my plan. It you don't like it, say so very quickly.' He turned to two of the soldiers. 'Dunkerton and Collins, you will take our car and the university car and fly north. Commence a box search of the area using deep radar. Remember they may have both a human and a kzin prisoner, both important. Don't fire on them under any circumstances. Track them till reinforcements arrive. Take both cars in case they split up. The rest of us will head back through the caves. That's the only way I can think of that gives us a chance to block both ends of the burrow at once.'
No one disagreed.
'Right, Nils and Leonie, I'll get you and your students to organize weapons, equipment, food, lamps for us all. You know best what we'll need. We may be underground a long time.'
The module emptied quickly under Leonie's direction. Arthur Guthlac turned to the desk and spoke to it urgently. Jocelyn alone remained with him, drawing him aside.
'Early says reinforcements are on the way,' he told her. 'Markham's coming too.'
'Why not just let this revolt go ahead? It would do the Exterminationists' work for them.' Her voice had a seductive burr in it. Her fingers brushed his thigh. She bent slowly towards him and kissed his mouth, then drew away, gazing up at him catlike from under her long lashes. Her breasts heaved slightly but noticeably.
Arthur Guthlac looked at her with troubled eyes.
'Don't think the idea doesn't tempt me,' he said. 'But… I began my military career-poring over fragments of old forbidden books in a museum-because I cared about the fact that honor seemed to have departed from our world… from Earth's society, anyway. We were sheeplike masses almost without volition, directed and controlled by the ARM bureaucracy, of which I myself was a tiny part. Without realizing it, we were undergoing a sort of death. I wanted to keep some threatened values alive. If it's true that humans can only have a civilization as long as less civilized humans guard it, and I am one of the guardians, then I will still try to be as civilized as possible. Otherwise the whole thing ends up kind of pointless.
'During the war I did plenty of ruthless things, including acting as an agent provocateur to discredit the pacifist movement when the situation on Earth required it. I've slept well with many deaths on my conscience-and I'm not talking about kzin deaths. But to just let these lunatics go ahead with their attempted mayhem seems wrong- perhaps because that old kzin trusts Rykermann, perhaps because we're all getting old and less hot-livered-I mean hot-tempered! Even seeing that kzin and those humans working together at the spaceport. Perhaps I'm wobbling a bit about Exterminationism. Also, who knows how much damage the revolt might do before we crushed it? I need to think the whole thing over.'
I don't! But there's one reason for me against just sitting back, my love: If Henrietta is there I'm going after her! Alone if need be! But I suppose it would be silly to resent reinforcements.' As Cumpston had a habit of pinching his lower lip when thinking, Arthur Guthlac had a habit of sticking his out. Jocelyn leaned closer to him, bit it gently between her teeth, then licked his face. She thought of how Markham had enjoyed that.
'Leonie liver not happy,' said Raargh in his blend of Wunderlander and the former slaves' patois. It was a statement, not a question, the vocabulary somewhat broken down. Leonie was not as fluent as the colonel.
'No,' she said, 'Leonie liver not happy.'
'We go into battle,' said Raargh. Even though Leonie was a female, it-she-was a fighter, and surely the prospect of action should rouse any fighter's spirits. 'Good for soldier to go into battle with high liver. Fight best… Memory Raargh and Leonie fight morlocks?… Why Leonie not happy? Leonie just mate. Mating make females happy.'
'How did you know that?'
'Ziirgah sense,' he told her. 'Not telepath,' he emphasized. 'Not tell thoughts. But tell feelings. Leonie happy when Raargh wake. Now… '
She laughed.
'Why Leonie discharge from eyes? That also show humans not happy, Raargh know… Once, Leonie dig Raargh out of trap. Once, Raargh help Leonie breathe. Leonie female, but still Leonie and old Raargh companions, Raargh thinks.'
'Yes, Leonie and Raargh companions,' she replied. 'Life was simple then. But Leonie is stupid manrret.'
'Some manretti not stupid,' he told her. 'Some manretti clever. Leonie clever… Some mans,' he went on, 'like clever manretti.'
'Yes, Raargh,' said Leonie. 'That is problem. Some mans like clever manretti. Hard to explain to Hero.' She put out a hand and scratched the great scarred head under the lower jaw. Raargh resisted an undignified temptation to purr.
'Raargh companion,' he said.
'Yes, Raargh companion.'
'Leonie have enemies, Raargh have enemies. Raargh eat! Raargh have long fangs, sharp claws.' He demonstrated. 'Raargh old, but Raargh quick!… Is Jocelyn manrret Leonie enemy?' he asked hopefully.
'You would, too, wouldn't you? No, companion, it's not that simple. Leonie has no enemies. Not here.'
Leonie not want to kill kzinti… kill ratcats. Raargh knows.'
'No. But I will fight if I must today… Otherwise… maybe disaster.'
'Yes. Raargh knows.'
Very carefully, imitating a gesture he had seen among humans, Raargh laid his great clawed hand on Leonie's shoulder. Surprised, she turned her tear-streaked face to him. Arthur Guthlac entered. His own eyes widened for a moment at the scene.
'We're ready!' he barked. 'We're all going!'
'Shouldn't we leave someone here?' Leonie asked.
'We're too thin on the ground to divide our forces any further. Professor Carmody is our guest on this planet, and I'm charged with keeping her out of danger. But leaving her here with or without a guard is hardly a practical option. In any case, she has said she doesn't want to be left here and she'll come. But I want no lives lost. Remember, we're not going to fight, but to blockade them till Early's troops arrive. 'Raargh,' he went on, 'I am declaring this a military situation. Will you take orders from me?'
Yes.' Five years had accustomed Raargh to humans' notions of discipline. The old kzin did not even growl. And that, thought Arthur Guthlac, weakens me as an Exterminationist a little more. I am a soldier, and that old ratcat becomes one of my troops. Honor is a tanjed awkward thing. And what was the old ratcat doing just now? It looked for a moment as if he was comforting her… But why?… Of course! As the song goes: 'What kind of fool am I?'… and it took a kzin to see it!
'Let's move out!' he snarled.
'What now?' Vaemar asked Colonel Cumpston.
'Waiting is very difficult. At the moment it is all we can do.'
'I think they are listening to us.'
'Yes.'
'It does not matter,' said Vaemar. 'Seizing me by a trick and insulting my Honored Step-Sire Raargh-even insulting you, my chess-partner-is not the way to gain my cooperation…'
If she and Emma have you, they can use your Name to the other kzinti.'
'And what you said… that Emma's plans would destroy every kzin on Wunderland… Do you believe that?'
'Yes, Vaemar. Worse, it would mean no peace between our kinds would ever be possible. That will be difficult enough as things are.'
'It surprises me, that she should behave so.'
'Not me, so much, perhaps, but I have read more of human history. And lived longer.'
Do you think Henrietta is truly loyal to my Honored Sire?'
'She probably thinks she is. Whether he would approve of what she says in his name is another matter… Suppose, Vaemar, suppose against all odds Emma's plans succeeded-that the Kzin revolted and captured the hyperdrive. How would you feel?'
'I am a kzin. I am Chuut-Riit's son. But I am also a kzin of Ka'ashi-of Wunderland. I know you and other humans… difficult.'
