was always with us here, though as Kzinti numbers increased, human freedom to breathe was gradually being lost everywhere.' Rykermann paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. Then he went on.
'The anti-Exterminationists aren't a monolith, of course. Markham, I think, admires the Kzin for what they are. ARM, as always, has its own secret agendas, which I don't expect even you, Arthur, know much of. Others value them not for what they are, but for what they might become.'
'Like your wife?
'Yes. But I will not be disloyal to her as a wife, and anyone who thinks I am is mistaken. She has a noble and generous vision and dauntless courage. She believes contact with humans is changing the Kzin, that already those born on Wunderland are different-more flexible, more empathic. I think she is mistaken, though I salute her intentions. And in any case a more flexible, more imaginative Kzin would only be more dangerous.'
'And you and I and Jocelyn lost loved ones to them. To love anyone is to make a perpetual hostage of your heart. Markham is a cold, sexless creature, brought up on Nietzsche, mother-fixated. I doubt he's ever loved anyone else, let alone lost them. He married only fairly recently, I think chiefly for the purpose of getting an heir- that's another kzin-like thing about him. But maybe to be a Markham you have to be like that.
'I don't know how much damage he did the Kzin battle-fleets-his whole collection of makeshift warships couldn't have engaged even one of their great dreadnaughts with a hope of survival-but the damage he did their bases and shipyards and the intelligence that his people masered to Sol wasn't negligible. Perhaps he helped buy Earth and Sol System breathing space between the Kzin fleet attacks. That may have been crucial. Gave time for the miracle of the hyperdrive to come from We Made It. I'm told Earth was at its last gasp when the Crashlanders arrived.'
'It was,' said Guthlac. 'If they expected a heroes' welcome it was nothing to the one they got!'
Markham certainly kept flames of hope and defiance alive here when they were desperately needed. I'd be the last to deny we owe him plenty, and perhaps Sol System does too.
'I've tried to understand what makes him tick,' Rykermann went on. 'Especially now that we're in Parliament together. He counted those who died with him as warriors fallen in a noble cause, and I'm sure he's been punctilious in seeing their names are spelled correctly on the memorials. I think his feelings for them would have stopped there. Remember Frederick the Great's words to encourage his troops when they hesitated in battle: 'Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben?' When I read that, I thought: 'That's Markham!' But I see the laser burning into Dimity's ship almost every night of my life. We didn't see the end, as I told you, but I imagine it passing through her body as she lay in that medical coffin…'
Jocelyn? Do you feel the same?' Guthlac asked.
'I'm a civil servant. And like all senior police officers on this planet I've plenty of enemies from the past. I was exonerated after the Liberation and decorated and promoted for my role in helping the Resistance, but I did wear the collabo uniform. It would be easy for some enemies to take what I did-what I had to do-out of context. 'Who is the genuine friend of humanity? Ulf Reichstein-Markham, who fought the Kzin in the Serpent Swarm in improvised warships; Markham whose name even Chuut-Riit knew; or the former so-called Captain Jocelyn van der Stratt who supervised… supervised… ' No, I can't say it, even here. You can work out the rest of it. But that's what they'd say.'
'One thing I've learned in politics,' said Rykermann, 'is the softly, softly approach. Nils Rykermann fighting Ulf Reichstein Markham-and the UNSN-on Exterminationism wouldn't get me far. It might get me the personal attentions of ARM… You understand.'
'I was about to say: 'They wouldn't dare!' But of course they would,' said Guthlac. 'I was part of ARM's planning staff and I know them better than most. War does things to people, but even before the war ARM's ethos was that it couldn't afford scruples. Buford Early had no scruples about killing tens of thousands of humans-maybe more, we still don't know how many exactly-in the ramscoop raid. I did certain things on Earth when it looked as if the pacifist movement was getting too powerful-and I'd do them again if I had to without a backward glance. ARM as a whole had no scruples about holding back on all sorts of technology that would have helped us in the war, until it was almost too late, for fear it might get into the wrong hands-as if that would have been worse than a Kzin victory destroying human civilization forever! You're right to be distrustful of it.'
'Nils Rykermann as Exterminationist leader would be quietly stymied, I think,' Rykermann told him. 'But Nils Rykermann the mainstream politician reluctantly forced into supporting Exterminationism might be a different matter.'
'So we're agreed.'
'Yes. Softly, softly,' Arthur Guthlac nodded. 'By the way, Jocelyn's people and I are among those meeting a delegation from We Made It in a few days to discuss expanding hyperdrive factories here. Her section is in charge of security for the project.'
'I know. And more hyperdrive factories here are the best news I've heard for a long time. We're going to need them,' Rykermann said. 'If we do exterminate the Wunderkzin, I think it rules out the chance of a peace with the Kzin anywhere, ever. The others will hardly be inclined to surrender. We're in for a long war.'
'That's exactly what we must have. Like it or not, they're too dangerous to be in the universe, Nils.'
We know,' said Jocelyn.
'Come with me, if you like,' said Guthlac. 'I'm sure they'll want to meet you.'
'Thanks, but I'm back to the caves tomorrow,' said Rykermann. 'Thank God, politics still isn't a fulltime job. I remain a biologist, remember. Even a celebrity biologist! Leonie's there, with some students. We're trying to rehabilitate the ecosystem. It got messed up pretty thoroughly in the war. Odd, I suppose, that we should be trying to preserve the morlocks as a species now.'
'They can hardly be much of a threat.'
'No, they're barely sapient and they stay in the dark. Still, that's the human race for you: trying to preserve its enemies.'
'Not all its enemies, I trust.'
'So do I.'
Chapter 3
Jocelyn van der Stratt, like many of Wunderland's top administration, had a spacious apartment, once the property of a wealthy collaborationist, located, like Rykermann's Parliamentary office, in a tower high over the city.
Its decorations included the body of Peter Brennan, a fighter in the early days of the Invasion who even the Kzinti had referred to by full name, enclosed in a translucent block. Jocelyn had liberated it on the day of the Kzin surrender. The Kzin had let him keep his trophy-belt of kzinti ears, and this could still be seen on him, along with, on the remains of his jacket, the small cogged wheel of the Rotary Club badge he had worn in memory of peaceful days. There were also, about the walls, the earless heads of various kzinti and of human collaborators, weapons, photographs and holos of certain other dead humans, china from old Neue Dresden, and, in a niche, an inlaid jar of kzinti workmanship which had once held Planetary Governor Chuut-Riit's urine, kzinti symbol of Conquest and once gift to a sergeants' mess of Heroes.
Jocelyn reclined at ease on a couch covered in kzin fur. She was smoking a cigarette of mildly narcotic Wunderland chew-bacca and she had chosen the details of her dress with great care. Ulf Reichstein Markham sat upright on a chair with the same material. He smoked nothing.
'Privately,' she was saying, 'I'm on your side. The Kzin were honorable enemies. Many like Traat-Admiral and Hroth could acknowledge and respect human courage. And could be reasoned with. 'Enlightenment' is no empty word. Chuut-Riit wished to understand us. Perhaps the passage of a little time was necessary for us to see their more positive qualities. Thanks to the hyperdrive we are secure militarily and can afford to be more active in exploring avenues to a lasting peace.'
'It is time to become friends,' said Markham. His English was still careful, and Wunderland sentence structure came and went awkwardly in it. 'I do not pretend it will be easy. Sacrifices we may have to make. They must be convinced of our good intentions. But infinitely worthwhile the effort. At the end of the journey ennobled may both races be. I did not, however, think that you shared my views.'
