
"This ARM officer is right! Your plans are insane!" Henrietta cried out. "To guide and instruct Vaemar to help destroy the ARM conspiracy when he leads the kzinti of Wunderland is my charge and my sacred goal. You would destroy everything in a mad adventure!"
"Mad! You call me mad! Have you looked at your own brain lately?"
"Andre sides with me. We have planned this for years."
Emma raised one hand and made a gesture. "Go and make ch'rowl with your pet monkey, then! Behold!" A dozen male kzin entered the room, standing about her. They were all, Cumpston saw, young. Older than Vaemar, taller and bulkier, but several still with the last traces of juvenile and adolescent spotting on their coats. There were also several more humans with them.
"The loyal humans and the loyal Heroes side with me!" Emma snarled. One or two of the kzin growled. Emma addressed them in the hiss-spit of the Heroes' Tongue. Cumpston was astonished that a human could pronounce it so well. She turned back to Henrietta. "You forget! Half these Heroes' Sires were of Ktrodni-Stkaa's pride! They follow me!"
"I have given them refuge." Henrietta's hand went to the weapon on her belt. "I have tried to help the kzin of Wunderland, of every pride, but not for this! And you have here the blood of Chuut-Riit, who you would risk! Chuut-Riit, who was my good Master! Yes, and who called me friend as well as slave!"