to the point of believing their own reassurances.'
'Delusion?' Manexpert said.
'Of course. But usually ones that can be lived with. Kzinti have their own comforting delusions.'
Manexpert didn't say anything, experimenting with diplomacy.
After a moment, Peace asked, 'If you had vastly superior weapons, perfect troop discipline, and overwhelming numbers, could you conquer humanity?'
'Of course.'
'With me on the human side? Look around you. How long do you think you've been in stasis and the autodoc?'
Manexpert halved his first guess, then halved it again. 'Four years?'
'Forty-one days. I'd have made a lot more progress if I hadn't had to do all that medical research… Nobody is entirely in his right mind, kzin or human. Delusions keep people from going any crazier. Perfect sanity is a burden far too vast for a mortal mind to bear. The nearest humans ever get to it is a condition called paranoia, and that generally just decays into a more plausible set of delusions than is usual. Kzinti Telepaths are constantly on the verge of complete sanity, and it turns them into terrified wrecks. You would do well to avoid any mention of me when you get back to Kzin. Too close to absolute reality.' Peace was silent for a few moments, squinting as it worked, and said, 'That'll have to do. Don't try to fly this thing through a star, though.'
'I'm not a fool.'
'But you're a kzin, and therefore fearless, right? That was irony. Follow me, we can see if your pressure suit needs improvements.' She led him to an entry hatch.
He had things on his mind, and couldn't choose between them. Peace took over the conversation to take the pressure off, so anything that really mattered to him would work its way out on its own. She took the time to show him such consideration. She liked him. He had a kind of feral innocence to him, and was sufficiently alien that she actually had to think a little to predict what he would do. He was smarter than the rest of his ship's company put together, as well-he kept thinking of surprise attacks, which was merely brighter than average, but he kept figuring out why each one wouldn't work, too, which was unique.
Also, he was fluffy and smelled like gingerbread.
'I made the sleeves and leggings short so the gloves and boots would stay on by themselves, the way the short torso keeps the helmet seated,' she showed him. 'I noticed the combat team were all chafed bald where the straps went around their wrists and ankles. Your tools and fittings are all in front. The recyclers they had were really poor, not even as good as humans use, so I put this together. The backpack unstraps to swing around for access during use. That articulated hullmetal mail was pretty heavy, so I've just used layers of interacting polymers, which are actually better because hullmetal won't seal itself after a meteor puncture. I'm afraid the foodmaker is only one flavor; I didn't want to take chances on the cultures mutating. You can override the filters in the helmet to let in more light, but what gets in through the rest of the suit can't be increased. I didn't know your tastes in entertainment, but there's a crystal player, and some things I was able to salvage from your ship. These are for grooming, during extended stays in the suit-this paddle draws them along from outside, and as you see they return. There won't be nutritional deficiencies, but the suit's doc isn't up to much more than gluing broken bones and maintaining circulation in a crushed limb while it heals. If you stay out of trouble, though, the suit should be good indefinitely. Try it on.'
She waited for him to go through the checklist, even though she could see everything was right. She wasn't the one who needed to know it was right, in order for the suit to have any purpose. While he was doing that, she again speculated on the possibility that starseeds had been created as a genetic lifeboat for the tnuctipun, with Outsiders a machine lifeform created to guard them, immune like all machines to Slaver power. It was possible, but couldn't be checked without taking apart a starseed, and she still hadn't come up with a way to be safe from Outsiders if she did that. (Though if she cut into a starseed without being shot, sliced, blown up, neatly sorted out by isotopic weight, or accelerated off the edge of the visible universe, it would indicate that the theory was probably flawed. It was not an immediate concern.)
It would have been good to be able to get more direct information about the tnuctipun, but Larry Greenberg had been the nearest thing to an expert, and his slowboat had never made turnaround on the trip to Jinx. That had been just barely too early to be Brennan's work, so the sabotage must have been by puppeteers. She couldn't fault their decision-a telepathic human breeder with a Slaver's memories was dangerous.
'It smells good,' was the first thing he said. He was surprised, as well he might be.
'Yes, this has a good recycler. Let's get you familiarized with the ship's controls.'
'Now?'
'You surely don't want to be around when I start scattering radioactive thallium. And this area's going to be submerged by then anyway, because I have to melt the icecaps. Now, move along before I have to get the broom.'
He didn't understand that, fortunately for his dignity, but he moved along.
'The planer will develop two and twenty sixty-fourths 512s of a Kzin gravity. I've made up some wargame programs to add to the entertainment supplies, and the ship's autodoc is a lot better than your ship had. Tell the Patriarch you stole it from human experimenters, and he'll have to give you at least a partial Name. Damaged data files in the computer will support your claim. Don't go anywhere but Kzin with this ship. If this ship attacks any human settlement I will blow up Kzin's sun.'
'How?' he demanded, incredulous at last.
Peace looked at him. 'I am not about to tell a kzin how to blow up a sun,' she said. A porous tube of a ton of lithium, extruded through the hilt of a variable-sword to half a million miles' length, filled with another ton of lithium, to be placed in stasis in its turn. The end of the wire thrust into a star's core, the central wire's stasis shut down, and fusion propagates violently up the tube to the hilt, spraying fusing plasma out the pores. The shock disconnects the tube's stasis power supply, and a channel of fusion convects heat out of the core and fuel in. Until he asked, she'd been bluffing. 'This panel controls the ionizing laser for the ram's fuel-' she continued.
Something had been wrong with him. Possibly all his life. He had accepted the word of his father, his clan priest, and the Patriarch's Voice without ever questioning them; and now this thing, this Fury called Human Victory, that had shown them all to be fools merely by existing, was telling him to accept its word without question too. Ftah.
From now on he would question what he'd been taught. That, at least, Peace had taught him correctly. No doubt that was against the God's orders, Peace having been created to protect humans. Well, eat God.
Come to think of it, there was a human religion that claimed to do just that. If there was anything to human religion-and, given this creature's existence, it should at least be considered-God didn't sound too bright. There was the tuft of an idea there.
A hand like a knotted branch took hold of his muzzle and turned his head. 'What was the last thing I said?' Peace asked him.
Manexpert glared at the liberty, then said, 'If I shut down the synchrotron oscillation in the fusion pinch for more than a few minutes of my subjective time, the ship will stop generating the ultraviolet laser beam for long enough to begin encountering nonionized matter, and the ram field may not deflect all of it quickly enough. That's probably what happened to the Evita Peron on the way to Wunderland. Am I listening to you.'
Peace nodded once, said, 'All right,' and continued the instructions.
It finally said, 'Any questions?'
'Is all this knowledge in the computer too?' Manexpert asked.
'Yes.'
'Good. What would be a good Name?'
Peace's hands, almost incessantly busy, dropped to its sides. It blinked and said, 'I have no idea. You could take the Name of somebody famous, that you'd like people to associate you with.'
