Markham raised brows. “Consider yourselves fortunate. He is being indulgent. Don’t risk provoking him. High- ranking kzinti are even more sensitive about their honor than the average, and he has earned a partial name, Hraou-Captain.”
“We will be careful,” Tregennis promised. “I am sure you will do your best for us.”
The commander went majestically out. Markham trailed. Ryan gusted a sigh, sought the bar, tapped a liter of beer, and drained it in a few gulps. The guard watched enviously but then also left. Discipline had prevented him from shoving the human aside and helping himself. He and a couple of his fellows remained in the passage. They conversed a bit, rumbling and hissing.
“We’ll be here a while,” Ryan sighed. “Care for a round of gin?”
“It would be unwise of us to drink,” Tregennis cautioned. “Best you be content with that mug full you had.”
“I mean gin rummy.”
“What is that, if not a, ah, cocktail?”
“A card game. They don’t play it on Plateau? I can teach you.”
“No, thank you. Perhaps I am too narrow in my interests, but cards bore me.” Tregennis brightened. “However, do you play chess?”
Ryan threw up his hands. “You expect me to concentrate on woodpushing now? Hell, let’s screen a show. Something light and trashy, with plenty of girls in it. Or would you rather seize the chance to at last read War and Peace?”
Tregennis smiled. “Believe it or not, Kamehameha, I have my memories. By all means, girls.”
The comedy was not quite finished when a kzin appeared and jerked an unmistakable gesture. The men followed him. He didn’t bother with a companion or with ever glancing rearward. At the flight deck he proceeded to Saxtorph’s operations cabin, waved them through, and closed the door on them.
Markham sat behind the desk. He was very pale and reeked of the sweat that stained his tunic, but his visage was set in hard lines. Hraou-Captain loomed beside him, too big to use a human’s chair, doubtless tired of being cramped in the comshack and maybe choosing to increase his dominance by sheer height. Another kzin squatted in a far corner of the room, a wretched-looking specimen, fur dull and unkempt, shoulders slumped, eyes turned downward.
“Attention,” rasped Markham. “I wish I did not have to tell you this—I hoped to avoid it—but the commander says I must. He… feels deception is pointless and… besmirches his honor. His superior on Secunda agrees; we have been in radio contact.”
The newcomers braced themselves.
Nonetheless it was staggering to hear: “For the past five years I have been an agent of the kzinti. Later I will justify myself to you, if your minds are not totally closed. It is not hatred for my species that drove me to this, but love and concern for it, hatred for the decadence that is destroying us. Later, I say. We dare not waste Hraou- Captain’s time with arguments.”
Regarding the faces before him, Markham made his tone dry. “The kzinti never trusted me with specific information, but after I began sending them information about hyperdrive technology, they gave me a general directive. I was to use my position as commissioner to forestall, whenever possible, any exploration beyond the space containing the human occupied worlds. That naturally gave me an inkling of the reason—to prevent disclosure of their activities and it became clear to me that some of the most important must be in regions distant from kzin space. When hope was lost of keeping you from this expedition, I decided my duty was to join it and stand by in case of need. Not that I anticipated the need, understand. The star looked so useless. But when you did get those radio indications, I knew better than you what they could mean, and was glad I had provided against the contingency, and beamed a notice of our arrival.”
“Your parents were brothers,” Ryan said.
Markham laid back his ears. “Spare the abuse. Remember, by forewarning the kzinti I saved your lives. If you had simply blundered into detector range.”
“They may be impulsive,” Tregennis said, “but they are not idiotic. I do not accept your assertion that they would reflexively have annihilated us.”
Markham trembled. “Silence. Bear in mind that I am all that stands between you and—It has been a long time since the kzinti in this project tasted fresh meat.”
“What are they doing?” Ryan asked.
“Constructing a naval base. They chose the system precisely because it seemed insignificant—the dimmest star in the whole region, devoid of heavy elements and impoverished in the light—though it does happen to have a ready source of iron and certain other crucial materials, together with a strategic location. They never expected humans to seek it out. They underestimated the curiosity of our species. They are… cats, not monkeys.”
“Uh-huh. Not noisy, sloppy, free-swinging monkeys like you despise. Kzinti respect rank. Once they’ve overrun us, they’ll put the niggers back in their proper place. From here they can grab off Beta Hydri, drive a salient way into our space—How many more prongs will there be to the attack? When is the next war scheduled for?”
“Silence!” Markham shouted. “Hold your mouth! One word from me, and—”
“And what? You need us, Art and me, you need us, else we wouldn’t be having this interview. Kill us, and your boss just gets a few meals.”
“Killing can be in due course. I imagine he would enjoy your testicles for tomorrow’s breakfast.”
Ryan rocked on his feet. Tregennis’ lips squeezed together till they were white.
Markham’s voice softened. “I am warning, not threatening,” he said in a rush. “I’ll save you if I can, unharmed, but if you don’t help me I can promise nothing.”
He leaned forward. “Listen, will you? Obviously you can’t be released to spread the news, not yet but some years of detention are better than death.” He could not quite hold back the sneer. “In your minds, I suppose. You’re lucky, lucky that I was aboard. Once my status has been verified, the high commandant can let me bring home a convincing tale of disaster. Else he would probably have had to kill us and make our bodies stage props, as Saxtorph suggested. I think he will spare you if I ask; it will cost him little, and kzinti reward faithful service. They also keep their promises. But you must earn your lives.”
“The boats,” Tregennis whispered.
Ryan nodded. “You’ve got a telepath on hand, I see,” he said flat-voiced. “He could make sure that my call in Hawaiian tells how everything is hearts and flowers. Except if he reads my mind, he’ll see that I ain’t gonna do it, no matter what. Or, okay, maybe they can break me, but Bob will hear that in his old pal’s voice.”
“I’ve explained this to Hraou-Captain,” Markham said, cooler now. “It is necessary to neutralize those boats, but they don’t pose any urgent threat, so we will start with methods less time-consuming than… interrogation and persuasion. Later, though, when we are on Secunda—that’s where we are going—later your cooperation in working up a plausible disaster for me to return with, that is what will buy you your lives. If you refuse, you’ll die for nothing, because we can always devise some deception which will keep humans away from here. You’ll die for nothing.”
“What the hell can we do about the boats? We don’t know where they’ve gone.”
Markham’s manner became entirely impersonal. “I have explained this to Hraou-Captain. I went on to explain that their actions will not be random. What Captain Saxtorph decides—has decided to do is a multivariable function of the logic of the situation and of his personality. You and he are good friends, Ryan. You can make shrewd guesses as to his behavior. They won’t be certain, of course, but they will eliminate some possibilities and assign rough probabilities to others. Your input may have some value, too, Professor. And even mine—in the course of establishing that I have been telling the truth.”
“Sit down on the deck. This will not be pleasant, you know.” Hraou-Captain, who had stood like a pillar, turned his enormous body and growled a command. The telepath raised his head. Eyes glazed by the drug that called forth his total abilities came to a focus.
In their different ways, the three humans readied for what was about to happen. They’d have sundering headaches for hours afterward, too.
Small though it was, at its distance from Prima the sun showed more than half again the disc which Sol presents to Earth. Blotches of darkness pocked its sullen red. Corona shimmered around the limb, not quite drowned out of naked-eye vision.
