Kzin could, compared to humans, see in the dark. They loved lurking and stalking prey in the near-total darkness of caves, their pupils expanded to trap every particle of light. But even that superb light-collecting mechanism which was the Kzin eye could not see in absolute darkness. Smell was helpful but by no means a complete substitute for vision: While their sense of smell was many times more acute than that of humans, smells in the confined space of organically-rich caves could become overwhelming, especially once fighting started. Their equipment for cave fighting included not only modern lamps but also bioluminescent patches. These gave a dim greenish glow and had been a part of kzinti caving equipment since before even the Jotok had introduced their forefathers to beam weapons and space drives. Now the platoons moved off into the tunnels.
Farther and deeper, past more bones and bits of human litter. Corporal wondered what weapons the feral humans had. Not much, he suspected. Years of unremitting warfare had worn them down, and many of their secret factories and arsenals in the back-country had been found. But even the smallest laser could blind.
“Monkeys have been active,” said Platoon Officer.
Before them was a great pit. Not terribly deep or steep-sided, but wide and long, running off into darkness. Limestone pinnacles of stalagmites reared from it, discolored and broken.
Generations of cave creatures had built up deep deposits of guano here. The line that marked the old floor showed how great the volume of it must have been. Now it was gone, presumably taken by humans for fertilizer to promote the growth of the vegetable matter they ate (hardly different to eating the dung direct, Corporal thought), or perhaps to make chemical explosives. The latter idea was less disgusting but not comfortable. Such primitive compounds would not be very powerful by kzin military standards, but in the right place they could do a lot of damage.
Platoon Officer led them straight across the pit. Corporal thought uneasily that its sides high above them might make a good place for an enemy ambush. “Always scout your territory before you leap. Always have forward and rear scouts and flank guards. Spend time freely in scouting, for it is never wasted.” So Chuut-Riit's new Manual of Infantry Training said.
There were the prints of human feet—many of them. Water seeping into some from the damp floor suggested they were very fresh. The kzinti followed them to a large hole, the top of a fairly steep downward slope. Kzinti had a rudimentary ability, called ziirgah, to pick up the emotions of other sapient beings—which in the case of non-kzinti generally meant prey or enemies—that Corporal thought would be useful to consult before battle but which many were ashamed to use because it was connected to the talent of the despised telepaths. None seemed to be using it on this occasion, nor was it necessary. From the darkness beyond the tunnel-like hole they could hear sounds that suggested human voices.
Scouting might be important, but Platoon Officer made no bones about his impatience now. Like all Nameless kzintosh who had climbed high enough to dream such dreams, Platoon Officer was desperate for a Name beyond all other things. Indeed a Name brought all other things: honor, esteem, fertile females, the right to breed.
There were many Nameless officers, and many high officers who had no more than partial Names, and a few, a very few, senior NCOs who had partial Names too. In the noncommissioned ranks these were an Order of the Elite of the Elite. Corporal had met one or two, and looked on them with awe, though a Name was far beyond his own ambitions. But valor and blood-lust were still the way to Names, victories won by no more preparation than a scream and leap, whatever the Manual said.
Corporal guessed Platoon Officer despised the cautious injunctions of the Manual as monkey thinking, despite its fearsome and illustrious author. Corporal was aware that he himself was too cautious to be an ideal Hero. He thought of the little group among his fellow recruits who had once been his particular companions: Most of them had been more recklessly daring than he, and many of them would be of superior rank or even Name if they had still been alive. That was another reason he would like a mate and a son: Sometimes late at night the dead were not satisfactory company.
Sergeant turned to him. “Corporal, you and your eight will guard the rear!” In strict military practice that was Sergeant's task, but Sergeant had no intention of accepting a position that carried relatively little chance of glory. Corporal obeyed unquestioningly. Sergeant also had the speed and strength for his orders to be unquestioned. And anyway, Corporal told himself, in these tunnels, where anything might be behind them, the position of rearguard was not actually shameful. Weapons were raised.
“Forward!” Platoon Officer rushed the tunnel, two eights of Heroes behind him, shrieking.
What happened next was hard for Corporal to follow. The shrieks changed in pitch into insensate screams—the screams of kzinti who realized something terrible but incomprehensible had been done to them. He heard their bodies crashing down to the flat ground at the foot of the slope.
He saw a couple of their lights swing through wild arcs, revealing nothing. Then the screams died away. There was another sound, plainly the sound of a kzin scrambling back up the slope. It stopped, and slid back. There was nothing more.
Corporal called, but no answer came. There were still some faint sounds but they were dying away. The smell of blood—kzin blood, mixed with the smells of marrow and entrails and pain—rose up the passage in a cloud.
One trooper, plainly maddened by what he heard and smelled, charged headlong down the passage, ignoring Corporal's shouted command to be still. Whatever happened to the others happened to him. A shriek, and then silence save for the thud of his body landing far below.
Kzin are not easily horrified, but Corporal paused. One part of his mind and his emotions stated imperiously that it was his duty to charge down after the others. If there was danger, a Hero attacked head-on, reckoning nothing of the odds. He was the senior surviving rank, and now the leader.
But the fact he was the only surviving NCO, he thought, put a different cast on things: he commanded an eight of troopers—eight minus one now—and without him they would be leaderless. He had seen before the consequences of that. Monkey tactics had always been to kill the kzin officers and NCOs first—a strategy in which, he thought, kzin officers and NCOs had often been only too willing to cooperate. Now he had a duty not to risk himself.
There was nothing to see down the tunnel but a dim light, presumably reflected from some of the Heroes' glow-patches at the bottom. Nothing to smell but waves of blood and death that drowned out all other smells. There might be human or morlock there.
“I wish a volunteer to explore the tunnel,” he told the troopers.
“Command us, Corporal!” It was a unanimous shout and snarl. No kzin soldier would dream of not volunteering for hazardous duty.
“You.” He picked the nearest trooper. He spoke with emphasis: “You are ordered to go slowly and cautiously. Tell me everything you smell, see, and hear as you go. When you have detected the danger return to us. Do not attempt to fight it alone.”
Trooper advanced on all fours.
“It is a steep incline,” he called back, “but my claws hold me. The ground is firm enough. I see nothing. I smell only the blood of Heroes…”
“Still nothing,” he called a few moments later. “Blood smell is stronger… There is… a sting… my face. PAIN!”
“Come back! Come back at once! That is an order!” If Trooper were injured, an examination of his injuries might tell them what devilish thing awaited Heroes in that tunnel. And Trooper did not seem to be badly hurt yet. He heard Trooper scrabbling back, saying nothing. He seemed to be breathing with a peculiar wet noise.