SCat looked up at him and made an odd noise, easy enough to interpret. “SCat thinks he and SKitty can guard the kittens well enough,” Dick replied, as Vena waved him through the door, a torrent of cats washing around his ankles.
“I’m sure he does,” Vena retorted. “But let’s remember that he’s only a cat, however much his genes have been tweaked. I hardly think he’s capable of understanding the danger of the current situation.”
“He isn’t just a cat, he was a
“Dick, we don’t even know exactly what we’re into—all we know is that there was an attempt to poison the cats by an assassin that got away. We don’t know if it was a lone fanatic, someone sent by our hosts’ enemies, if there’s only one or more than one—” She sighed as they reached the street. “We’re doing all the intelligence gathering we can, but it’s difficult to manage when you don’t look anything like the dominant species on the planet.”
The street was empty, which was fairly normal at this time of day when most Lacu’un were inside at their evening meal. The sky of this world seemed a bit greenish to him, but he’d gotten used to it—today, there were some clouds that might mean rain. Or might not, he didn’t know very much about planet-side weather.
SCat’s squall was all the warning Dick got to throw himself out of the way as something dark and fast whizzed through the place where he’d been standing. SKitty and the kittens fairly flew back to the safety of the Embassy, SCat whisked out of sight altogether; a larger, cloaked shape sprang from the shadows of a doorway, and before Dick managed to get halfway to his feet, the grey-cloaked, pale-skinned Lacu’un seized Vena and enveloped her, holding a knife to her throat.
“Be still, blasphemous she-demon!” it grated, holding both Vena’s arms pinned behind her back in a way that had to be excruciatingly painful. She grimaced but said nothing. “And you, father of demons, be still also!” it snapped at Dick. “I am the righteous hand of Kresh’kali, the all-devouring, the purifier! I am the bringer of cleansing, the anointed of God! In His name, and by His mercy, I give you this choice—remove yourselves from our soil, take yourselves back into the sky forever, or you will die, first you and your she-demon and your god killing pests, then all of those who brought you.” Its voice rose, taking on the tones of a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher. “Kresh’kali is the One, the true God, whose word is the only law, and whose minions cleanse the world in His image; His will shall not be flouted, and His servants not denied—”
It sounded like a well-rehearsed speech, and probably would have gone on for some time had it not been interrupted by the speaker’s own scream of agony.
And small wonder, for SCat had crept up unseen even by Dick, until the instant he leapt for the assassin’s knife-wielding wrist, and fastened his teeth unerringly into those sensitive nerves at the joining of hand and wrist.
The knife clattered to the street, Vena twisted away, and Dick charged, all at the same moment; his shoulder hit the assassin and they both went down on the hard stone paving. But not in a disorderly heap, no; by the time the Marines came piling out of the Embassy, alerted by the frantic herd of cats, Dick had the miscreant face-down on the ground with both arms paralyzed from the shoulders down. And, miracle of miracles, this time
He wasn’t taking any chances though; he waited until the Marines had all four limbs of the assassin in stasis-cuffs before he got off his captive and surrendered him.
“Do we turn him over to the locals?” one of the Marines asked Vena diffidently.
“Not a chance,” she growled. “Hustle him into the Embassy before anyone asks any questions.”
“What are you going to do?” Dick asked
“I told you, we’ve got some ideas—and a couple of experiments I’d rather try on this dirt-bag rather than any Lacu’un volunteers,” was all she said, leaving him singularly unsatisfied. All he could be certain of was that she didn’t plan to execute the assassin out-of-hand.
He continued to follow, and was not prevented, as Vena led the way up the stairs to the Embassy med-lab. The entire entourage of cats followed, and Vena not only
But Vena dropped down onto one knee and looked into SKitty’s eyes. “I know you’re a telepath, SKitty,” she said, in Terran. “Can you project to anyone but Dick? Could you project into our prisoner’s mind? Put your voice in his head?”
SKitty turned her head to look up at Dick.
“She says he’s got barriers,” Dick interpreted. “I understand that most nontelepathic people have and it’s just an accident that the two of us are compatible.”
“I may be able to change that,” Vena replied, with a tight smile, as she got to her feet. “SKitty, I’m going to do some things to this prisoner, and I want you to tell me when the barriers are gone.” She turned to a cabinet and unlocked it; inside were hypospray vials, and she selected one. “We’ve been cooperating with the Lacu’un Healers; putting together drugs we’ve been developing for the Lacu’un,” she continued, “There are hypnotics that are proven to lower telepathic barriers in humans, and I have a few that may do the same for the Lacu’un. If they don’t kill him, that is.” She raised an eyebrow at Dick. “You can see why we didn’t want to test them even on volunteers.”
“But if the drugs kill him—” Dick gulped.
“Then we save the Lacu’ara the cost of an execution, and we apologize that the prisoner expired from fear,” she replied smoothly. Dick gulped again; this was a ruthless side of Vena he’d had no notion existed!
She placed the first hypo against the side of the prisoner’s neck; the device hissed as it discharged its contents, and the prisoner’s eyes widened with fear.
An hour later, there were only two vials left in the cabinet; Vena had administered all the rest, and their antidotes, with sublime disregard for the strain this was probably putting on the prisoner’s body. The effects of each had been duly noted, but none of them produced the desired effect of lowering the barriers nontelepaths had against telepathic intrusion.
