whiskers.
Chuut-Riit wrinkled his nose and dismissed false compassion. How could you sympathize with something that was voluntary slave to a drug? And to an extract of sthondat blood at that.
'Yes, Chuut-Riit,' Ktriir-Supervisor-of-Animals said. 'Telepath's reading agrees with what the trained monkeys determined with their truth drugs.' Chuut-Riit reminded himself that the drugs actually merely suppressed inhibition. 'The attempt was a last-minute afterthought to the main attack of the monkey ship. Some gravitic device was used to decelerate a pod with these two; they came down in a remote area, using the disturbances of the attack as cover, and reached the city on foot. Their aim was to trigger the self-destruct mechanisms on your estate, but they were unable to do so.'
Chuut-Riit brooded, looking past the kzin liaison officer to the human behind him. 'You are not the human in charge of the Munchen police,' he said.
'No, Chuut-Riit,' the human said. It was a female. A flabby one, the sort that would squish unpleasantly when your fangs ripped open the body cavity, and somehow the holo gave the impression of an unpleasant odor. I am Chief Assistant Axelrod-Bauergartner at your service, dominant one,' she continued, giving the title in a reasonably good approximation of the Hero's Tongue. A little insolent? Perhaps-but also commendable, and the deferential posture was faultless. 'Chief Montferrat-Palme delegated this summary of the investigation, feeling that it was not important enough to warrant his personal attention. '
'Chrrrriii,' Chuut-Riit said, scratching one cheek against a piece of driftwood in a stand on his desk. This Montferrat-creature did not consider an attack on the governor's private control system important? That monkey was developing a distorted sense of its priorities. The human in the screen had blanched slightly at the kzin equivalent of an irritated scowl; he let his lips lower back over the fangs and continued: 'Show me the subjects.' Axelrod-Bauergartner stepped aside, to show two humans clamped in adjustable plastic brackets amid a forest of equipment. These were two fine specimens, tall and lean in the manner of the space-bred subspecies. Both were unconscious, but seeming intact enough apart from the usual superficial cuts, abrasions, and bruises. 'What is their condition?' 'No irreparable physical or mental harm, Chuut-Riit,' Axelrod-Bauergartner said, bowing. 'What are your orders as to their disposal?'
'Rrrrr,' Chuut-Riit mused, shifting to rub the underside of his jaw on the wood. The last public hunt had been yesterday, the one to which he had taken his sons. 'How soon can they be in a condition to run amusingly?' he said.
'Half a week, Chuut-Riit. We have been cautious.'
'Prepare them.' His sons? No, best not to be too indulgent. There was a bad smelling lot of administrative work to be attended to; he would be chained to his desk for a goodly while anyway. Let the little devils attend to their studies, and he would visit them again when this had been disposed of. Besides, while free there had been a certain attraction in the prospect of dealing with this pair personally; as captives they were just two more specimens of monkeymeat-beneath his dignity. 'Get a good batch together, and have them all ready for the Public Preserve at the end of the week. Dismissed.'
'Was that Suuomalisen I saw coming out of here?' Montferrat said. 'Unless you know another fat, sweaty toad in a linen suit looking like he'd just swallowed the juiciest fly on the planet.' Yarthkin grinned like a shark as he settled behind his desk and pushed a pile of data chips and hardcopy to one side. 'Sit yourself down, Claude, and have a drink. If it isn't too early.'
'15:00 too early? That's in bad taste, even for you.' But the hand that reached for the Maivin shook slightly, and there were wrinkles in the tunic. 'But why was he so happy?'
'I just sold him Harold's Terran Bar,' Yarthkin said calmly. Light-headed he laughed, 4 boy's laugh. 'Prosit!” he toasted, and tossed back his own drink.
'What!' That was enough to bring him bolt-upright. 'Why-what- You've been turning that swine down for thirty years!”
'Swine, Claude? What's so especially swinish about him?' Yarthkin leaned forward, resting his chin on paired thumbs. 'Or have you forgotten exactly who's to be monkeymeat day after tomorrow?'
The reaction was more than Yarthkin had expected. A jerk, as if high-voltage current surged through the other man's body. A dry retching sound. Then, incredibly, the aquiline Herrenmann mask crumpled, slumping and wrinkling like a balloon from which the air has been withdrawn… and he was crying, head slumping down into his hands. Yarthkin swallowed and looked away; Claude was a collabo and a sellout, an extortionist without shame… but nobody should see another man this naked. It was obscene.
'Pull yourself together, Claude; I've known you were a bastard for forty years, but I thought you were a man, at least.'
'So did I,' gasped Montferrat. I even have the medals to prove it. I fought well in the war.'
'I know.'
'So, when, when, when they let us out of the detention camp, I really thought I could help. I really did.' He laughed. 'Life had to go on, criminals had to be caught, we were beaten and resistance just made it harder on everyone. I'd been a good policeman. I still could be.'
He drank, choked, drank. 'The graft, everyone had to. They wouldn't let you get past foot-patrol if you weren't on the pad, too; you had to be in it with them. If I didn't get promotion how could I accomplish anything? I told myself that, but every year a little more of me was gone. And now, now Ingrid's back and I can see myself in her eyes, and I know what I am-no better than that animal Axelrod-Bauergartner. She's gloating, she has me on this and I couldn't, couldn't do it. I told her to take care of it all, and went, and I've been drunk most of the time since, and she'll have my head and I deserve it, why try and stop her it-'
Yarthkin leaned forward and slapped the policeman alongside the head with his open palm, a gunshot crack in the narrow confines of the office. Montferrat's mood switched with mercurial swiftness, and he snarled with a mindless sound as he reached for his sidearm. But alcohol is a depressant, and his hand had barely touched the butt before the other man's stunner was pointed between his eyes.
'Neyn, neyn, naughty,' Yarthkin said cheerfully. 'Hell of a headache, Claude. Now, I won't say you don't deserve it, but sacrificing your own liver and lights isn't going to do Ingrid any good.' He kept the weapon unwavering until Montferrat had won back a measure of self-command, then laid it down on the desk and offered a cigarette.
'My apologies,' Montferrat said, wiping off his face with a silk handkerchief. I do despise self-pity.' The shredded cloak of his ironic detachment settled about him.
Yarthkin nodded. 'That's better, sweetheart. I'm selling the club because I need ready capital, for relocation and grubstaking my people, the ones who don't want to come with me.'
'Go with you? Where? And what does this have to do with Ingrid?' Yarthkin grinned again, tapped ash off the end of his cigarette. Exhilaration filled him, and something that had been missing for far too long. What? he thought. Not youth… yes, that's it. Purpose.
'It isn't every man who's given a chance to do it over right,' he said. 'That, friend Claude, is what I'm going to do. We're going to bust Ingrid out of that Preserve. Have a shot at it, at least. ' He held up a hand. 'Don't fuck with me, Claude; I know as well as you that the system there is managed through Munchen Police H.Q. One badly mangled corpse substituted for another, what ratcat's to know? It's been done before.' 'Odd you should think of that,' Montferrat said, shaking his head dully. 'For the past several days I have been regretting that I always kept out of the set-up side of the Hunts. Couldn't… I have to watch them, anyway, too often.'
Odd how men cling to despair, once they've hit bottom, Yarthkin thought. As if hope were too much effort. Is that what surrender is, then, just giving in to exhaustion of the soul?
Aloud: 'Computer, access file Till Eulenspiegel.'
The surface of his desk flashed transparent and lit with a series of coded text-columns. Montferrat came erect with a shaken oath. 'How… if you had that, all these years, why haven't you used it?' 'Claude, the great drawback of blackmail is that it gives the victim the best possible incentive to find a permanent way of shutting you up. Risky, especially when dealing with the police. As to the how, you're not under the impression that you get the best people in the police, are you?' A squint, and the gravelly voice went soft. 'Don't think I wouldn't use it, sweetheart, if you didn't cooperate, and there's more than enough here to put you in the edible-delicacy category. Think of it as God's way of giving you an incentive to get back on the straight and narrow.'
I tell you, Axelrod-Bauergartner has the command codes for the Preservel I can override, but it would be flagged. Immediately.'
