you, kollabrratorr and kwizzliing, perversions that only the vermin had words for till they infected our tongue! As for your challenge, it is nothing. The mere jabbering of a Kz'eerkt-chrowler.' Kz'eerkt meant 'ape,' 'monkey' or 'human.' 'Chrowl' depending on who used it and when, was an either intimate or obscene term among kzinti for sexual intercourse. In normal kzin society such as had existed pre-Liberation, a death-duel would inevitably have followed such an insult. Dimity thought she could feel the effort with which Vaemar controlled both his voice and his body language to reply calmly. At least he has had good training at that, she thought. Growing up among humans, learning to follow human rules-like me.
'You are brave when your monster has tied my claws,' said Vaemar. 'If you had wished to know why I have done as I have, and spoken with me, I could have told you my reasons. But you are one of those who weary me with your stupidity, who think with hot livers instead of brains. Who may yet be the destruction of our kind. What do you think you have done?' He gestured with his tail and ears at the Protector. 'You are the slave of this thing?'
'He is an ally,' replied Chorth-Captain. 'It is not I who am the slave of aliens. We have watched you long, Vaemar-sometimes-called-Riit. Ka'ashi has Heroes still who do not crawl like bugs into your fur as you abase yourself before the monkeys.'
The Protector gestured. Chorth-Captain disappeared for a few moments while the Protector watched them. They guessed he was attending to their car. The Protector's voice when it spoke was a series of clicks and poppings. But it spoke slowly, taking trouble, and it used what had once been called the Slave's Patois, but which was now becoming a common, value-neutral, lingua franca between humans and kzinti on Wunderland.
'Obey and you will live,' it said. Its strange eyes travelled from Dimity to Vaemar and back. It was Dimity who replied.
'What do you want?'
'Teach.' It touched a keyboard and a bank of screens sprang into life. Wunderland television channels and internet sites. One of them, Dimity and Vaemar saw, showed Vaemar's palace and its surroundings and outbuildings, including the guest house Dimity used. A camera somewhere in the woods. Others showed Munchen University, including the Dimity Carmody Physics Building with its inscription.
'Teach… what?'
'Everything. You I know.' It touched another keyboard. An old newsreel, showing Dimity and a group of scientists. Patrick was right, thought Dimity. It was stupid to broadcast the fact of my return to Wunderland. But too many people knew anyway.
'We have been watching you for a long time,' said Chorth-Captain, returning to the room. 'I supplied the original equipment, which has been improved upon. The Patriarchy will be grateful to Chorth-Captain when those improvements are incorporated into the standard equipment of our Navy. We improved surveillance and stealthing among many other things. We know much. But my ally wishes to learn more. You two are… associates'-he cast another look of loathing and contempt at Vaemar, black lips curling-'with one another. We have known for some time, and considered it advantageous for all its loathsomeness and indignity, monkey-dirt scratched upon the Name of Riit. Did you think we were careless with the trail of radioactives? We laid a trail to bring you here.'
'We will need to know more,' said Dimity. 'Teach? Teach what?'
'Context,' said the Protector. Its beak clacked over the word. 'Teach about humans. About kzinti on this planet. About space.' It paused. 'Gods,' it said, surprisingly. Then it said the word Dimity and Vaemar had hoped against their reason not to hear. 'Hyperdrive.'
'I haven't the tools,' said Dimity. She knew it would be pointless to play dumb. The Protector knew. Vaemar and I set ourselves up, she thought.
'Make tools,' said the Protector. And then: 'We have begun.' It turned its back, leaving Chorth-Captain to guard them. Its fingers blurred with speed on the keyboard. Doors flashed shut almost soundlessly around them. For a moment there was a hint of G-force, gone almost instantly, and a purring noise. Both Dimity and Vaemar recognized it. They had flown in ships with kzin gravity-motors before. The panel of grey sky above was suddenly swirling with indescribable colors.
'Yes,' said Chorth-Captain. 'A gravity-planer. Much improved. And shielding devices, also much improved. Good enough to get us past the monkeyships and the monkeys' machine-sentinals. Again I supplied the basic equipment from kzin stores. Once I had demonstrated them to my ally he was able to make advances with them. Hear how quiet the planer has become.'
'How did you meet your ally?' asked Vaemar, with a mildness, almost a casualness, in his voice that Dimity had heard once or twice before. She felt a shiver run up her spine.
'In the caves. When the traitors struck in the great battle before the humans attacked'-You don't say which side you consider the traitors, Vaemar thought-' I took a Scream of Vengeance fighter we carried and flew to the Hollow Moon. In the confusion it was not noticed there.'
So, thought Vaemar. Are you a coward, Chorth-Captain, and has your knowledge of cowardice driven you mad? Or is this all a lie? The latter, he thought. Chorth-Captain's body-language suggested lying. So, he saw, did the instrumentation numbers on the bulkhead. This craft was not from a ship of one of the Ka'ashi-based squadrons. He said nothing.
'Watching with its instruments,' Chorth-Captain continued. 'I saw the apes were gaining the upper hand, and before they had gained all air- and space-superiority about Ka'ashi I took this gig and, leaving the fighter as hidden as might be, I flew back to Ka'ashi, evading the apes' clumsy, noseless searchers, back to the wild country and the great caves. I lurked there when the war ended, hoping to find some way back to Kzinhome so I might fight on, or some way to die gloriously in battle, killing monkeys eights-squared times as Lord Dragga-Skrull killed Jotok. I made occasional raids on the surface. I learnt of Chuut-Riit's hidden redoubt which the monkeys had found. It was abandoned and sealed when I reached it but I broke the seals and took equipment from it. Years passed. Monkeys died at my claws, when they were foolish enough to wander alone or in small troops. In the caves I met my ally. He alone had been exposed to the chemical and made the change. He had memories of his previous life, and of the war. Of Heroes and monkeys, of weapons and fighting, which he was soon able to understand. His intelligence had, of course, become very high, though he had been barely sentient before. He did not kill me, but showed me that an alliance against the apes would be in the interest of both our kinds.' He lied a moment ago, but he's not lying now, Vaemar thought. Chorth-Captain went on.
'He demonstrated his intelligence to me, and together we modified this craft, and built other things. I contacted Heroes the apes had not corrupted and they too supplied us with knowledge and equipment. We tested his improvements to cloaking devices and they worked. We flew to the southern island undetected and carried out much work there, free from the attention of monkeys or… other things. Under his direction we studied what we could of the plight of Ka'ashi. I told him what I knew of space and the war. We agreed the monkeys were the most noxious vermin of the universe…'
Dimity caught it vaguely, Vaemar much more clearly. There was a great deal wrong with Chorth-Captain. There was a strange kind of buzzing in his voice. But there was more than that. Most kzinti of the officer class, used to framing orders, did not commonly in such a situation deliver themselves of prolix monologues like this, least of all to monkeys or prisoners. And Vaemar's Ziirgah sense picked up a fuzziness, something off-key, in Chorth-Captain's emotions as well as in his voice and body-language. His brain has been tampered with, thought Vaemar. By the Protector, obviously. The thing that was a brainless Morlock. Rykermann is right. They are a peril indeed.
'Where are we going?'
Chorth-Captain gestured at another screen. Wunderland was a great sphere. Vaemar saw they were already several hundred miles up, and still accelerating. There was no interference from the guardships, manned and automated, that patrolled the space above the planet.
'The Hollow Moon. There we will be undisturbed.'
I don't think so, thought Vaemar. Our disappearance will be noted. But then he thought that, thought they might be searched for, there would be no particular reason to include the Hollow Moon in the search, especially if this craft's cloaking was truly good. There would be no reason to think they were in space at all.
Dimity had thought of no way to remind him of the locators.
'Where is the tree-of-life?' asked Dimity.
'Most of it is still in the caves, along with most of the warheads. It is safe. There was a little we took to the Hollow Moon but it is now being used. You will not be exposed to it.'
