degree. We'd all be long dead otherwise.'
'Cats are generally independent-minded. And you think they know what the slowboats are for?'
I think they probably do. Does it matter?'
'It could. If they think they are industrial assets of some kind-major asteroid miners or something-they might be reluctant to destroy them. And if they think they are refugee ships… '
Once they see them leaving the system they'll be after them,' I said.
'Not necessarily. Not if they got a long enough start. I'm trying to think like an intelligent cat, with a cat's independence. Go after a slowboat and yes, assuming you found it, you'd catch it. A slow obsolete ship technologically inferior to your own and useless except for its own specialized purpose. You might have a feed. But then you'd have to turn around and come back. Meanwhile, the other cats are all grabbing the choicest parts of the planet.
'Like terrestrial lions at a kill, or tigripards here: Would one leave a big kill that was already warm and bloody on the ground, with the rest of the pride lined up and feeding, to chase after a rabbit? Probably not. At least, we might as well think that way.'
'I hope you're right,' I said. 'Anyway, you're going to be a slowboat passenger.'
'Me?'
'Your drive theory. Humanity's got to have it. The Kzin must not.'
'There was talk of drawing lots or something' said Kleist, 'but I don't know if there will be time for that. What drive?'
'No, it may not work,' said Dimity. 'Besides, if you don't know, you can't reveal it under torture.' I had been about to tell him what I knew of it.
'Yes,' he said. 'They're good at torture, except they don't seem to understand shock. As far as we can gather they tend to kill the victims too soon. That annoys them. But I suppose they are learning.'
So we head for Munchen and the spaceport. And hope we get there before they do.'
Fly as low as you can,' said Dimity. 'We don't want to show up on radar and get shot down by our own people.' The subject of torture had left me rather preoccupied. 'Don't head straight for the city. Hug the contours of the hills and trees.'
'We'll have to slow down,' I said.
'We should slow down anyway. Both sides will be looking for war craft, and they travel fast.' It was a relief to be moving again, anyway.
Sunset seemed unusually prolonged for the season. There were also sounds in the air that puzzled me. As we headed toward Munchen we saw lights streaming up from the surrounding hills, lights in the sky, rising orange blossoms of fire, with the diffuse background glow of that strange slow sunset behind them.
It was like no light I had seen before: a wavering, pulsating orange glow.
Something moving in the sky against the glow, something black. Kleist grabbed my arm. 'Kzin aircraft!'
I wrenched the car round in a tight turn. The dark shape turned too, with a deliberation that was somehow terrifying in itself, and began to move towards us.
'What weapons do we have?'
'Personal strakkakers, a couple of big ones mounted on the car, some bullet projectors. Flashlight lasers.'
No use. Glass and teflon needles won't stop that thing.'
'Ram it!' said Dimity.
'That means the end of us.'
'We bail out with lift-belts. Keep the strakkakers by you.'
Instinct had taken over my fingers. I had the car close to the ground, jigging violently from side to side. Our pursuer had lost height too, and was closing with us. I estimated it would be on us in two to three minutes.
'They like to get in close,' Kleist said.
'Then get belts on, fast!'
Desperate fumbling. I programmed the car to fly steady and stop in two minutes. Then we stepped out, three hundred feet in the air. We fell for another two hundred feet or so and then the ground effect of the lift-belts operated and we hovered. There was the alien craft, big and black and fast.
Some instinct made me shut me eyes and throw my hands in front of my face. It hit the car with an explosion that deafened us and painted multicolored light across my eyelids. A blast of hot air knocked me spinning away.
There was the alien craft, stopped in midair. There were flames curling up out of its front part and its nose was dipping. It was sinking, quite slowly, toward the ground.
A hatch opened in its side, and we saw dark bulky shapes emerging. So they had lift-belts too. Of course they would, and with their gravity technology they would be better belts than ours.
There was the whirr of a strakkaker in the air behind me and a hideous scream. The first of the creatures became suddenly fuzzy in outline, and then disintegrated, leaving a half-skeleton hanging in the air. Two others followed, fast, and they were shooting as they came. The exit port was their point of vulnerability. Kleist and Dimity had their strakkakers trained on it, and though the aliens were fast, they couldn't get through the glass needles.
But a strakkaker has a limited magazine capacity. I heard theirs fall silent, and brought up my own, ready at the movement I could see beyond the hatch.
More alien shapes, horribly bigger than men, were maneuvering something out of the hatch, and leaping onto it. It was rectangular, and I thought idiotically for a moment of a flying carpet, realizing it must be some sort of evacuation vehicle.
Whatever it was, it seemed to be an emergency device only, like a sledge. The aliens on it must, I thought, be dazed and injured by what had happened, but there was no opportunity for mercy now. They were still carrying weapons, and, though the flames of the burning craft in the air beside them must have affected their night vision, they would surely be able to see us soon. I fired the strakkaker again in a long burst, and swept them off the sledge as the two craft separated. I realized the fact that the strakkaker, unlike a beam weapon or bullet-rifle, had no betraying flame might be a great advantage. The main alien craft was falling faster now, and breaking up, pouring fire from several ports. There was an internal explosion, and it dropped like a stone, exploding again as it hit the ground and scattering wreckage.
Our own lift-belts were bringing us down, too. They were emergency devices only, with limited power, intended at altitudes like this to slow a fall more than to fly. One of the floating aliens was still firing a beam weapon, but it was either dead or badly wounded, for the bolts were flying at random. I raised my strakkaker again to finish it.
I fired a burst of a second or so, and the gauge clicked on empty. But the thing dropped its weapon. I thought I heard it scream, but between the deafening explosions and the flames I couldn't be sure. I marked where the weapon fell, though, as my own feet touched the ground. The others landed nearby. I was amazed we were all alive.
Kleist and I lifted the alien weapon between us and we staggered away. There seemed to be something still moving in the wreck of the alien craft, and I thought there might be explosions still to come. 'They were trying to capture us, weren't they?' said Dimity. 'That's why they didn't shoot at first.'
They often try to capture if they can,' said Kleist. 'It's better not to let them…
'Well,' he continued after a moment, 'at least it should be difficult for them to find us now. Have either of you got any metal prostheses in you?'
We hadn't. The small locator implant in my arm was plastic.
'Good. Get rid of the belts, and any electronic gadgets you've got on you. Watches, calculators, pocketbooks. They can detect electronic activity in space. I don't know how much metal their detectors need, but why make it easy for them? And they can use the heat-induction ray to cook any metal parts you have inside you while you're still alive. I've seen it happen…'
'Are we worth coming after?' I wondered if it would affect plastic and decided I could cut the locator out if I had to. It had already buzzed and vibrated once, which I did not like at all, but then had stopped. 'If another ship saw anything of what happened, they'll come. They're big on revenge, we've noticed.' The alien weapon had an orange light glowing on one side.
