Rykermann squinted in the direction of Vaemar's extended claw. A few moments later his eyes too made out the lights of an approaching car. Vaemar gave a churr of delight as it landed and his old friend and chess partner, Colonel Michael Cumpston, alighted.
Cumpston greeted them briefly, giving Vaemar a scratch under the chin in response to his grooming lick, but in a half-crouching position: in the past Vaemar's enthusiastic welcome had knocked him over more than once.
"I've got a message from Arthur Guthlac," he told Rykermann. "He would take it as a personal favor if you could meet him at your first convenience." He paused and went on in a different tone. "Early's involved."
"Why didn't Arthur just send me an e-mail? We're seeing him in a few days anyway, aren't we?"
"This isn't social, I'm afraid. Security," said Cumpston.
"Why couldn't he come himself?"
"Give him a break! He's been working round the clock trying to get his desk cleared before the big event. There's some secret business."
"What?"
"As I said, secret. He didn't confide in a humble colonel. Anyway, you're wanted back at the ranch. Now."
"I'm not a soldier any more. He can't order me round. In fact, since I'm a Member of Parliament, it could be a breach of Parliamentary privilege to do so."
"Nils, Arthur may be a friend of ours, but don't mess with Early. You know better."
"I thought he'd left Wunderland. That Montferrat-Palme or someone had put pressure on him to go—to get out of the system."
"He went—physically. Some have said it would be better if he was still under our noses."
"We're just about finished here for the time being, anyway," Rykermann said. "Vaemar can take charge of packing things up."
Cumpston nodded. Though he kept his expression blank, the former exterminationist's friendship for and trust in the young kzin pleased and amused him. "Another thing. Arthur says you should upgrade your security. He was vague about the details, but I gather there have been a few . . . problems in this area."
"I suppose we have let things get a bit lax." There were farms and hamlets dotted about the fertile tableland beyond the great escarpment and things seemed very peaceful.
They were silent for a moment. Then Cumpston stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles in a leisurely way. It had the effect of showing him the instruments on the forearm of his jacket.
"Don't look now," he said slowly, making an gesture that took in a heap of boulders to his left, and raising his hand to pinch his lower lip, "but I am getting a signal from the motion detector from behind that rock-pile. Something quite large and bipedal. The high probability is human."
Rykermann nodded thoughtfully, as if agreeing with the point Cumpston had made. He did not have a laser-ring like the ARM officer, but the ring on the hand that brushed his thigh activated his pistol. Vaemar yawned and also stretched, a feline's extravagant stretch that arched his back and dug his claws into the ground. He pulled up one forearm and then the other, in a lazy, breadmaking gesture. Then he leapt over the rock.
There was a human scream, and an angry spitting from Vaemar. He reappeared holding a human child or adolescent. Thrust into his belt was a gun it had evidently been carrying.
"Feral," he said, though the clothes it was wearing made it obvious. "And clever. Look at this." His hand with retracted claws touched his captive's cheek with surprising gentleness. "Rarctha fat. That's why I didn't smell him. No weapons."
"Who are you?" asked Rykermann. The youngster struggled and spat.
"Not a Wabbit," said Cumpstom. The Wascal Wabbits were the most sociopathic gang of ferals on Liberated Wunderland. Their facial tattoos were easy identifiers.
"Turn him round," said Guthlac, though the young feral's sex was not in fact obvious. With a single practiced movement he brought a tranquilizer-gun from his belt and fired a Teflon dart into its shoulder. The feral went limp.
"They don't hunt alone," said Cumpston, as the feral was put into his car.
"I know," said Guthlac.
"A gang of them, armed, can be a real danger," said Cumpston. "I'll report to security, of course, and get some proper people out here after them, but in the meantime, it wouldn't be a good idea for any of your students to be wandering about unsupervised or unarmed."
"Not all my students are helpless," said Rykermann. "And none of us are ever quite unarmed. All the same, I don't want anyone using weapons on children. I hope we have the resources to bring them all in soon."
"That's up to you. You're the politician," said Cumpston. "But as I say, I gather Arthur's had . . . reports. Disappearances. Within a few miles of here. Maybe this lot are to blame." He turned to Vaemar. "Don't leave your students here alone. I'd suggest, if I may, that you call them up now. Get them back to town as soon as you can."
Chapter 3
"You sent Earth a message a couple of years ago, asking us if a consignment of radioactives or biological weapons had been sent to Wunderland at a certain time during the war," said Brigadier Arthur Guthlac. "Why?" He spoke with the indefinable awkwardness of a friend suddenly turned official.
"Two years ago?" Rykermann frowned. "Yes, of course I did. But why bring that up now? I assume it's been dealt with."
"No. Thanks to our bureaucracy it has only reached the relevant desk recently. And that by chance. One of Early's subordinates with a long memory happened to see it on its way to the files. It was, of course a secret job, and very few ever knew about it. Normally we, or the Wunderland Government, would have sent out a team to clean it up in due course—when a mountain of higher priorities had been disposed of."
"So?"
"Why did you send it?" Guthlac repeated. "When you did?"
"A routine part of tidying up," Rykermann told him. "We buried some stuff during the war, stuff we
