kzinret would have been hardly out of childhood then. Had she been any older he doubted any human kit would have survived her company long, sapient or not. Adolescent kzinti of both sexes, on kzin-colonized Ka'ashi, had not been notable for their tolerance of humans or for interspecies diplomatic skills.
'Yes, Leonie-human. Heroes came then, and I was taken into the household of Hroarh-Officer.'
'Hroarh-Officer! My Honored Step-Sire Raargh's old commander! I have met him.'
'He lives?'
'Yes.'
Her ears moved in a strange expression. 'When my legs were mended, he was gracious enough to take me into his household, and then into his harem.'
'He has no use for a harem now,' said Vaemar.
'That I know. I was with him while he lay shattered. I stanched the bleeding though he screamed at me to let him die. I told him it was his duty to live, his duty to our kind. I had never spoken to him in the Heroes' Tongue before, let alone given him commands…
'It was a strange time. We lay together in the wreckage and I comforted him and talked with him. It was not humans that had maimed him so, you know. It was in the fighting between the followers of Traat-Admiral and Ktrodni-Stkaa, before the humans landed. And I revealed to him the secret that I was tired of keeping. That some on this world knew already. That I was one of the Secret Others… the females whose brains were not killed.'
'I knew nothing of this,' said Vaemar.
'No, Riit. And perhaps I should kill you now to keep that secret. But this is no longer a kzinti world. And I am hungry to speak.'
Vaemar called to the others, 'Any movement?' There seemed to be nothing. All were alert. The sighting dots of the weapons moved back and forth in the darkness of the corridors, running over mold, dark metal, and, farther down some passages, rippling water that might conceal an armed, approaching enemy. Swirl-Stripes fired the beam rifle at this, flashing it into steam, but it was a precaution only and he could not keep the trigger depressed for more than an instant. Vaemar told him to cease. More, or closer, live steam would broil them, and as it was the clouds from these momentary bursts were highly inconvenient, especially when they were striving to see. This closes about me, thought Vaemar. And then again: What would honored Sire, and Honored Step-Sire do? And then: Seek knowledge. Seek more knowledge. He waited for the air to clear and returned to the kzinret.
'Tell me more.'
'I kept Hroarh-Officer alive, and stopped him killing himself until aid arrived. The other kzinretti had yammered and fled when the fighting started. I stayed with him while they gave him some sort of field-surgery. It gave him help, I think, to hold my fingers then. We talked long in that time. He became the first kzintosh I did not hate.
'And later I stayed to make sure he did not die. Then there were the human landings, and he commanded his troops from a cart in the battles that followed until few were left alive. Wounded and maimed, nearly all, kept for garrison duties, though there were fewer garrisons each hour. He even taught me a little skill with weapons then, for we did not know what the days might bring, and he had accepted what I was. Finally he told me: 'Go, Karan, I know now my duty is to live. Let me be an example: if I can live, so can Raargh-Sergeant with his one arm and eye and these other half-Heroes of mine. But we must let the monkeys give us every chance to die in battle first, taking as many of them as we may with us to present to the Fanged God. You must hide yourself and survive. I will keep your secret. You are free,' he said, 'No longer the property of this useless half-kzintosh. But remember the Hero I once was.'
'You were loyal to your Hero,' said Vaemar. Strange linkings of fate. If she saved Hroarh-Officer and he in turn did not let Raargh Hero die, then I owe this strange kzinret Raargh Hero's life. Which means I owe her my own life too. Well, let us see how long we shall keep our lives.
'I hardly know what I was loyal to,' she told him. 'Many memories. Warring drives. Why should I love the patriarchy that enslaved all females and blanked the minds of nearly all? Robbed them of more than life? Oh, we of the Secret Others know how it was done, more or less. The stories have been handed down. There were humans I had met-the Leonie Manrret in the caves was one-who were more kind to me than my own kind. Yet Hroarh- Officer was truly my Hero, and I am kzinti too. He lives, you say?'
'Yes, and he is honored.'
'I am glad. But I do not think he would wish to see me again as he is now… Anyway, I left Hroarh-Officer at his command. I evaded the fighting and the hunting humans, and made my way at last to the swamp. I learnt to swim and to catch fish and other prey. There is hunting in plenty at the edges of the swamp.
'One day, I saw other kzinti in a boat. I was tired of living alone and I went to them. They took me to their island. I helped with the fishing there, and watched and thought. I was but a kzinret again, a brainless worker and breeder, but things were not quite the same. I showed initiative. I spoke, a little, in the Heroes' Tongue. I gave directions to the other females, and, if I did not do or dare too much, I found that in time this was accepted by the kzintoshi. You know it would not have been before…'
I can see the kzintoshi would have accepted you, Vaemar thought. If you were well fed you would be rather a beauty. One part of his mind felt he was wasting time, but still he returned his attention to what she was saying. Until he knew more there was nothing he could do to give targets to the wandering sighting dots of their weapons.
'I saw that something was happening to our kind on this planet under human rule. Something too big for me to understand. There was opportunity here, but also the chance of disaster. What would we become? Have you ever asked yourself that question?'
'There have been a few occasions, sometimes as long as whole minutes together, when I have thought of other things,' said Vaemar.
'I wished to think,' she went on, ears twitching in appreciation of the sarcasm. 'Alone. I took to solitary hunts. I swam in the clear water. Sometimes at night, when the others slept, I watched the internet, the human sites as well as the kzin ones at Arhus and Tiamat. I saw humans and kzinti beginning to work together here, even as I saw the great battles between them in space.'
Vaemar tried to imagine a kzinret following space-battles. He could not. The notion was simply too alien. Think of her as a human in a fur-coat and it might be easier, he thought. The way humans are warned not to think about us. No. Those great eyes were not human, however weird and disturbing the light of intelligence in them was.
'And what did you conclude?'
'Both kinds are incomplete. But the strengths of the humans and the kzinti may complement one another one day. I think no kzintosh of the Patriarchy could understand that. They could not conceive of hairless monkeys on equal terms. But I, a female raised to be a slave and grown as a kitten among both kinds, can see it.'
'I have human companions,' said Vaemar. 'These with me here, and others.'
'In the depths of your liver, can you truly say before the Fanged God that they are partners, you who bear the ear-tattoos of the Riit? You cannot answer.'
'No, I cannot answer that,' said Vaemar after a moment. 'I have tried…'
'Even as you could not truly think of me as the equal of a kzintosh, of your companion there?'
'Enough!'
'That is your answer? To use the Ulimate Imperative Tense? You would have been a kit when royalty on this planet ended.'
'Chuut-Riit was my Sire!'
'As he was of an eight-cubed or so of other kittens. But we waste time. The Jotok attacked the camp while I was hunting alone. I returned and saw it from a distance. They evaded the defenses-there are old Jotok among them who know kzin technology well in their way-surprised and killed the kzinti and bore their bodies away. I followed them. They led me here. They came originally from this ship and it is still their headquarters and nursery.'
'Why did you not take down the bodies of the dead kzinti and kzinretti?'
'I hoped the Jotok-the adult Jotok-would return if I left them undisturbed, thinking I had gone, and that I might take them by surprise. But I think they know I wait.'
Still nothing in the corridors. None of the others, when he asked them, knew even as much of Jotok as he. Swirl-Stripes had vague memories of Jotok slaves and being taken as a kitten on a Jotok-hunt with his Sire. He had been given a Jotok arm to eat at the end of it. No memories or knowledge tactically useful.
