The Man-Kzin Wars 04

There was a low growl in his voice despite himself. Here was the leader of the mutiny. Now events made sense. “Details!” he insisted.

She told him where he could stuff his tail.

He turned on the nerve-slim.

“All right, all right. Why should I cover for your monsters?” There was no way for her to withhold the story of the mutiny but she could make him work for it. She described the attack as if it were a spontaneously lucky uprising, careful not to mention the nerve gas, steeling herself to resist 'offering' its chemical structure if he pressed her but he didn't ask for details. He was too appalled by the total picture. She sensed, surprised, that he didn't want to see his Jotok as haulers. He even released her restraints as a way of telling her that he wanted no more answers.

“I should space them all!” he roared.

“Why don't you? I'll help!”

“I've had that dilemma before. Then who would cover my back? Kzin who hunt alone are vulnerable.” He whacked his tail against the bulkhead in annoyance. “You led them astray,” he accused.

“Will you execute me?”

“Females are not responsible for their actions. It is not your fault that you are intelligent. The Fanged God has his jokes.”

“I can see you on my living room rug by the fireplace,” she snarled, twisting her curl.

He did not reply. Her story of massacre had sobered him. What other terrible consequences of female intelligence were there? A thinking, talking female could severely disturb a household by teaching what she knew to her litter. His mind reeled at the thought of female military genius within a kzinrett palazzo! They would steal the younglings! They would turn youth against wisdom!

How unlucky for a race to have been cursed with such a cruel twist of evolution. He felt his first stab of pity for mankind. In the last two hundred generations, just on Man-home alone, there had been more wars than in all the expanse of Kzinspace and more death by war on that one planet than in all of the wars waged by Heroes to protect the Long Peace. What else could arise while female quickness sowed dissent between father and sons?

Such a waste of the feminine essence which could be better employed in play with kits and on the mating couch with males.

He put the torture implements away. A black-fingered paw touched her auburn tresses. He was missing his long lost Jriingh. “Do not be afraid of me. I am a strange kzintosh, known for the unwarlike feelings I have in my liver for my slaves. You have beautiful natural hair. I shall see to it that you grow a fine pelt over your nakedness. You have your feral flaws, but your intelligence can be improved.”

This female was perfectible. No hurry. It was a long journey home.

CHAPTER 25

(2421-2423 A.D.)

The Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch was sluggish but her cruising velocity was as high as any large kzin warship. Three and a half years was the estimated trip-time to Hssin, which was 2.6 light-years from Alpha Centauri. Detection was unlikely even though they might now be traveling through hyperdrive infested space. Hssin lay 5.6 light-years to the north of Man-sun. Nobody could patrol that much volume any more than an acorn could patrol an ocean.

He was going to have problems with his female. Keeping experimental animals caged was expedient, but a cage would not do for slave breeding and he was anxious to begin his breeding program. He had a sufficiency of frozen sperm. He probably did need to do more experimentation, but without a source of experimental animals, that was no longer an option. He'd have to use what he already knew.

But if he gave the Nora-beast the breeding room a female needed, even built her a kzinrett palazzo with enough space for her children, he was leaping into trouble. He picked the larger of the crew dormitories for her, but left her in her cage while he refitted the room—think before you leap!

The original dorm layout was not sabotage-proof. If he were building an ordinary palazzo, that would not matter. But he knew very well that she was dedicated to destroying the Shark and would give her life to do so. Next on her priority list was killing the one kzin she'd missed when she'd used his Jotok against the Patriarchy. Feral intelligence in a female was a captivating nuisance. He dare not underestimate her.

The walls he had his Jotoki armor-plate. He built in monitors to watch her for dangerous behavior. They weren't the most intelligent of monitors but they probably wouldn't gas her too frequently if she was careful.

When her chambers were ready, he took her for a visit. She was wearing clothes again, he noted disapprovingly. They weren't decorative but they did cover her tail-like baldness.

“I like it,” Nora said laconically. “It reminds me of the Alabama. The munitions room.”

“The Alabama?”

“You wouldn't know the war. The USN Alabama was a seagoing battleship with a steelclad munitions room that could take an internal explosion hopefully without sinking the ship.”

He listened and then ran her words through his vocoder to make sure of what he'd heard.

Dangerous memories. For all he knew, she could make high explosives out of paper and spit. Her memories would have to be replaced, and her emotions would have to be altered, and her facility with language crippled. While she had her memories and her full repertoire of skills, she was dangerous. Perhaps he could add some aesthetically pleasing fur. Then he would be able to relax and enjoy her.

In the meantime he needed her memories.

To please the Nora-beast he let her design the furniture for herself and the children.

“You're going to let me have whatever I want?”

She looked at him with a whimsical smile that he knew was amusement, but which he couldn't help but read as a subliminal warning of attack. Her fingers were twirling with that long curl of hers.

“No weapons,” he admonished.

“I want a big stuffed pillow that I can hop into.”

His mind worked on that one. How could a pillow be turned into a weapon to kill him when he least suspected it? This was a nerve-racking game. He imagined himself being smothered. His mind's eye watched her soaking the stuffing’s in nitric acid to make high explosive, while she wove a noose out of the shredded covering. None of the scenes were plausible. “All right,” he said.

He was astonished at the ornate furniture she designed. A bed with a satin roof and adjustable gravity? Golden man-babies with wines, dancing on the headboard? He grumbled but had his Jotoki make them for her, scrounging substitutes for satin and wood. They had to reprogram the weavers and the plastic molders.

The time went quickly because there was so much to do. Deciphering the superluminal drive was top priority. Trainer-of-Slaves couldn't be reckless with the device, couldn't test it to destruction because it was the only one he had.

He developed a two-pronged approach.

(1) Analysis. Isolate the sub-units. Attempt to craft a duplicate of the subunit. Test. The Bitch was a repair facility that could make any part in the kzin arsenal. He practically owned a prototype factory and he had the slave power to utilize it.

(2) Explore the military memories of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine.

Trainer-of-Slaves had had many years with his experimental animals to determine that human memory was very plastic, approximately five times as plastic as the kzin memory.

Torture could get at gross detail quickly, but it didn't work well with nuances. Every time a human memory was recalled, it was altered in some way. If the memory was recalled to relieve pain while the brain was saturated in the chemical stew brought on by agony the memory trace was drastically mutated. Torture gradually obliterated the nuances it was meant to recover. He had to veto the use of torture.

Slowly, he worked out other methods. Trainer-of-Slaves got his best results with Lieutenant Argamentine when he doped her into a sleep state from which she couldn't waken, but in which she remained on the verge of