The Man-Kzin Wars 02

way to stick the point of a w'tsai against a man's throat. Parker froze.

“If you shoot me, you are deader than chivalry,” Locklear said, propping himself up on an elbow. “Toss the pistol away.”

Parker, cursing, did so, looking at Scarface, finding his chance as the Kzin glanced toward the weapon.

Parker shied away with a sidelong leap, snatching for his slung rifle. And ignoring the leg of Locklear who tripped him nicely.

As his rifle tumbled into grass, Parker rolled to his feet and began sprinting for the warship two hundred meters away. Scarface outran him easily, then stationed himself in front of the warship's hatch. Locklear could not hear Parker's words, but his gestures toward the w'tsai were clear: there ain't no justice.

Scarface understood. With that Kzin grin that so many humans failed to understand, he tossed the w'tsai near Parker's feet in pure contempt. Parker grabbed the knife and saw his enemy's face, howled in fear, then raced into the forest, Scarface bounding lazily behind.

Locklear knocked the limb away from his cabin door and found Ruth inside with three others, all young females. He embraced the homely Ruth with great joy. The other young Neanderthalers disappeared from the clearing in seconds but Ruth walked off with Locklear. He had already seen the spider grenades that lay with sensors outspread just outside the cabin's walls. Two gentles had already died trying to dig their way out, she said.

He tried to prepare Ruth for his ally's appearance but, when Scarface reappeared with his w'tsai, she needed time to adjust. “I don't see any blood,” was Locklear's comment.

“The blood of cowards is distasteful,” was the Kzin's wry response. “I believe you have my sidearm, friend Locklear.”

They should have counted, said Locklear, on Stockton learning to fly the Kzin lifeboat. But lacking heavy weapons, it might not complicate their capture strategy too much. As it happened, the capture was more absurd than complicated.

Stockton brought the lifeboat humbling down in late afternoon almost in the same depressions the craft's jackpads had made previously, within fifty paces of the Anthony Wayne. He and the lissome Grace wore holstered pistols, stretching out their muscle kinks as they walked toward the bigger craft, unaware that they were being watched. “Anse; we're back,” Stockton shouted. “Any word from Gomulka?”

Silence from the ship, though its hatch steps were down. Grace shrugged, then glanced at Locklear's cabin. “The door prop is down, Curt. He's trying to hump those animals again.”

“Damn him,” Stockton railed, and both turned toward the cabin. To Grace he complained, “If you were a better lay, he wouldn't always be— good God!”

The source of his alarm was a long blood-chilling, gut-wrenching scream. A Kzin scream, the kind featured in horror holovision productions; and very, very near. “Battle stations, red alert, up ship,” Stockton cried, bolting for the hatch.

Briefly, he had his pistol ready but had to grip it in his teeth as he reached for the hatch rails of the Anthony Wayne. For that one moment he almost resembled a piratical man of action, and that was the moment when he stopped, one foot on the top step, and Grace bumped her head against his rump as she fled up those steps.

“I don't think so,” said Locklear softly. To Curt Stockton, the muzzle of that alien sidearm so near must have looked like a torpedo launcher. His face drained of color, the commander allowed Locklear to take the pistol from his trembling lips. “And Grace,” Locklear went on, because he could not see her past Stockton's bulk, “I doubt if it's your style anyway, but don't give your pistol a second thought. That Kzin you heard? Well, they're out there behind you, but they aren't in here. Toss your parabellum away and I'll let you in.”

* * *

Late the next afternoon they finished walling up the crypt on Newduvai, with a small work force of willing hands recruited by Ruth. As the little group of gentles filed away down the hillside, Scarface nodded toward the rubble-choked entrance. “I still believe we should have executed those two, Locklear.”

“I know you do. But they'll keep in stasis for as long as the war lasts, and on Newduvai— Well, Ruth's people agree with me that there's been enough killing.” Locklear turned his back on the crypt and Ruth moved to his side, still wary of the huge alien whose speech sounded like the sizzle of fat on a skewer.

“Your ways are strange,” said the Kzin, as they walked toward the nearby pinnacle. “I know something of Interworld beauty standards. As long as you want that female lieutenant alive, it seems to me you would keep her, um, available.”

“Grace Agostinho's beauty is all on the outside. And there's a girl hiding somewhere on Newduvai that those deserters never did catch. In a few years she'll be— Well, you'll meet her someday.” Locklear put an arm around Ruth's waist and grinned. “The truth is, Ruth thinks I'm pretty funny-looking, but some things you can learn to overlook.”

At the clearing, Ruth hopped from the pinnacle first. “Ruth will fix place nice, like before,” she promised, and walked to the cabin.

“She's learning Interworld fast,” Locklear said proudly. “Her telepathy helps — in a lot of ways. Scarface, do you realize that her people may be the most tremendous discovery of modern times? And the irony of it! The empathy these people share probably helped isolate them from the modern humans that came from their own gene pool. Yet their kind of empathy might be the only viable future for us.” He sighed and stepped to the turf. “Sometimes I wonder whether I want to be found.”

Standing beside the pinnacle, they gazed at the Anthony Wayne. Scarface said, “With that warship, you could do the finding.”

Locklear assessed the longing in the face of the big Kzin. “I know how you feel about piloting, Scarface. But you must accept that I can't let you have any craft more advanced than your scooter back on Kzersatz.”

“But— Surely, the pinnacle or my own lifeboat?”

“You see that?” Locklear pointed toward the forest.

Scarface looked dutifully away, then back, and when he saw the sidearm pointing at his breast, a look of terrible loss crossed his face. “I see that I will never understand you,” he growled, clasping his hands behind his head. “And I see that you still doubt my honor.”

Locklear forced him to lean against the pinnacle, arms behind his back, and secured his hands with binder tape. “Sorry, but I have to do this,” he said. “Now get back in the pinnacle. I'm taking you to Kzersatz.”

“But I would have—”

“Don't say it,” Locklear demanded. “Don't tell me what you want, and don't remind me of your honor, goddammit! Look here, I know you don't lie. And what if the next ship here is another Kzin ship? You won't lie to them either, your bloody honor won't let you. They'll find you sitting pretty on Kzersatz, right?”

Teetering off-balance as he climbed into the pinnacle without using his arms, Scarface still glowered. But after a moment he admitted, “Correct.”

“They won't court-martial you, Scarface. Because a lying, sneaking monkey pulled a gun on you, tied you up, and sent you back to prison. I'm telling you here and now, I see Kzersatz as a prison and every tabby on this planet will be locked up there for the duration of the war!” With that, Locklear sealed the canopy and made a quick check of the console readouts. He reached across to adjust the inertia-reel harness of his companion, then shrugged into his own. “You have no choice, and no tabby telepath can ever claim you did. Now do you understand?”

The big Kzin was looking below as the forest dropped away, but Locklear could see his ears forming the Kzin equivalent of a smile. “No wonder you win wars,” said Scarface.

THE CHILDRENS HOUR Jerry Pournelle & SM. Stirling