smash a boat into their base at several thousand kph. The other boat might take out their ship and leave them stranded; I’ve a hunch they’ve kept just a single hyperdrive vessel, as scarce as those must still be among them. Yah, going out like that would be a sight better than going into the stewpot. Kzinti like long pig.”
Yoshii brightened. He and Laurinda exchanged a wonder-smitten look. Carita whooped. Tregennis smiled faintly. Ryan went oddly, abruptly thoughtful.
Markham gnawed his lip a moment, then straightened in his chair and rapped, “Very well. I do not approve, and I ask the crew to refrain from this foolishness of yours, but I cannot stop you. Therefore I must factor your action into my calculations. What terms shall I try to get for us?”
“Freedom to leave, of course,” Dorcas responded. “Let Rover retreat to hyperspacing distance and wait, while the kzinti withdraw too far to intercept our boats. We can verify that on instruments before we come near. We’ll convey any message they want, or even a delegate.”
“There could be a delegation on board, waiting,” Ryan warned.
Tregennis stirred. “I will remain behind,” he said.
Tears sprang into Laurinda’s eyes. “Oh, no!” she pleaded.
He smiled again, at her. “I am too old to go blatting around space like that. I would merely be a burden, and quite likely die on your hands. Not only will I be more comfortable here, I will be an extra witness to the bona fides of the kzinti. Landholder Markham alone could not keep track of everything they might stealthily do.”
“It will show them there are two reasonable human beings in this outfit,” the Wunderlander said.
“That might be marginally helpful to me. Anyone else?”
“Speaking,” Ryan answered.
“Huh?” broke from Saxtorph. “Hey, Kam, no. Whatever for?”
“For this,” the quartermaster said calmly. “Haven’t you thought of it yourself? The boats will be on the move, or holed up someplace unknown to the kzinti. They can only be reached by broadcast. Planar broadcast, maybe, but still the signal’s bound to be down in the milliwatts or microwatts when it reaches your receivers—with the sun’s radio background to buck. Nothing but voice transmission will carry worth diddly. Given a little time to record how the humans talk who were left behind, the kzinti can write a computer program to fake it. ’Sure, come on back, fellows, all is forgiven and they’ve left a case of champagne for us to celebrate with.’ How’re you going to know that’s for real?”
Dorcas frowned. “We did consider it,” she told him. “We’ll use a secret password.”
“Which a telepath of theirs can fish right out of a human skull, maybe given a spot of torture to unsettle the brain first. Nope, I know a trick worth two of that. How well do you remember your Hawaiian, Bob? You picked up a fair amount while we were in the village.” Ryan laughed. “That worked on the girls like butter on a toboggan slope.”
Saxtorph was a long while silent before he answered: “I think, if I practiced for a few days, I think… enough of it… would come back to me.”
Ryan nodded. “The kzinti have programs for the important human languages in their translators, but I doubt Hawaiian is included. Or Danish.”
Yoshii swallowed. “You’d certify everything is kosher?” he mumbled. “But what if—well—”
“If the kzinti aren’t stupid, they won’t try threatening or torturing me into feeding you a lie,” Ryan responded. “How’d they savvy what I was saying? I assure you, it wouldn’t be complimentary to them.”
“A telepath would know.”
Ryan shrugged. “He’d know I was not going to be their Judas goat, no matter what they did. Therefore they won’t do it.”
Saxtorph’s right hand half reached out. “Kam, old son—” he croaked. The hand dropped.
Dorcas rose and confronted the rest, side by side with her husband. “I’m sorry, but time is rationed for us and you must decide at once,” she said. “If you think you’d better stay, then do. We won’t consider you a coward or anything. You may be right. We can’t be sure at this stage. All we are certain of is that we don’t have time for debate. Who’s going?”
Hands went up, Carita’s, Yoshii’s, and after an instant Laurinda’s.
“Okay,” Dorcas continued. “Now we’re not about to put our bets on a single number. The boats will go separate ways. Which ways, we’ll decide by tight beam once we’re alone in space. You understand, Kam, Arthur, Landholder Markham. What you don’t know, a telepath or a torturer can’t get out of you. Bob and I have already considered the distribution.
“Carita and Juan will take Fido. We thought Kam would ride with them, but evidently not. Laurinda, you’ll be with Bob and me in Shep.”
“Wait a minute!” Yoshii protested. The girl brought fingertips to open mouth.
“Sorry, my dears,” Dorcas said. “It’s a matter of practicality, as nearly as we could estimate on short notice. Not that we imagine you two would play Romeo and Juliet to the neglect of your duties. However, Juan and Carita are our professional pilots, rockjacks, planetside prospectors. Together they make our strongest possible team. They can pull stunts Bob and I never could. We need that potential, don’t we? Bob and I are no slouches, but we do our best work in tandem. To supply some of what we lack as compared to Juan and Carita, Laurinda has knowledge, including knowledge of how to use instruments we plan to pack along, Don’t forget, more is involved than us. The whole human race needs to know what the kzinti are up to. We must maximize our chances of getting the news home. Agreed?”
Yoshii clenched his free hand into a fist, stared at it, raised his head, and answered, “Aye. And you can take better care of her.”
The Crashlander flushed. “I’m no piece of porcelain!” immediately contrite, she stroked the Belter’s cheek while she asked unevenly, “How soon do we leave?”
Dorcas smiled and made a gesture of blessing. “Let’s say an hour. We’ll need that much to stow gear. You two can have most of it to yourselves.”
The kzin warship was comparatively small, Prowling Hunter class, but not the less terrifying a sight. Weapon pods, boat bays, sensor booms, control domes studded a spheroid whose red hue, in the light of this sun, became like that of clotted blood. Out of it and across the kilometers between darted small fierce gleams that swelled into space-combat armor enclosing creatures larger than men. They numbered a dozen, and each bore at least two firearms.
Obedient to orders, Ryan operated the main personnel airlock and cycled four of them through. The first grabbed him and slammed him against the bulkhead so hard that it rang. Stunned, he would have slumped to the deck were it not for the bruising grip on his shoulders. The next two crouched with weapons ready. The last one took over the controls and admitted the remaining eight.
At once, ten went off in pairs to ransack the ship. It was incredible how fast they carried the mass of metal upon them. Their footfalls cast booming echoes down the passageways.
Markham and Tregennis, waiting in the saloon, were frisked and put under guard. Presently Ryan was brought to them. “My maiden aunt has better manners than they do,” he muttered, and lurched toward the bar. The kzin used his rifle butt to push him into a chair and gestured for silence. Time passed.
Within an hour, which felt longer to the humans, the boarding party was satisfied that there were no traps. Somebody radioed a report from the airlock; the rest shed their armor and stood at ease outside the saloon. Its air grew full of their wild odor.
A new huge and ruddy-gold form entered. The guard saluted, sweeping claws before his face. Markham jumped up. “For God’s sake, stand,” he whispered. “That’s the captain.”
Tregennis and, painfully, Ryan rose. The kzin’s gaze flickered over them and came back to dwell on Markham, recognizing leadership. The Wunderlander opened his mouth. Noises as of a tiger fight poured forth. Did the captain register surprise that a man knew his language? He heard it out and spat a reply. Markham tried to continue. The captain interrupted, and Markham went mute. The captain told him something.
Markham turned to his companions. “He forbids me to mangle the Hero’s Tongue anymore,” he related wryly. “He grants my request for a private talk—in the communications shack, where our translator is, since I explained that we do have one and it includes the right program. Meanwhile you may talk with each other and move freely about this cabin. If you must relieve yourselves, you may use the sink behind the bar.”
“How gracious of him,” Ryan snorted.
