The Man-Kzin Wars 04

about what to do with a seven-foot tall kzin who courted her with a fivearmed singing comedian.

“Humans cry when the ice cream is good,” she sniffed to cover herself.

“Berries, ptui!” said Trainer-of-Slaves.

“I think too much,” continued Nora, wiping her face.

“That can be corrected,” said Trainer-of-Slaves. “I have done the experiments.”

“How did you learn these songs?”

“You animals do not keep radio silence.”

“You listen to that? All the way out here?”

“In past-gone hour, I watch beastly halo, Blaze of Glory!”

She wasn't crying anymore. She was grinning. “Lots of kzin killing in that one. I loved it! You monsters killed my beloved Dad. That holo won an award for its acting. Passion, the spirit of mankind that you'll never crush!”

Won an award. She was predicting the future. In November 2415 Blaze of Glory had only been nominated for an award, one of sixteen. “Bad acting,” said Trainer-of-Slaves. “Monkey in kzin-suit, too slow. Wrong emotions. Liver was sick.”

He pulled the lieutenant-animal further into the conversation, letting her vent her anger at the kzinti. When she was angry she leapt before she thought. Three more times he caught her predicting the future.

By then he was sure.

He reported his suspicions immediately to Grraf-Hromfi, though the timelag between the Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch and the main body of the Pride was still too great for conversation.

Trainer's old mentor took the news well. His return message read: “So the old warrior can still sniff out a different scent. A superluminal drive is exciting. But it compromises our whole strategic position. We'll have to react quickly. Keep me informed.”

In the vast hangar in the belly of the Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch Trainer drove his Jotoki slaves in their dissection of the wreck. How could such a little thing, lost in the spotlights of the hangar, bring back the awful fear he thought he had lost forever? He paced around the hangar, looking down at the alien shape, keeping his feet inside the local gravitic field of the catwalk. His liver was telling him to run in panic. He was no longer the mighty Hero willing to take on the whole Man-system, and after conquering it, to ride elephants to the hunt with monkeys carrying his bedding and his equipment and his kzinretti in palanquins.

He returned to Lieutenant Argamentine in the middle of the day and opened the autodoc coffin, waking her, to ask her his question directly. “You came here faster than light!” he accused.

She smiled at him without showing her teeth. There were dimples in her furless cheeks. “That's not for me to say.”

The answer terrified him and he went away.

With a superluminal drive the animals could penetrate the Patriarchy with impunity. Every system would be isolated, on its own, unable to call on nearby warriors for aid. Heroism would be a sham. A newborn kit could kill his father with unopened eyes. In the face of such unnaturalness, run. The Fifth Fleet should run, should disperse, should hide—

Kzin warriors are taught to obey orders on penalty of death. But it is also instinct for them to create their own orders. A superior officer might be only lighthours away but the skirmish will be decided in minutes. The General Staff might be only light-days away, but battles can be decided in hours. The Patriarch who orders a warrior to the borderspaces, gives his order only once. After that the warrior makes his own orders for a lifetime and trains his sons to train his grandsons to report back that the mission has been accomplished.

The Patriarch requires obedience, but the ruthless Emperor of Light executes all warriors who are not their own Chief of Staff.

Trainer-of-Slaves internal Chief of Staff was telling him to flee. How can I be such a coward? He thought he had conquered cowardice. He'd tried so hard! Desperately he recalled words that Grraf-Hromfi had once tossed away casually almost unaware of their profound wisdom—words which had found a fertile home in Trainer's mind—“To flee one's duty is cowardice, but to flee while retaining a grip on duty can be the act of a Hero!” Perhaps his mentor would condone fleeing in this extreme case. The thought that he might have an ally in his fear was comforting.

Trainer vowed by his grandfather that wherever he fled, he would bring duty with him. He was in turmoil. He had conquered fear only to be trapped by his own prey. Short-Son of Chirr-Nig was running on the surface of Hssin with no place to go, every door guarded by the enemy.

He knew that this little engine mounted in the wreck of a tiny ship was the most valuable asset in the whole of the Patriarchy. The entire Fifth Fleet must be devoted to protecting it. If a hundred thousand Heroes died in its defense, that would not be too great a sacrifice. He could flee, but there could be no honorable fleeing without the engine.

By the time the Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch had reestablished its station within the Third Black Pride, Lieutenant Argamentine was well enough for the cages. The berries in the ice cream had done no good at all. She became violent when she was introduced to the cage room, incoherent with rage at the sight of the orphans, even though there were only three of them left uneaten and they had ample room.

“They are children! You monster, they are just children!”

She actually attacked him. To defend himself he had to hold her by the forearms off the floor. That didn't help him because of the well placed kicks. She had hands-and-feet combat training! He had to toss her away. It was a true kzinrett rage. But most kzinretti did not get that angry unless you were about to eat their kit's!

To appease her he did what any kzintosh would have done—he gave her the children and put them all in the same cage and left her alone.

He found it remarkable how quickly that single act calmed her down. She forgot her bruises as she lavished attention upon his experimental tots. He liked that. She was going to make very good breeding stock. The cage was too small for them all—he noticed that—but he did nothing about it because he was interrupted by an urgent message.

There is a kzin saying: Trouble does not give the single finger; trouble comes with four claws.

Detection staff reported three more gravitic pulses with the signature of the superluminal drive but at distances too far to intercept. And Detection was reporting the appearance of an armed feral navy in the Serpent's Swarm. Trainer-of-Slaves had received a priority query from Grraf-Hromfi.

Could Man-sun, as in right now, be using superluminal craft to deliver weapon supplies for the feral fleet?

Then Traat-Admiral began to send out ominous directives. The messages were fresh, but their source events were two days old.

Grraf-Hromfi ordered an emergency goggle-briefing of all officers of the Third Black Pride. He wasn't waiting for them to reach his lecture room on the Sherrek's Ear, he wasn't even waiting for a quorum of goggle-connects. By the time Trainer-of-Slaves was in link, the chaotic meeting was at full tempest, and though he could not smell it, he could see that the air was redolent of aggression. When Trainer moved his goggled head, he saw no less than five warriors, lips twitching, barely able to repress their fightfever.

His claws extended, almost in self-defense, though he was alone.

Astonishingly, Grraf-Hromfi wasn't analyzing the attack that Man-system had launched with their deadly new weapon. He had gone crazy. He was ranting about mythological warriors who had risen out of the misty past and were attacking the Fifth Fleet along a whole section of the Serpent's Swarm. He was screaming about superkzin mental powers and super technology. He was raving about Wunderkzin Traitors. He was snarling about cyclopean terrors. And he was exhorting warriors to their Final Bravery.

He had already ordered the full Third Black Pride into battle, repositioning all ships down to Alpha Centauri to reinforce Traat-Admiral's fight. Even as Trainer watched through his goggles in awe, Hrith-Master-Officer gave the command for the Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch to move downstar. It wasn't the way Chuut-Riit had taught them to fight.

They were in mid-leap without a thought in their heads. Pure rage.

Without thought himself, Trainer-of-Slaves ripped off his goggles and raced to the hangar where he