The Man-Kzin Wars 04

experimental Black Prides of the Fifth Fleet had preceded the Fourth Fleet to Man-sun. They would stand in place to assess the coming battles from two positions at distances far greater than the aphelion of Neptune. If the latest armada met with valorous defeat they alone would remain, undetectable, monitoring the electromagnetic fetor of man's activities, photographing the solar planets, mapping the asteroids, waiting… brooding the ultimate avenging strike.

Kzin equipment was competent to find large defensive systems. Grraf-Hromfi showed his students what the Sherrek's Ear could do from such a distance. He had photographs of ships docking at Tiamat in the Serpent's Swarm. He showed them street maps of Munchen, fuzzy but readable by a trained hunter. He played for them an overlay composite of the fusion power station at Wunderland's Wachsamkeit, done in twenty frequencies from gamma to ELF.

Think before you leap. Before the Fifth Fleet attacked, five full-strength Black Prides would be girding Man-sun at distances too great to be observed without already knowing their location, unreachable by torchship even if detected, each a fallback and resupply base for a sustained operation, each a spoor gathering center.

Grraf-Hromfi outlined two main flaws in the previous conquest attempts (1) local logistics dependent upon pillaging the fruits of the battlefield, and (2) long-distance logistical support which was nonexistent.

The Black Prides were designed to serve local logistic needs.

A Black Pride was to comprise: (1) a communication ship such as the Sherrek's Ear, (2) for defense, a Carrier and its litter of Scream-of-Vengeance fighters and Ztirgors, (3) a combination manufacturing ship and floating drydock which could tool up for and build any spare part within hours, (4) four fast ships to mine the comets, (5) a warehouse, and (6) a hospital ship. The antenna was to be assembled by replicating robots after arrival. Prefabricated and expendable rest-and-exercise modules were to be built in the case of a protracted battle.

Long-distance logistic support was to come from Alpha Centauri. For a full six years Wunderland and the factories of the Serpent's Swarm would be launching a monthly convoy of supplies and hibernating warriors, divertible either for battle or occupation use.

But talk and diagrams never really reached the liver of a kzin warrior who had survived the quarrels of youth. Sometimes, to teach what he had to teach, Grraf-Hromfi called in a student to assign special duty. Then he would repeat his motto, sotto voce, flicking his tale leisurely. There was always a trap in such duty, some hidden factor to waylay the over-hasty. Doing was learning. A brush with death stimulated thinking.

Grraf-Hromfi turned over the education of his sons to Trainer-of-Slaves. The sons learned little. Trainer learned how to anticipate lethal pranks. He even had to kill one of the fiends. The Conquest Commander did not reprimand him for that. It was the first trophy he had ever earned for his belt.

Over the next few years the primary duty of Trainer-of-Slaves remained to train Jotoki for Pride maintenance as the group built up to strength. Pretransient Jotoki were shipped out to him from Fortress Aarku. He took each one of them through their parent fixation, and when they were trustworthy, he introduced them to the simulators.

It was difficult to remain aloof from his creatures. He couldn't talk to them about their history or about military strategy, but they were so curious that they often tricked him into conversations he didn't know he was having. One of his charges he found skittering jerkily across a forbidden corridor on his second elbows; a shoulder eye was following an insect with great puzzlement.

Another eye caught the appearance of Trainer. “Master. What is?”

“An insect. Probably from Wunderland, and wondering how it got here.”

“Alive or machine?”

“It's organic, like you or me.”

That took Trainer-of-Slaves into a discussion of the differences between the reproductive of life and automated factory production.

His Jotok charge wanted to know if machines were “made up” in the imagination.

“Of course.”

“By us?” He meant intelligent life, including kzinti.

“Of course!”

The Jotok scratched his undermouth and wondered about the mind that had made up the “assembly book” for kzin.

They had to retire to the arboretum to handle that one, Trainer-of-Slaves gently bringing the virescent insect with him. Mellow-Yellow gave his lecture on evolution to a rapt audience.

“How did I evolve?”

And there they were, right up against Jotok history.

One time when he was playing cards with Long-Reach they were discussing the marvelous estate they would have together after the conquest of Man-home. Long-Reach asked him about the forests of Earth.

“How different could they be from the forests in Hssin?” countered Trainer, looking through his hand for the ace of clubs.

“Will the Conquest burn them to charcoal?”

And there they were, right up against the subject of military strategy. Conversation was spherical no matter whether one headed north, south, east, or west to avoid a subject, one always navigated right into it.

CHAPTER 17

(2404 – 2409 A.D.)

Over the years Grraf-Hromfi honed his force, expanded it. The shipyards of the Serpent's Swarm were busy. Gradually, he acquired the warcraft he needed to bring the Third Black Pride up to strength. He ran the Pride as if it were actually in place above Man-sun. Perhaps his Heroes spied on the Wunderland Admiralty for fun, but they listened to the fading broadcasts of the Fourth Fleet with disciplined seriousness.

Once they received their floating drydock, the duties of Trainer-of-Slaves multiplied.

Grraf-Hromfi did not trust the monkey workmanship of any Alpha Centauri-built ship or weapons system. He had his maintenance staff check everything, sometimes rebuilding to tighter specifications. It was exhausting work for Trainer. By necessity he learned the customs of the naval architect. Eventually he just gave up, found ways to delay the overhauling and trained more Jotoki to do the work for him.

At other times there was no real activity at all. He filed reports and played cards. He sniffed for trouble. During one of those lulls he learned to fly a Scream-of-Vengeance fighter. That was safer than dreaming about Grraf-Hromfi's harem. Dreams about kzinretti tended to fill idle moments. Sometimes he was back in the Chirr-Nig household on Hssin, in the study, with his mother's loyal head in his lap, scratching her forehead. He regretted having to sell his sex-demon, Jriingh.

It was natural for a kzinti want a household. But Trainer couldn't understand why he wanted sons, not after he'd had to teach the Terrible-Sons of Hromfi. Nor was it moral for a coward to pass on his traits to sons who would disgrace the Patriarchy. Nevertheless he wanted sons. He supposed that his real sons were the Jotoki he took on during their fixation phase.

Sons challenged their fathers to physical combat. His many Jotoki 'sons' wore him out by a different kind of challenge. The curiosity of a pestering Jotok in transition demanded that Trainer keep learning. It wasn't that he needed to learn. It wasn't that he was curious. He never asked a question whose answer didn't have a solidly rank smell. But he hated not to have a ready retort when a slave asked a stupid question like, “What is the minimum size of the universe?”

The answer to a question like that not only didn't have a smell—it couldn't even be seen or heard.

Long-Reach started it all by telling four of his young apprentice polarizer mechanics about the black dwarf R'hshssira. It would collapse forever without fusing its hydrogen because it only had seven-eighths of the mass needed for ignition. But R'hshssira would still have a finite radius when there was no longer any radiation pressure pushing out from within.