He kept his natural eye tightly shut to protect it as much as possible. His artificial eye and arm were both invulnerable to bites, and his artificial arm smashed aside the morlocks' puny weapons of rocks. His fangs and claws were still those of Raargh-Sergeant, once Senior Regimental Sergeant. Fourteen he counted, the last falling victim to a disemboweling kick he was sure old Sergeant and the w'tsai's late donor would have approved of. His own wounds, as far as he could tell, were fairly minor. There was so much scar tissue around his neck and shoulders, he thought, that the morlocks would have had a tough time chewing though it.
He forced himself to eat his fill of the dead morlocks-they were not pleasant eating, but, he told himself, they were carnivores and even warriors of a sort-carved some flesh from the remainder for future needs and pressed on, marking the passage as he went. Sometime later-much later, it seemed-he came upon a part of the wall scarred by flame. There were shattered crystal formations littering the cave floor here, and remains of humans, kzinti and morlocks, some scattered and broken bones, some whole skeletons, some mummies, some of the bones once again very faintly phosphorescent. There were no more live morlocks.
He fell down a long slope and lost much time finding his way back. In the confusion of stone and with his perception being affected by the dark and silence, he blundered up several blind alleys, each time backtracking with difficulty. He slept for a time, woke, and went on. He began to think his quest was hopeless and that he would soon die in these caves. There was no reason to assume these particular tunnels had any exit. He had lost all sense of time, but with all the back tracking he guessed that several days had passed.
He began, however, to feel another was traveling with him. Might it be old Sergeant, who had passed his rank to him with his actions and words as he died in the caves somewhere not far from here? He hoped Sergeant felt his old Corporal had not disgraced his judgment or his spirit. Might it be Chuut-Riit, whose last seed was now in his care?
He began to feel lightheaded. Perhaps the morlock flesh was poisonous. Perhaps it was the combined effects of darkness, silence, battle, and loss of blood. Several times he stumbled, and more than once he banged his head painfully against rock, once nearly breaking his fangs. The feeling of an unseen companion became stronger, but it was an uncertain companion.
After a time its head appeared to him, floating and swooping out of the darkness, appearing first as a tiny claw-point of light that grew larger until it seemed to engulf his vision and then passed on to dwindle and return. It looked like the hologram of Chuut-Riit. Then it looked like the Fanged God Himself, or was it the Human Bearded God? A kzinrett appeared. His mother? Or Murrur, the kzinrett he had bought after he had received his Name, the mother of his dead son, buried with him under burning debris in the ramscoop raid? It had been the last birthing she could give-fertile young kzinretti like Veena had been for the harems of higher kzintosh than he. She had not had a large vocabulary, but even when she was not in season he had enjoyed her company.
He was in the glades beyond the Hohe Kalkstein with Vaemar, stalking the gagrumphers. There were flutterbys and the brilliant sun of Ka'ashi's day, with its differently brilliant night, the wheeling Serpent Swarm, the great jewel of Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima like a hunter's red eye. The floating figures became chessmen. Hard stone struck against him, crystal broke and fell tinkling. Gods sowing stars. He began to feel something he had felt a few times before, once in these very caves. He knew now that its name was Fear. Fear of endless darkness and silence, fear of waiting nonexistence, fear of total loss. He tried working out chess problems in his mind, but he knew hunger was growing and that before long it would be an agony driving out all other feeling. Well, he would die decorously.
He seemed to climb a high path, a great stairway, though the real floor under his feet was broken and uneven. He plunged into a cold stream that nearly covered his head before realization made him struggle clear, choking and spitting. A few more steps and he might have drowned, basely abandoning Vaemar and everything else. The realization and the cold helped bring him back to reality. He groomed his matted wet fur as well as he could, and forced himself to rest for a time, lying still, shivering. The small noises of the stream had a dangerously hypnotic sound to them, and he sang the cadences of Lord Chmeee's Last Battle-Hymn to keep them at bay.
Later he came to an area from which, it appeared, dead bodies and other remains had recently been removed. The pain in his legs was acute now, and he allowed himself to stop and rest a short time and ate the last of the morlock flesh that he carried, making himself ignore the smell. He knew he was back in the great caverns of the Hohe Kalkstein where he had won rank and Name. He knew also that it would do no good were pain, hunger and exhaustion to rob him of his reason.
Far ahead both his natural and his artificial eye detected a modification of the darkness. Nose and whiskers also detected changes in the air. There, at the top of a long slope, was a lamp, turned down and dully glowing. When he reached it he found himself back in familiar territory. There were the old mined-out guano beds, stripped by the monkeys to make dung bombs during the war. There was what the humans called the dancing room, the borrlruhm cavern where he had inspected his squad for the last time as Corporal. He moved on into the crepuscular zone, glowing now with the purple of Alpha Centauri B, at this season with the true dawn pursuing close behind it. There was the old habitat module. Its door was closed but there was a key in it, and he sensed it was occupied by humans. He salivated at the thought of the meat within.
His artificial eye showed him it was surrounded by a fairly thin web of infrared rays and automatic alarms. If he set them off it might not matter, but he avoided them from habit anyway.
Leonie Rykermann stirred uneasily in their sleeping bag. Five years of peace had not dulled her reflexes that had been honed in decades of guerrilla war. She woke and sat up with a startled cry, Nils Rykermann jerking awake beside her. Bending over them in the dim light was the hunched, crouching bulk of a great kzin, smelling of blood, one eye reflecting violet light, the other a glaring red point, jaws agape, fangs gleaming and dripping.
'Be not undecorous and calm liver,' said Raargh in his best Wunderlander, adding considerately, 'No need for manrret to cover teats. Raargh has seen before.'
Chapter 7
'Raargh!'
'Yes. Raargh and humans have met here in caves before. Leonie-Manrret dug Raargh out of trap. Raargh push water out of Leonie-Manrret lungs. Kill many morlocks together. Raargh kill more now.' 'Du Alte Teufel!' She added quickly: 'No insult. We greet old companion.'
Nils Rykermann had been slower to waken fully. At the first sight of the kzin he tried to thrash wildly out of the sleeping bag, then with a fierce effort became still.
'Raargh!' Leonie shook him, 'It's Raargh!'
Rykermann became calmer. Then he looked the old kzin up and down.
'You're changed,' he said. 'You look terrible.'
'Kzin is terrible,' Raargh replied. 'Will show enemies how terrible soon.' He went on: 'Came seek Rykermann-human. God benevolent and Rykermann here. Rykermann dress in costume quickly. Leonie Manrett dress too. Is trouble!'
'How did you get here?' asked Leonie.
'Through caves, from north.'
'And why?' asked Rykermann.
'You are tired,' said Leonie, 'and in pain.'
'I am Hero!' said Raargh indignantly. Then he added: 'You know?'
'Yes. I know. Would bourbon help?'
'Bourbon always help. Or brandy,' He added.
'There's something there called liqueur brandy,' said Rykermann quickly, 'You wouldn't like that.'
Rest a moment,' said Leonie, as Raargh drank noisily (deciding privately that Rykermann was wrong about the liqueur brandy). 'Have some food, then tell us why you have come here.'
They found food for him, not ideal but better than morlock meat. It took some time for Raargh to explain to the humans what had happened to the north and then tell the story of his journey as a Hero should tell it. Alpha Centauri B filled the great mouth of the cave with light, and the true dawn followed it, well before he had finished. He did not know what they knew of Vaemar's lineage and said nothing about it, rather letting them believe by suggestion that Vaemar was his own son. Cumpston, he pointed out, was also a prisoner of the mad manretti and
