Nordbo shook his head. His mouth bent upward ruefully in the bushy brown beard that was starting to grizzle, below the hook nose. 'Scarcely an unknown law of nature in operation, sir. What it may be I'd rather not try to guess before we have much more data. It does suggest- No, how could it have appeared so suddenly, if it were what has crossed my mind? In any case, not every scientific discovery finds military applications. Most don't. I can't imagine how this one could, five light-years off.'
'You cannot. We shall see.'
'Well, sir, if I get the kind of support I need for further research—' Nordbo stopped. Appalled, he stared at the possibility that his eagerness had camouflaged from him. Might this really mean a weapon to turn on his folk? No. It must not. Please, God, make it impossible.
'You will have better than that,' Yiao-Captain purred. 'We shall go there.'
Have I misheard? Nordbo thought. Even for a kzin, it is crazy. 'What?'
'Yes.' Yiao-Captain rose again. His tail switched, his bat's-wing ears folded and lay back. He gazed out the window into the sky. 'If nothing else, maybe that energy source can be transported. Maybe we can fling it at the enemy. They may have noticed too. If they have, they are bound to send an expedition sometime. Their peering, prying curiosity. But Alpha Centauri is closer to it than Sol by… three light-years, is that a good guess? We shall forestall. I can readily persuade the governor, given the information you have brought. And I will be in command.'
Nordbo had risen too, less out of deference, for he realized that at present the kzin wouldn't notice or care, than because he couldn't endure being towered over by those devils. It struck him, not for the first time, that the reason few households on Wunderland kept cats any longer was that their faces were too much like a kzin's. Well, that was far from being the only happy thing the conquest had ruined.
'I, I wish you would reconsider, sir,' he said.
'Never.' The bass voice grew muted. 'Our ancestors tamed their planet and went to the stars because they had learned that knowledge brings might. Shall we dishonor their ghosts?'
Nordbo moistened his lips. 'I mean you personally, sir. We will… miss you.'
It twisted in him: The damnable part is that that is true. Yiao-Captain has never been gratuitously cruel, nor let others be when he had any control over them. By his lights, he is kindly. He has helped us directly or intervened on our behalf when I showed him the need was dire and there would be no loss to his side. He has received me as hospitably as a Hero can receive a monkey, and, yes, we have had some fascinating talks, where he listened to what I said and thought about it and gave answers that approached being fair. Why, he got me to teach him chess, and if he loses he doesn't fly into a murderous rage, only curses and goes outside to work it off in hand-to-hand combat practice. He likes me, after his fashion, and, confess it, I like him in a crooked sort of way, and-what will happen to us in Gerning if he leaves us?
Yiao-Captain turned his head. Something akin to mirth rasped through his words. 'Lament not. You are coming along.'
Nordbo took a step backward. The horror was too vast for him to grasp immediately. He felt as if he were in a cold maelstrom, whirling down and down. His hands lifted. 'No,' he implored. 'Oh, no, no.'
Yiao-Captain refrained from slashing him for presuming to contradict a kzin. 'Assuredly. You will keep total silence about this, of course.' Lest a rival, rather than an enemy spy, learn, and move to get the coveted task himself. 'Hr-r, you may return home, tell your household that you are going on a lengthy voyage, and pack what you need for your personal use. Then report back here for sequestration until we leave. I want your scientific skills.' Laughter was a human thing, but a gruff noise vibrated. 'And how can I do without my chess partner?'
Nordbo sagged against the wall. He seldom wept, never like this.
'What, you are reluctant?' Yiao-Captain teased. 'You care nothing for struggle, glory, or your very curiosity? Take heart. Your time away shall be minimal. I am sure all arrangements can be completed within days.'
A kzin's way of challenge is to scream and leap.
Chapter IV
Tyra wiped furiously at her eyes. 'I am, am sorry,' she stammered. 'I did not plan to cry at you.'
No more than a few drops had glistened along those cheekbones. Saxtorph half reached to take her hand. No. She might resent that; and after snapping once or twice for air, she had regained her balance. Best stay prosy. 'You think the kzin honcho forced your father to go,' he deduced.
She shrugged, not quite spastically. 'Or ordered him. What was the difference? He could not tell us anything. If he had, and the kzinti had found out—'
Uh-huh, Saxtorph knew. Children for dinner at the officers' mess. Mother to a hunting preserve, unless they didn't reckon she'd make good sport and decided on a worse death as a public example. 'This implies the ratcats considered the object important,' he said. 'Even more does the item that it involved an interstellar journey, in those days before hyperdrive and with a war under way. It was interstellar, wasn't it?'
'Yes. Father spoke of… long years. Also, after the war, investigators got two or three eyewitness accounts by humans who worked for the kzinti. They had only seen requisition orders, that sort of thing, but it did establish that Yiao-Captain and a small crew left for some unrevealed destination in a vessel of the Swift Hunter class. Hardly anything else was learned.'
Saxtorph laid his pipe on the ashtaker rack and rubbed his chin. 'You're right, kzinti don't do science for the sake of pure knowledge, the way humans sometimes do. They want it to help them cope with a universe they see as fundamentally hostile, or to win them power. In this case, surely, they thought of military potential.'
Tyra nodded. 'That is clear.' She braced herself. 'Father had been excited, almost happy. He spoke to several people of a marvelous discovery he had made from his observatory. I do not remember that, but I was little, and maybe I did not happen to be there. Mother was not interested in science and did not understand what he talked of, nor recall it afterward well enough to be of any use. Likewise for what servants or tenants heard. Ib was at school, he says. Everybody agrees that Father said he must see Yiao-Captain about having a thorough study made; the kzinti had the powerful instruments and computers, of course. He came home from that and-I have told you.' She bit her lip. 'The accusation later was that he deliberately put the kzinti on the trail of something that might have led them to a new weapon, and accompanied them to investigate closer, in hopes of wealth and favors.'
'Forgive me,' Saxtorph said softly, 'but I've got to ask this. Could it possibly be true?'
'No! We, his family, knew him. Year by year we had heard as much of his pain as he dared utter, and felt the rest. He loved us. Would he free-willingly have left us, for years stretching into decades, whatever the payment? No, he simply never thought in terms of helping the kzinti in their war, until they did and it was too late for him. But the hysteria immediately after liberation- There had been many real collaborators, you know. And there were people who paid oft' grudges by accusing other people, and- It was what I think you call a witch hunt.
'The feet that Peter Nordbo had cooperated, that was not in itself to be held against him. Most Landholders did. Taking to the bush was maybe more gallant, but then you could not be a thin, battered shield for your folk. Just the same, this was part of the reason why the new constitution took away the special status of the Nineteen Families. And in retrospect, that Peter Nordbo gave knowledge to the kzinti and fared off with them, that was made to make his earlier cooperation look willing, and like more than it actually was.' Tyra's grip on the table edge drove the blood from her fingertips. 'Yes, it is conceivable that in his heart he was on their side. Impossible, but conceivable. What I want you to find for me, Captain Saxtorph, is the truth. I am not afraid of it.' After a moment, shakily: 'Please to excuse me. I should be more businesslike.' She finished her wine.
Saxtorph knocked back his beer and rose. 'Let me get us refills,' he suggested. 'Care for something stronger?'
'Thank you. A double Scotch. Water chaser.' She managed a smile. 'You may take you an akvavit this time. I have not much left to tell.'
When he brought the drinks back, she was entirely self-possessed. 'Ask whatever you want,' she invited. 'Be frank. I believed my wounds were long ago scarred over. What made them hurt again tonight was hope.'
'Don't get yours too high,' he advised. 'This looks mighty dicey to me. And, like your dad, I've got other people to think about before I agree to anything.'
