yellow, he saw, not the white of a really old monkey. But it was not strong. Sergeant was sizing it up as the Morlocks came again.
They came in waves, inflicted a little more damage on the defenders each time, caused more ammunition to be expended, and then drew back. There was a bombardment of missiles from the roof. One badly injured Hero lost control and hobbled, shrieking and howling, out of the perimeter into the darkness after them. He did not return. A little later another followed. Falling rocks accounted for the other two and also for one of the injured humans. The female human ran from place to place, firing one of the rifles. Perhaps from a distance it would create the illusion of a greater number of defenders, but he doubted it. Sergeant left the male human to hold the breach in one lull while he dragged and lifted some larger stone fragments onto the tops of broken stalagmite stumps in an effort to make a sheltering roof. It did not last long. Occasionally his ears picked up sounds of other fighting far away. He lost track of time, and was amazed when his timepiece told him a day and a night had passed. The dead humans provided monkey meat, though he tried to eat it out of the other humans' sight in the interests of holding together the fragile alliance that seemed to have evolved. Once after this, knowing he must conserve his strength, he even slept. If the humans took advantage of this to kill him, so be it.
He was again amazed to find how long a time had passed when he awoke. The Morlocks had not attacked, and the humans, he noticed, had not killed him. In other times of lull the humans slept. At times they tried the lamps at high strength, but they seemed of little use: the Morlocks did not like the light but they simply dodged away in the stalagmite forest or were lost in the shifting shadows. The bombardment of stone waxed and waned, but for long periods it was unceasing. The morlocks were throwing chunks of rock and throwing them accurately, but the dense calcite crystals from the roof were doing the most damage. A well-aimed rock could injure, but those heavy falling spear points could kill, and there was nowhere to hide from them.
'Female fights well,' said Sergeant in the slaves' patois, with the idea of encouraging the male human who seemed to be the troop's leader to emulate its companion. It was sitting, knees drawn up to its chin, covering its head in its hands. The bombardment had stopped for a time.
'I tell female go,' said the human in the same broken tongue. 'Not honor make female fight. Question Hero let female go?'
'Female help Hero,' said Sergeant. He could hardly eat the female now, and though it was useful with their scanty numbers, he did not like it fighting beside him and most certainly he did not want to be placed under any further debt to it. 'Female go.'
The morlocks were still holding back, but the rocks were still falling. It was the head-injuries that were killing. Even a massively-muscled kzin could withstand such blows only so long. Kzinti themselves were forceful and dexterous stone-throwers, and they tried returning the bombardment, but it was pointless when there was no target to see. Two more humans were down, sprawled at the base of a couple of large stalagmites, and all his Heroes were down now. He checked them all, but with gross head injuries they were obviously dead. At least they had died in battle, as kzinti should. The thick smells of human and kzin blood-and not a little morlock-made thinking difficult. Assess your ration-strength. The human male, the female, and Sergeant. That was all that were left.
'Female go now,' he said.
'Get out, Leonie!' the male human shouted. 'Make for tunnel 14-K!'
'No,' the female shouted, 'I'll not desert you!'
'This is a military order! Go! Report! Go before they attack again!'
'Come with me, then. We can get out together!'
'No. I must delay them. Me and this tabby here. Now go!'
There was a pause. It was hard to tell how long it lasted. Then Sergeant heard a sound he recognized now as the rustle of morlock feet. The female had left the inadequate shelter of the amphitheater and was moving along a path that led through the stalagmite forest. Too slowly.
'Run, Leonie!' shouted the male human. Sergeant thought of the trench she had dug to set him free before the Morlocks came. 'Rrrun, Leonniee!' he roared in his best attempt at human speech. A dozen morlocks were after her, two clinging to her shoulders, fighting for the throat bite. She fell and went down the flowstone into the river. He remembered to dial the beam down before pointing it: She would be damaged further if it boiled the water. He saw her drifting in the green-lit water, morlocks still clinging, then going over a rushing fall. She seemed to be unconscious. More morlocks followed: They seemed adapted to the water, and he guessed that such creatures could move in every part of the cave with equal ease.
There was little point in remaining in the amphitheater now. The two remaining sapients were not enough to hold it. Still, it was honor and military common sense not to simply abandon the remaining monkey with no word.
'I get her!' He rushed the flow-stone, leaping across the stream to smoother ground on the other side. Snarling at the mud that splashed about his legs, he raced and leaped over the fall, scattering the morlocks with a few swipes of his claws and w'tsai. When they were clear of her he used the beam rifle. She lay facedown in a pool. Sergeant remembered nurse-slave again. In that position she would, like a kzin, die very quickly through inhaling water if she was not already dead. Alive she might be a fighter in their need. And she had helped and trusted him. That made a debt, even to a female. Sheathing his claws, he dragged her from the water and pushed her into a sitting position. She began to cough and struggle, but he held her.
He felt an odd, uncomfortable empathy for the male human in its attempts to preserve the female. He thought of the kzinrett he himself particularly desired to be the mother of his line, Veena, daughter of old Kiirg-Greater- Sergeant. She was, like practically all females of the slightest desirability, forever beyond the reach of a Nameless one, as was the possibility of a line, but had Veena been here, he thought, he would have tried to save her. Even Murrur, who was older and less attractive, but… Trying not to damage the fragile creature further, he worked its chest in and out, hoping human and kzin lungs were similar.
'Truce! Truce!' The female gasped. Sergeant was irritated. He, a Hero, did not need to be reminded of such things. Then he saw the male human beside him.
'I do that,' said the male human. 'Heroes better at fighting.'
The female's torn costume was stained with spreading blood. She had some deep lacerations. The male tore it open and sprayed her with something that stopped the bleeding, though it seemed nearly exhausted. Sergeant thought the male would have done at least as well to use it on itself. 'Can you walk?' it asked the female.
'Yes, I think so.'
'Go. 14-K. The third north tunnel. You'll come to a marker. Tell them to use plan Marigold. Go. Hurry. I will delay them.'
'No. You have no chance. If the morlocks don't get you, the kzin will.'
'Go, Leonie. Those are my orders.'
The female put her arms around the male for a moment, made a peculiar sound, and staggered away in the characteristic shuffling run of an injured thing that screamed to every one of Sergeant's hunting instincts for a pouncing strike. He fought them down. He heard her for a minute in the tunnel, and then the rustle of morlocks among the complications of the roof again, as well as a chinking noise which he now recognized as meaning they were carrying the heavy calcite crystal missiles. There was no more fighting at the amphitheater, only the morlock rustling, and no lights but their own. Well, it had simply been a place to die in, not much better or worse than any other in these caves. He could just make out the human.
'Can you see me?' he asked.
'A little,' said the human. 'A thing in the dark. I see your eyes. A little while ago I would have feared the sight of kzin eyes in the dark more than all fears. Now… '
'Others dead.' said Sergeant.
'Does kitten still live?'
'If morlocks not kill it, kitten alive.'
'Now it is just us,' said the human. 'If the truce between us holds, I intend to buy time.'
Time? For what?'
'For Leonie to escape. There is another thing. When we found the kzinrett kitten-I will not lie to you-I would have killed it. Leonie stopped me.'
'Why?'
'Partly she hates all killing, though she is a good fighter. Yes, she hates killing even kzin. Partly, she had seen
