And the bleeping ratcat was right after all.
His shields frayed as the human despaired. Frayed more strongly than he had ever felt, even drunk or coming, until he felt/was Kfraksha-Admiral’s ferocious triumph, Physicist’s jumble of shifting equations, Telepath’s hand pressing the ampoule of his last drug capsule against his throat in massive overdose, why have the kzinti disintegrated like this—
Halloran would never have understood it. He lacked the knowledge of physics—the ARM had spent centuries discouraging that—but Physicist was next to him, and the datalink was strong. No kzinti could have understood it; they were simply not introspective enough. Halloran-Fixer knew, with the whole-argument suddenness of revelation; knew as a composite creature that had experienced the inwardness of Kzin and Man together.
The conscious brain is a computer, but one of a very special kind. Not anything like a digital system; that was one reason why true Artificial Intelligence had taken so long to achieve, and had proven so worthless once found. Consciousness does not operate on mathematical algorithms, with their prefixed structures. It is a quantum process, indeterminate in the most literal sense. Thoughts became conscious—decision was taken, will exercised—when the nervous system amplified them past the one-graviton threshold level. So was insight, a direct contact with the paramathematical frame of reality.
They couldn’t know, Halloran realized. Kzinti physics was excellent but their biological sciences primitive by human standards.
And I know what’s driving them crazy, he realized. Telepathy was another threshold effect. Any conscious creature possessed some ability. The Ghost Star was amplifying it to a terrifying level, even as it disabled the computers by turning their off/on synapses to off and on. Humans might be able to endure it; Man is a gregarious species.
Not the kzinti. Not those hard, stoic, isolated killer souls. Forever guarded, forever wary, disgusted by the very thought of such an involuntary sharing … whose only glimpse of telepathy was creatures like Telepath. Utter horror, to feel the boundaries of their personalities fraying, merging, becoming not-self.
Halloran knew what he had to do. It’s the right thing. Fixer-of-Weapons stirred exultantly in his tomb of flesh. Die like a Hero! he battle-screeched.
Letting go was like thinning out, like dying, like being free for the first time in all his life. Halloran’s awareness flared out, free of the constraints of distance, touching lightly at the raw newly-forged connections between thousands of minds in the Ghost Sun’s grip. I get to be omnipotent just before the end, he thought in some distant corner. To his involuntary audience: MEET EACH OTHER.
The shock of the steel was almost irrelevant, the reflex that wrenched him around to face Telepath automatic. Undeceived at last, the kzin’s drug-dilated eyes met the human’s. Halloran slumped forward, opening his mouth, but there was no sound or breath as
—he—
“Get out of my dreams!”
—the human—
—fell—
—released—
“Shit,” Halloran murmured. His heels drummed on the deck. Mom.
* * *
The roar from Colonel Buford Early’s office was enough to bring his aide-de-camp’s head through the door. One glance at his Earther superior was enough to send it back through the hatch.
Early swore again, more quietly but with a scatological invention that showed both his inventiveness and his age; it had been many generations since some of those Anglo-Saxon monosyllables had been in common use.
Then he played the audio again, without correction, but listening carefully for the rhythm of the phrasing under the accent imposed by a vocal system and palate very unlike that of Homo sapiens sapiens.
“—so you see”—it sounded more like zo uru t’zee—“it’s not really relevant whether I’m Halloran or whether he’s dead and I’m a kzinti with delusions. Halloran’s … memories were more used to having an alien in his head than Telepath’s were, poor bleeping bastard. The Fleet won’t be giving you any trouble, the few that are still alive will be pretty thoroughly insane.
“On the other hand,” the harsh nonhuman voice continued, “remembering what happened to Fixer I really don’t think it would be all that advisable to come back. And you know what? I’ve decided that I really don’t owe any of you that much. Died for the cause already, haven’t I?”
A rasping sound, something between a growl and a purr: kzinti laughter. “I’m seeing a lot of things more clearly now. Amazing what a different set of nerves and hormones can do. My talent’s almost as strong now as it was … before, and I’ve got a lot less in the way of inhibitions. It’s the Patriarchy that ought to be worried, but of course they’ll never know.”
Then a hesitation: “Tell my Sire … tell Dad I died a Hero, would you, Colonel?”
EPILOGUE
The kzin finished grooming his pelt to a lustrous shine before he followed Medical-Technician to the deepsleep chamber of the Swift Hunter courier Flashing Claws. His face was expressionless as the cover lowered above him, and then his ears wrinkled with glee; there would be nobody to see until they arrived in the Alpha Centauri system a decade from now.
The Patriarchy had never had a Telepath who earned a full name before.
Too risky! Telepath wailed.
Kshat, Fixer thought with contempt.
Shut up both of you, Halloran replied. Or I’ll start thinking about salads again. All of them understood the grin that showed his/their fangs.
The Patriarchy had never had one like Halloran before, either.
