“I come in poverty and lamentation from our wasted worlds. I bring with me only a superluminal drive and a functioning hyperwave receiver, neither of which I can fully comprehend without the help of W’kkai scholarship and neither of which can be comprehended by W’kkai scholarship without the fifteen years of sweat and thought given to these devices by me and my slaves.
“I come in poverty without a warrior entourage, with only the memory of martyred Heroes. My pitiful wealth is reduced to ten Jotoki-slaves of mechanical bent who know gravitic and superluminal mechanics, and one female breeder of a new slave race and her litter of six child-slaves.
“The Lord Grraf-Nig requests a full military escort to W’kkai. The vessel Shark is unarmed. Your Heroes are welcome aboard for inspection. Lord Grraf-Nig out. Standing by.”
Grraf-Nig was almost shaking in his fear. After fifteen years of living a kzinless life he had forgotten what contact was like. The frightened Short-Son had been impressed by the speech but appalled that it had been coming out of his mouth. Trainer-of-Slaves was just glad that the W’kkai warriors couldn’t smell the fear in the Shark’s cabin. He was going to have to request a talcum rubdown by Nora to get the evidence of cowardice out of his fur. Then he’d replace the entire cabin air supply minutes prior to the boarding.
He expected the next contact to be visual. That gave them twenty-two minutes to dress. He pulled out the case from behind the box that had been made on We Made It and held up the best kzin finery he had been able to salvage from the ruins of Hssin.
Grraf-Nig had fresh livery for Long-Reach who was sitting on his mouth atop the hyperdrive motor, three brains asleep and two arms holding sleeping babies. That pose would have to be changed. He wanted his slaves to appear as well-groomed animals. He combed the Nora-beast’s fur on her torso and legs until the soft down glimmered. It pleased him to do things for her. She was able to perform miracles upon his pelt. Then he gave her new lace garters for her video debut. She slipped them on, her dimples in her cheeks. That meant she liked them. Of course she didn’t understand about the video.
I’ve gone crazy from loneliness, thought Grraf-Nig. I love my five-armed sons and my wonderfully feminine man-kzinrret. It was a venal sin to become attached to slaves but that was the risk a slave-master had to take.
The twenty-two minutes were up. The radio came to life. “Honored Grraf-Nig! This unworthy Kppukiss-Guardian offers you a military escort of six Screamers. W’kkai welcomes its Rescuing Hero! Our wealth is your wealth! My only daughter will comfort your couch! A thousand of our sons will be your Warrior’s Guard…”
Though Long-Reach was mostly asleep, short(arm) had been keeping an eye on things. “Dominant Master, don’t let all that sthondat excrement overheat your liver.”
“Trip over?” asked Nora brightly.
Grraf-Nig banged the box from We Made It. “We Made It!” he exclaimed in English.
Nora didn’t understand a word. But she knew what to do. She snuggled up to Mellow-Yellow. “My Hero,” she purred-spat in her charming human accent.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN
Greg Bear & S.M. Stirling
Copyright © 1991 by Greg Bear and S.M. Stirling
“I am become overlord of a fleet of transports, supply ships, and wrecks!” Kfraksha-Admiral said. “No wonder the First Fleet did not return; our Intelligence reports claimed these humans were leaf-eaters without a weapon to their name, and they have destroyed a fourth of our combat strength!”
He turned his face down to the holographic display before him; it was set for exterior-visual, and showed only bright unwinking points of light and the schematics that indicated the hundreds of vessels of the Second Fleet. Here beyond the orbit of Neptune the humans’ sun was just another star … we will eat you yet, he vowed silently. A spacer’s eye could identify those suns whose worlds obeyed the Patriarch. More that did not, unvisited, or unconquered yet like the Pierin holdouts on Zeta Reticuli. Yes, you and all like you! So many suns, so many…
The kzin commander’s tail was not lashing, he was beyond that, and the naked pink length of that organ now stood out rigid as he paced the command deck of the Sons Contend With Bloody Fangs. The orange fur around his blunt muzzle bristled, and the reddish washcloth of his tongue kept sweeping up to moisten his black nostrils. The other kzinti on the bridge stayed prudently silent, forcing their batwing ears not to fold into the fur of their heads at the spicy scent of high-status anger. The lower-ranked bent above the consoles and readouts of their duty stations, taking refuge in work; the immediate staff prostrated themselves around the central display tank, laying their facial fur flat. Aide-to-Commanders covered his nose with his hands in an excess of servility; irritated, Kfraksha kicked him in the ribs as he went by. There was no satisfaction to the gesture, since they were all in space-combat armor save for the unhinged helmets, but the subordinate went spinning a meter or so across the deck.
“Well? Advise me,” the kzin admiral spat. “Surely something can be learned from the loss of a squadron of Gut Tearer-class cruisers?”
Reawii-Intelligence-Analyst raised tufted eyebrows and fluttered his lips against his fangs.
“Frrrr. The … rrrr, humans have devoted great resources to the defense of the gas-giant moons, whose resources are crucial.”
As Kfraksha-Admiral bared teeth, the Intelligence officer hurried on. Reawii’s Homeworld accent irritated Kfraksha-Admiral at the best of times. His birth was better than his status, and it would not do to anger the supreme commander, who had risen from the ranks and was proud of it. He hurried beyond the obvious.
“Their laser cannon opened fire with uncanny accuracy. We were unprepared for weapons of this type because such large fixed installations are
