hard. We’ll meet in the gym in an hour, 1530, and consider this together.”
Standing with back to bulkhead, the captain let silence stretch, beneath the pulsebeat and whispers of the ship, while he scanned the faces of those seated before him. Dorcas, her Athene countenance frozen into expressionlessness; Kam Ryan’s full lips quirked a bit upward, defiantly cheery; Carita Fenger a-scowl; Juan Yoshii and Laurinda Brozik unable to keep from glancing at each other, hand gripping hand; Arthur Tregennis, who seemed almost as concerned about the girl; Ulf Markham, well apart from the rest, masked in haughtiness—Ulf Reichstein Markham, if you please… The air renewal cycle was at its daily point of ozone injection. That tang smelled like fear.
Which must not be let out of its cage. Saxtorph cleared his throat. “Okay, let’s get straight to business,” he said. “You must’ve noticed a quiver in the interior g-field and change in engine sound. You’re right, we altered acceleration. Rover will meet the foreign vessel, with velocities matched, in about 35 hours. It could be sooner, but Dorcas told them we weren’t sure our hull could take that much stress. What we wanted, naturally, was as much time beforehand as possible.”
“Why don’t we cut and run?” Carita asked.
Saxtorph shrugged. “Whether or not we can outrun them, we for sure can’t escape the stuff they can throw, now that they’ve locked onto us. If they really are kzinti navy, they’ll never let us get out where we can go hyperspatial. They may be lying, but Dorcas and I don’t propose to take the chance.”
“I presume evasion tactics are unfeasible,” said Tregennis in his most academic voice.
“Correct. We could stop the engine, switch off the generator, and orbit free, with batteries supplying the life support systems, but they’d have no trouble computing our path. As soon as they came halfway close, they’d catch us with a radar sweep.
“From what data we have on them, I believe they were searching for some time before they acquired us, probably with amplified optics. That’s assuming they were in orbit around Secunda when they first learned of our arrival. The assumption is consistent with what would be a reasonable search curve for them and with the fact that there are modulated radio bursts out of that planet-transmissions to and from their base.”
Nobody before had seen Yoshii snarl. “And how did they learn about us?” he demanded.
Looks went to Markham. He gave them back. “Yes, undoubtedly through me,” he said. Strength rang in the words. “You all know I took it upon myself to beam a signal at Secunda—in my capacity as this expedition’s officer of the government. The result has surprised me, too, but I acknowledge no need to apologize. If we, approaching a kzin base unbeknownst, had suddenly become manifest to their detectors, they would most likely have blown us out of existence.”
Ryan nodded. “Without stopping to ask questions,” he supplied. “Yeah, that’d be kzin style. If they are. How’re you so sure?”
“I think we can take it for granted,” Dorcas said. “Who else would have reason to call themselves kzinti?”
“Who else would want to?” Carita growled.
“Save the cuss words for later,” Saxtorph counseled. “We’re in too much of a pickle for luxuries. I might add that although the vocal transmission was through a translator, the phrasing, the responses to us, everything was pure kzin. They are here—on the far side of human space from their own. You realize what this means, don’t you, folks? The kzinti have gotten the hyperdrive.”
That conclusion had indeed become clear to everyone, but Laurinda asked, “How could they?” as if in pain.
Yoshii grimaced. “Once you know something can be done, you’re halfway to doing it yourself,” he told her.
“I know,” she answered. “But I had the, the impression they aren’t quite as clever at engineering as humans, even if they did invent the gravity polarizer. And, and wouldn’t we have known?”
“Collecting intelligence in kzin space isn’t exactly easy,” Saxtorph explained. “Anyhow, they may have done the R and D on some planet we aren’t aware of. I’ll grant you, I’m surprised myself that they’ve been this quick.
“Well, they were.” His grin was lopsided. “Once I heard about an epitaph on an old New England tombstone. ’I expected this, but not so soon.’”
“Why have they established themselves here?” Tregennis wondered. “As you observed, it is a long journey for them, especially if they went around human space in order to avoid any chance that their possession of the hyperdrive would be discovered. True, this system is uniquely interesting, but I didn’t think kzin civilization gave scientific research as high a value as ours does.”
“That’s a good question,” Saxtorph said.
His gallows humor drew a chuckle from none but Ryan. Dorcas uttered the thought in every mind: “They won’t let us go home to tell about them if they can help it.”
“Which is why we are being nice and meeting them as they request,” Saxtorph added. “It gives them an alternative to putting a nuke on our track.”
Markham folded his arms and stated, “I hope you people have the wit to be glad, at last, that I came along. They will understand that I am authorized to negotiate with them. They will likewise understand that my disappearance would in due course cause a second expedition to come, with armed escort, as the loss of an entirely private group might not.”
“Could be,” Saxtorph said. “However, I can think of several ways to fake a natural disaster for us.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for instance, giving us a lethal dose of radiation, then sending the corpses back with the ship gimmicked to seem this was an accident. The kzin pilot could return on an accompanying vessel after ours left hyperspace.”
“What would the log show?”
“What the ’last survivor’ was tortured into entering.”
“Nonsense. You have been watching too many spy dramas.”
“I disagree. Besides, that was just one of the notions that occurred to Dorcas and me. The kzinti might be more inventive yet.”
“We have decided not to rely exclusively on their sweet nature,” the mate declared. “Listen carefully.
“We can launch the boats without them detecting it, if we act soon. They’ll float free while Rover proceeds to rendezvous. When she’s a suitable distance off, nobody looking for any action in this volume of space, they’ll scramble.”
Carita smacked fist in palm. “Hey, terrific!” she cried.
Markham sounded appalled: “Have you gone crazy? How will you survive, let alone return, in two little interplanetary flitters?”
“They’re more than that,” Saxtorph reminded. “They’re rugged and maneuverable and full to the scuppers with delta v. In either of them I’d undertake to outrace or dodge a tracking missile, and make it tough or impossible to hold a laser beam on her long enough to do much damage. Air and water recycler are in full working order and rations for one man year are stowed aboard.”
“I ate some,” Yoshii stammered. “Carita must have, too.”
“I’ve already replaced it,” Ryan informed them.
“Good thinking!” Saxtorph exclaimed. “Did you expect this tactic?”
“Oh, general principles. Take care of your belly and your belly will take care of you.”
“Stop that schoolboy chatter,” Markham snapped. “What in the cosmos can you hope to do but antagonize the kzinti?”
“How do you tell an antagonized kzin from an un-antagonized one?” Saxtorph retorted. “I am dead serious. Nobody has to follow me who doesn’t want to.”
“I certainly do not. Someone has to stay and… try to repair the harm your lunacy will have done.”
“I figured you would. But I supposed you, of all people, would have a better hold on kzin psychology than you’re showing. You ought to know they don’t resent an opponent giving them a proper fight. Fighting’s their nature. Whoever surrenders becomes no more than a captured animal in their eyes. Dorcas and I aim to put some high cards in your hand before you sit down at their poker table. A spacecraft on the loose is a weapon. The drive, or the sheer kinetic energy, can wreck things quite as thoroughly as the average nuke. Come worst to worst, we might
