Man-Kzin Wars XI

Peace says suggests the Pak have allowed the breeders to evolve a little more brainpower. They must have been dismantling planets by then." He made a series of adjustments and displayed a view that was between Orion's hypothetical feet. There were hundreds of dim red specks, no longer quite in hexagonal array. "That's the second fleet. Passed us about thirty years ago. That glow is friction with interstellar gas. Peace says the Homers must have sprayed boron vapor into its path and blown up the ram engines. That would have been sometime during the Second War. Otherwise somebody around here would have wondered about it." He switched the view toward Sagittarius—Peace would just have rotated it, but humans had appallingly little trouble with wildly swooping views—and said, "The wreckage of the third fleet's almost invisible in front of a nebula, and further from us anyway. Here's the fourth." Hundreds of white specks, in nothing like hexagonal array. "They saw the first three go and tried to scatter, but the lateral vector component is still tiny. Loosened up the fusion constriction—they should be blue—but they don't know about the boron. Peace says the change won't save them. The rams won't all blow up, but the gamma rays will roast the pilots. The fifth wave will have to be hunted. Is being hunted by now, and may be gone—this view is about a hundred and twenty years old. Here, look!" he said, making Corky jump. "Sorry," he said. "But look here. See that red dot? That's a human Protector's ship. They're redshifted, so they don't show up well, but this one's right in front of a dark region. Not many of those out that way."

"Am I a coward?" Corky asked abruptly.

It occurred to Buckminster, after he'd been staring for about half a minute, that if that had been a ruse, it would have been a good one—Corky could have gotten in a couple of pretty solid licks with an ax before he could have responded. "No, of course not." Though you may be the silliest person I've ever met, he reflected.

"It's been a couple of years since I did anything. Toward justice."

Buckminster was certain he was expected to say something at this point, but couldn't think of anything relevant. He attempted, "One of the things that used to confuse officials in treaty discussions is how some of your terms have multiple and contradictory meanings. 'Justice' is a good example. What you've been doing isn't what humans usually call justice—that tends to be more like Patriarchal arbitration. Killing the humans who got your family killed is more like kzinti justice—though we'd want it to be publicly known. Part of it is the idea that anyone else who considers duplicating the offense should feel very reluctant."

"Deterrence," Corky said. He was looking very intently at Buckminster.

"I think so. I've mostly encountered the human term in a political context, but it sounds appropriate."

Corky spoke slowly. "You claim I can't kill the Patriarch—"

"I'm not making any special claims. It just so happens."

"Right. . . . You're a kzin."

Buckminster didn't see any reason to deny it. He'd watched transmissions of human gatherings, and noticed that most of the attendees didn't look comfortable until someone had stood up and told them things they already knew. It was a habit he suspected was related to why they kept defeating better warriors. It made sure everybody did know. It was awfully tedious, though. He waited for Corky to go on, then realized Corky was also waiting for something. He nodded. That seemed to do.

"What would you do to someone that killed your family?"

"I don't have a family."

"Supposing you did."

"I wouldn't let him."

Corky was getting angry, though he kept his face and voice from showing it. "Suppose you couldn't be there when he attacked."

"I'd have no business starting a family if I was going away," Buckminster said. Abruptly he realized that Corky was taking his hypothetical reasoning as personal criticism, and said, "Kzinti females are nearly helpless outside of childrearing."

That worked: Corky calmed down at once. "Oh yeah," he said. "Bad example. Suppose—"

"Are you trying to ask me what you should do to the Patriarch?" Buckminster interrupted.

" . . . I guess I am."

"Nothing. You can't even get near the palace if he's in residence. And you can't get near him on visits of state, either—his security force is much tougher than the fleet that invaded Pleasance."

That fleet had crushed the planetary defenses in a couple of hours. "I see," said Corky, who seemed to lose track of his surroundings after that.

Buckminster waited a little, then started zooming the view for the more distant fleets.

* * *

Peace found Corky sleeping under a table in the kitchen, on top of seventy hand towels. She got herself corn muffins and a crock of stew, brought up a seat, and began eating. Presently Corky said, "Why don't you wear clothes?" irritably.

"Why don't you wear chain mail?" she replied.

"Chain mail isn't about keeping your organs of excretion out of sight," he said.

"No, it's about keeping the rest of your organs from coming into sight," she said.

Evidently he understood the implicit comment: That's usually irrelevant, too. After a moment he said, "Are those muffins?"

"Yes."

"They smell unusual."

"It's maize. Didn't get sent out with any first-wave colony ships—lacks some amino acids. So it's sort of an Earth specialty. Try one."

She was handing it under the table when Buckminster came in. The kzin's tail lashed once, his ears curled tight, and he blinked rapidly a few times and fled the room.

"What just happened?" Corky said indistinctly, around a muffin.

Peace waited until he swallowed the first bite. "He's been kidding me about keeping pets," she replied.

After a few seconds Corky burst out laughing.

The laughter went on too long, and when she moved the table and saw him weeping hysterically it was no surprise—he was long overdue. When it started to exhaust him she got him a mirror and some more muffins, these with honey.

His reflection calmed him in seconds, and he