make alloys. Small quantities suffice.”
Tregennis had evidently not fainted. His eyelids fluttered open. “Hold,” he whispered. “Those asteroids… orbit within… less than half a million kilometers… of the sun surface.” He panted feebly before adding, “It may be a… very late type M… but nevertheless, the effective temperature—” His voice trailed off.
The awe returned to Markham's. “They have built a special tug.”
“What sort?” Ryan asked.
“In principle, like the kind we know. Having found a desirable body, it lays hold with a grapnel field. I think this vessel uses a gravity polarizer system rather than electromagnetics. The kzinti originated that technology, remember. The tug draws the object into the desired orbit and releases it to go to its destination. The tug is immensely powerful. It can handle not simply large rocks like what you saw, but whole asteroids of reasonable size. As they near Secunda tangential paths, of course — it works them into planetary orbit. That's why local space is too crowded for the kzinti to leave Rover in it unmanned. Besides ferrous masses on hand, two or three new ones are usually en route, and not all the tailings of worked out old ones get swept away.”
“But the heat near the sun,” Ryan objected. “The crew would roast alive. I don't see how they can trust robotics alone. If nothing else, let the circuits get too hot and—”
“The tug has a live crew,” Markham said. “It's built double-hulled and mirror-bright, with plenty of radiating surfaces. But mainly it's ship size, not boat size, because it loads up with water ice before each mission. There is plenty of that around the big planets, you know, chilled well below minus a hundred degrees. Heated, melted, evaporated, vented, it maintains an endurable interior until it has been spent.”
“I thought we… found traces of water and OH… in a ring around the sun,” Tregennis breathed. “Could it actually be—”
“I don't know how much ice the project has consumed to date,” Markham said, “but you must agree it is grandly conceived. That is a crew of heroes. They suffer, they dare death each time, but their will prevails.”
Ryan rubbed his chin. “I suppose otherwise the only spacecraft are shuttles. And the warcraft and her boats.”
“They are building more.” Markham sounded proud. “And weapons and support machinery. This will be an industrial as well as a naval base.”
“For the next war—” Tregennis seemed close to tears. Ryan patted his hand. Silence took over.
The boat entered atmosphere, which whined as she decelerated around the globe. A dawn storm, grit and ice, obscured the base, but the humans made out that it was in the great crater, presumably because the moonfall had brought down valuable ores and caused more to spurt up from beneath. Interconnected buildings made a web across several kilometers, with a black central spider. Doubtless much lay underground. An enterprise like this was large-scale or it was worthless. True, it had to start small, precariously — the first camp, the assembling of life support systems and food production facilities and a hospital for victims of disasters such as were inevitable when you drove hard ahead with your work on a strange world — but demonic energy had joined the exponential-increase powers of automated machines to bring forth this city of warriors.
No, Ryan thought, a city of workers in the service of future warriors. Thus far few professional fighters would be present except the crew of Vengeful Slasher. They weren't needed… yet. The warship was on hand against unlikely contingencies. Well, in this case kzin paranoia had paid off. The pilot made an instrument landing into a cradle. Ryan spied more such units, three of them holding shuttles. The field on which they stood, though paved, must often be treacherous because of drifted dust. Secunda had no unfrozen water to cleanse its air; and the air was a chill wisp. Most of the universe is barren. Hawaii seemed infinitely far away. A gang tube snaked from a ziggurat-like terminal building. Airlocks linked. An armed kzin entered and saluted. Hraou-Captain gestured at the humans and snarled an imperative before he went out.
Markham unharnessed. “I am to follow him,” he said. “You go with this guard. Quarters are prepared. Behave yourselves and… I will do my best for you.”
Ryan rose. Two-thirds Earth weight felt good. He collected his and Tregennis' bags in his right hand and gave the astronomer his left arm for support. Kzinti throughout a cavernous main room stared as the captives appeared. They didn't goggle like humans, they watched like cats. Several naked tails switched to and fro. An effort had been made to brighten the surroundings, a huge mural of some hero in hand-to-hand combat with a monster; the blood jetted glaring bright.
The guard led his charges down corridors which pulsed with the sounds of construction. At last he opened a door, waved them through, and closed it behind them. They heard a lock click shut.
The room held a bed and a disposal unit, meant for kzinti but usable by humans; the bed was ample for two, and by dint of balancing and clinging you could take care of sanitation. “I better help you till you feel better, Prof,” Ryan offered. “Meanwhile, why don't you lie down? I'll unpack.” The bags and floor must furnish storage space. Kzinti seldom went in for clothes or for carrying personal possessions around.
They did hate sensory deprivation, still more than humans do. There was no screen, but a port showed the spacefield. The terminator storm was dying out as the sun rose higher, and the view cleared fast. Under a pale red sky, the naval complex came to an end some distance off. Tawny sand reached onward, strewn with boulders. In places, wind had swept clear the fused crater floor. It wasn't like lava, more like dark glass. Huge though the bowl was, Secunda much less dense than Earth, but significantly larger had a wide enough horizon that the nearer wall jutted above it in the west, a murky palisade. Tregennis took Ryan's advice and stretched himself out. The quartermaster smiled and came to remove his shoes for him. “Might as well be comfortable,” Ryan said, “or as nearly as we can without beer.”
“And without knowledge of our fates,” the Plateaunian said low. “Worse, the fates of our friends.”
“At least they are out of Markham's filthy hands.”
“Kamehameha, please. Watch yourself. We shall have to deal with him. And he — I think he too is feeling shocked and lonely. He didn't expect this either. His orders were merely to hamper exploration beyond the limits of human space. He wants to spare us. Give him the chance.”
“Ha! I'd rather give a shark that kind of chance. It's less murderous.”
“Oh, now, really.”
Ryan thumped fist on wall. “Who do you suppose put that kzin up to attacking Bob Saxtorph back in Tiamat? It has to have been Markham, when his earlier efforts failed. Nothing else makes sense. And this, mind you, this was when he had no particular reason to believe our expedition mattered as far as the kzinti were concerned. They hadn't trusted him with any real information. But he went ahead anyway and tried to get a man killed to stop us. That shows you what value he puts on human life.”
“Well, maybe… maybe he is deranged,” Tregennis sighed. “Would you bring me a tablet, please? I see a water tap and bowl over there.”
“Sure. Heart, huh? Take it easy. You shouldn't've come along, you know.” Tregennis smiled. “Medical science has kept me functional far longer than I deserve.
Ryan lifted the white head and brought the bowl, from which a kzin would have lapped, carefully close to the lips. “You've got more heart than a lot of young bucks I could name,” he said.
Time crept past.
The door opened. “Hey, food?” Ryan asked.
Markham confronted them, an armed kzin at his back. He was again pallid and stiff of countenance. “Come,” he said harshly.
Rested, Tregennis walked steady-footed beside Ryan. They went through a maze of featureless passages with shut doors, coldly lighted, throbbing or buzzing. When they encountered other kzinti they felt the carnivore stares follow them.
After a long while they stopped at a larger door. This part of the warren looked like officer country, though Ryan couldn't be sure when practically everything he saw was altogether foreign to him. The guard let them in and followed.
