"And a Hero with a human female freed you?"
"Yes! How do you know?"
"That Hero is my Honored Step-Sire, Raargh. I have heard his stories. The female human was Leonie." This kzinrret would have been hardly out of childhood then. Had she been any older he doubted any human kit would have survived her company long, sapient or not. Adolescent kzinti of both sexes, on kzin-colonized Ka'ashi, had not been notable for their tolerance of humans or for interspecies diplomatic skills.
"Yes, Leonie-human. Heroes came then, and I was taken into the household of Hroarh-Officer."
"Hroarh-Officer! My Honored Step-Sire Raargh's old commander! I have met him."
"He lives?"
"Yes."
Her ears moved in a strange expression. "When my legs were mended, he was gracious enough to take me into his household, and then into his harem."
"He has no use for a harem now," said Vaemar.
"That I know. I was with him while he lay shattered. I stanched the bleeding though he screamed at me to let him die. I told him it was his duty to live, his duty to our kind. I had never spoken to him in the Heroes' Tongue before, let alone given him commands . . .
"It was a strange time. We lay together in the wreckage and I comforted him and talked with him. It was not humans that had maimed him so, you know. It was in the fighting between the followers of Traat-Admiral and Ktrodni-Stkaa, before the humans landed. And I revealed to him the secret that I was tired of keeping. That some on this world knew already. That I was one of the Secret Others . . . the females whose brains were not killed."
"I knew nothing of this," said Vaemar.
"No, Riit. And perhaps I should kill you now to keep that secret. But this is no longer a kzinti world. And I am hungry to speak."
Vaemar called to the others, "Any movement?" There seemed to be nothing. All were alert. The sighting dots of the weapons moved back and forth in the darkness of the corridors, running over mold, dark metal, and, farther down some passages, rippling water that might conceal an armed, approaching enemy. Swirl-Stripes fired the beam rifle at this, flashing it into steam, but it was a precaution only and he could not keep the trigger depressed for more than an instant. Vaemar told him to cease. More, or closer, live steam would broil them, and as it was the clouds from these momentary bursts were highly inconvenient, especially when they were striving to see. This closes about me, thought Vaemar. And then again: What would honored Sire, and Honored Step-Sire do? And then: Seek knowledge. Seek more knowledge. He waited for the air to clear and returned to the kzinrret.
"Tell me more."
"I kept Hroarh-Officer alive, and stopped him killing himself until aid arrived. The other kzinrretti had yammered and fled when the fighting started. I stayed with him while they gave him some sort of field-surgery. It gave him help, I think, to hold my fingers then. We talked long in that time. He became the first kzintosh I did not hate.
"And later I stayed to make sure he did not die. Then there were the human landings, and he commanded his troops from a cart in the battles that followed until few were left alive. Wounded and maimed, nearly all, kept for garrison duties, though there were fewer garrisons each hour. He even taught me a little skill with weapons then, for we did not know what the days might bring, and he had accepted what I was. Finally he told me: 'Go, Karan, I know now my duty is to live. Let me be an example: if I can live, so can Raargh-Sergeant with his one arm and eye and these other half-Heroes of mine. But we must let the monkeys give us every chance to die in battle first, taking as many of them as we may with us to present to the Fanged God. You must hide yourself and survive. I will keep your secret. You are free," he said, "No longer the property of this useless half-kzintosh. But remember the Hero I once was."
"You were loyal to your Hero," said Vaemar. Strange linkings of fate. If she saved Hroarh-Officer and he in turn did not let Raargh Hero die, then I owe this strange kzinrret Raargh Hero's life. Which means I owe her my own life too. Well, let us see how long we shall keep our lives.
"I hardly know what I was loyal to," she told him. "Many memories. Warring drives. Why should I love the patriarchy that enslaved all females and blanked the minds of nearly all? Robbed them of more than life? Oh, we of the Secret Others know how it was done, more or less. The stories have been handed down. There were humans I had met—the Leonie Manrret in the caves was one—who were more kind to me than my own kind. Yet Hroarh-Officer was truly my Hero, and I am kzinti too. He lives, you say?"
"Yes, and he is honored."
"I am glad. But I do not think he would wish to see me again as he is now . . . Anyway, I left Hroarh-Officer at his command. I evaded the fighting and the hunting humans, and made my way at last to the swamp. I learnt to swim and to catch fish and other prey. There is hunting in plenty at the edges of the swamp.
"One day, I saw other kzinti in a boat. I was tired of living alone and I went to them. They took me to their island. I helped with the fishing there, and watched and thought. I was but a kzinrret again, a brainless worker and breeder, but things were not quite the same. I showed initiative. I spoke, a little, in the Heroes' Tongue. I gave directions to the other females, and, if I did not do or dare too much,
