on a slashtooth skin draped over a couch. Weoch-Captain came to attention and presented himself. 'At ease,' the High Admiral said. 'You may sit, stand, or pace as you wish. I expect you will, from time to time, pace.'
Weoch-Captain decided to stay on his feet for the nonce.
Ress-Chiuu's deceptively soft tones went on: 'Realize that I have offered you no insult. You were met by a slave because, at least for the present, extreme confidentiality is necessary. Furthermore, I require not only a Hero-they are many-but one who possesses an unusual measure of self-control and forethoughtfulness. I had reason to believe you do. You have shown I was right. Praise and honor be yours.'
The accolade calmed Weoch-Captain's pride. It also focused his mind the more sharply. (Doubtless that was intended, said a part of his mind with a wryness rare in kzinti.) His ears rose and unfolded. 'I have delegated my current duties and am instantly available for the High Admiral's orders,' he reported.
Shadows dappled fur as the blocky head nodded approval. 'We go straight to the spoor, then. You know of Werlith-Commandant's mission on the opposite side of human-hegemony space.' It was not a question. 'Ill tidings: lately a human crew stumbled upon the base that was under construction there. They came to investigate the sun, which appears to be unique in several ways.'
Monkey curiosity, thought Weoch-Captain. He was slightly too young to have fought in the war, but he had spent his life hearing about it, studying it, dreaming of the next one. His knowledge included terms of scorn evolved among kzinti who had learned random things about the planet where the enemy originated.
Ress-Chiuu's level words smote him: 'Worse, much worse. Incredibly, they seem to have destroyed the installations. Certain is that they inflicted heavy casualties, disabled our spacecraft, and went home nearly unscathed. You perceive what this means. They conveyed the information that we have developed the hyperdrive ourselves. All chance of springing a surprise is gone.' Sarcasm harshened the voice. 'No doubt the Patriarchy will soon receive 'representations' from Earth about this 'unfortunate incident.''
Over the hyperwave, said Weoch-Captain's mind bleakly. Those few black boxes that the peace treaty provided for, left among us, engineered to self-destruct at the least tampering.
Well did he know. Such an explosion had killed a brother of his. Understanding leaped. If the humans had not yet communicated officially—
'May I ask how the Patriarchs learned?'
'We have our means. I will consider what to tell you.' Ress-Chiuu's calm was giving way ever so little. His tail lashed his thighs, a pink whip. 'We must find out exactly what happened. Or, if nothing else, we must establish what the situation is, whether anything of our base remains, what the Earth Navy is doing there. Survivors should be rescued. If this is impossible, perhaps they can be eliminated by rays or missiles before they fall into human grasp.'
'Heroes—'
'Would never betray our secrets. Yes, yes. But can you catalogue every trick those creatures may possess?' Ress-Chiuu lifted head and shoulders. His eyes locked with Weoch-Captain's. 'You will command our ship to that sun.'
Disaster or no, eagerness flamed. 'Sire!'
'Slow, slow,' the older kzin growled. 'We require an officer intelligent as well as bold, capable of agreeing that the destiny of the race transcends his own, and indeed, to put it bluntly—' he paused- 'One who is not afraid to cut and run, should the alternative be valiant failure. Are you prepared for this?'
Weoch-Captain relaxed from his battle crouch and, inwardly, tautened further. 'The High Admiral has bestowed a trust on me,' he said. 'I accept.'
'It is well. Come, sit. This will be a long night.'
They talked, and ransacked databases, and ran tentative plans through the computers, until dawn whitened the east. Finally, almost jovially, Ress-Chiuu asked, 'Are you exhausted?'
'On the contrary, sire, I think I have never been more fightworthy.'
'You need to work that off and get some rest. Be-sides, you have earned a pleasure. You may go into my forest and make a bare-handed kill.'
When Weoch-Captain came back out at noontide, jaws still dripping red, he felt tranquil, happy, and, once he had slept, ready to conquer a cosmos.
Chapter II
The sun was an hour down and lights had come aglow along streets, but at this time of these years Alpha Centauri B was still aloft. Low in the west, like thousands of evening stars melted into one, it cast shadows the length of Karl-Jorge Avenue and set the steel steeple of St. Joachim's a shimmer against an eastern sky purpling into dusk. Vehicles and pedestrians alike were sparse, the city's pulsebeat quieted to a murmur through mild summer air-day's work ended, night's pleasures just getting started. Munchen had changed more in the past decade or two than most places on Wunderland. Commercial and cultural as well as political center, it was bound to draw an undue share of outworlders and their influence. Yet it still lived largely by the rhythms of the planet.
Robert Saxtorph doubted that that would continue through his lifetime. Let him enjoy it while it lasted. Traditions gave more color to existence than did any succession of flashy fashions.
He honored one by tipping his cap to the Liberation Memorial as he crossed the Silberplatz. Though the sculpture wasn't old and the events had taken place scarcely a generation ago, they stood in history with Marathon and Yorktown. Leaving the square, he sauntered up the street past a variety of shop windows. His destination, Harold's Terran Bar, had a certain venerability too. And he was bound there to meet a beautiful woman with something mysterious to tell him. Another tradition, of sorts?
At the entrance, he paused. His grin going sour, he well-nigh said to hell with it and turned around. Tyra Nordbo should not have made him promise to keep this secret even from his wife, before she set the rendezvous. Nor should she have picked Harold's. He hadn't cared to patronize it since visit before last. Now the very sign that floated luminous before the brown brick wall had been expurgated. A World On Its Own remained below the name, but humans only was gone. Mustn't offend potential customers or, God forbid, local idealists.
In Saxtorph's book, courtesy was due everyone who hadn't forfeited the right. However, under the kzinti occupation that motto had been a tiny gesture of defiance. Since the war, no sophont that could pay was denied admittance. But onward with the bulldozer of blandness.
He shrugged. Having come this far, let him proceed. Time enough to leave if la Nordbo turned out to be a celebrity hunter or a vibrobrain. The fact was that she had spoken calmly, and about money. Besides, he'd enjoyed watching her image. He went on in. Nowadays the door opened for anybody.
As always, a large black man occupied the vestibule, wearing white coat and bow tie. What had once made some sense had now become mere costume. His eyes widened at the sight of the newcomer, as big as him, with the craggy features and thinning reddish hair. 'Why, Captain Saxtorph!' he exclaimed in fluent English. 'Welcome, sir. No, for you, no entry fee.'
They had never met. 'I'm on private business,' Saxtorph warned.
'I understand, sir. If somebody bothers you, give me the high sign and I'll take care of them.' Maybe the doorman could, overawing by sheer size if nothing else, or maybe his toughness was another part of the show. It wasn't a quality much in demand any more.
'Thanks.' Saxtorph slipped him a tip and passed through a beaded curtain which might complicate signaling for the promised help, into the main room. It was dimly lit and little smoke hung about. Customers thus far were few, and most in the rear room gambling. Nevertheless a fellow at an obsolete model of musicomp was playing something ancient. Saxtorph went around the deserted sunken dance floor to the bar, chose a stool, and ordered draft Solborg from a live servitor.
He had swallowed a single mouthful of the half liter when he heard, at his left, 'What, no akvavit with, and you a Dane?' The voice was husky and female; the words, English, bore a lilting accent and a hint of laughter.
He turned his head and was startled. The phone at his hotel had shown him this face, strong-boned, blunt- nosed, flaxen hair in a pageboy cut. That she was tall, easily 180 centimeters, gave no surprise; she was a Wunderlander. But she lacked the ordinary low-gravity lankiness. Robust and full-bosomed, she looked and moved as if she had grown up on Earth, nearly two-thirds again as heavy as here. That meant rigorous training and
