And it wasn’t like Slave Master was from the Spacejack’s Guild; he couldn’t fine me for slacking or featherbedding.
The work went on for hours. I don’t know how many. I was able to almost forget about the kzinti and what they represented until my headache started to fade. I knew what that meant. Fritz was losing his ability to read my mind. I wondered if Slave Master would have me keep working once Fritz became blind to my thoughts.
My juju headache was almost completely gone as I piloted the ’bot in through the cargo lock to get more repair parts. Slave Master quickly floated over to the ’bot like it was a long lost friend, or a big piece of catnip. He stared down at the ’bot and addressed it as if somehow I was “in” the ’bot and not hanging weightless over at the VR workstation.
“End work. Continue later. Leave now.”
Who was I to argue? We left.
Back at the transfer hub, I let Slave Master go “down” the ladder to the spinning section before me. If I got lucky and he slipped and fell I wanted him below me, not above me. But no such luck. We entered the spinning section of the ship without incident.
I felt heavy and weighed down by the centrifugal force of the spinning section, but Slave Master seemed buoyed up by the surrogate gravity. I guess his people don’t have any equivalent to Belters. Slave Master escorted me back to my cabin and left with his daily admonition to eat and rest. Like I needed the encouragement.
I decided I needed a shower before I resigned myself to another meatless meal. For some strange reason I felt good about how the day had gone and about myself. I still didn’t have a solution to the kzinti problem, but I had made real progress on solving a problem I could deal with. I’d just take things one step at a time and deal with each problem in its turn. The kzinti would have their own turn before too long.
Looking at myself in the mirror of the ’fresher I felt disgust over my appearance. My image wasn’t that of a Belter, it was a Flatlander wirehead or maybe VR addict. Enough was enough. What was I? Could there be any question?
I pulled a hair trimmer out from a drawer in the ’fresher and ran it over my face and head, being careful to leave a belt of close cropped hair running across the top of my head. That done I used a bottle of depilatory cream to finish the job and before long my unruly tangle of hair was replaced by a neatly trimmed Belter’s crest. This was the best I’d felt since coming out of coldsleep or maybe even longer. Now if I could just do something about those censored kzinti.
The timer for my medicine chimed and I reached for the vial containing my pills. If three were good, maybe more were better. I’d start taking four each time.
I’d have to ask Tom to bring me more soon. At this rate I’d be running out of them in a few days. As I stepped into the shower I reflected on a job that had started well and on other jobs waiting to be done.
* * *
The next few days went by in a haze of routine. Each day consisted of taking my medicine, eating meatless meals and working. Each day Fritz would attach himself to my mind and read my thoughts while I worked on the Bussard field generators without thinking about anything else. And each evening when Fritz had gotten out of my head I would look for information that would help me do something about the kzinti, by reviewing the data files from our first contact with them along with any new information the autocams had picked up—though this information was sketchy because many of the autocams had been damaged when the kzinti had attacked the Paradox. Many times I had to guess where the kzinti were by knowing where they weren’t.
I became able to recognize each of the kzinti occupying our ship and even gave more of them names as I learned their habits. Like Snaggle Tail, who spent a lot of time examining the Command Deck and other engineering areas. Or Shit Head, with the distinctive brown patch at the top of his head, who seemed to draw guard duty more often than the other rat-cats and who spent more time prowling the corridor in front of my quarters than any of the other guards. The kzinti seldom ventured into the freefall areas of the ship and when they did they didn’t stay long. What they were doing there was always a mystery to me. All told, there were about two dozen kzinti occupying our ship though most of them spent as little time here as possible, flitting over in one of their small ships when they had something to do and then rushing back to their orange warship at the first opportunity.
Slave Master and Fritz were different. They had moved into a pair of unused crew quarters and seemed to have taken up permanent residence on Obler’s Paradox. Fritz spent most of his time in his quarters, only occasionally venturing out to roam the empty halls. Slave Master spent
