something. He nodded. That seemed to do.
'What would you do to someone that killed your family?'
'I don't have a family.'
'Supposing you did.'
'I wouldn't let him.'
Corky was getting angry, though he kept his face and voice from showing it. 'Suppose you couldn't be there when he attacked.'
'I'd have no business starting a family if I was going away,' Buckminster said. Abruptly he realized that Corky was taking his hypothetical reasoning as personal criticism, and said, 'Kzinti females are nearly helpless outside of childrearing.'
That worked: Corky calmed down at once. 'Oh yeah,' he said. 'Bad example. Suppose-'
'Are you trying to ask me what you should do to the Patriarch?' Buckminster interrupted.
'… I guess I am.'
'Nothing. You can't even get near the palace if he's in residence. And you can't get near him on visits of state, either-his security force is much tougher than the fleet that invaded Pleasance.'
That fleet had crushed the planetary defenses in a couple of hours. 'I see,' said Corky, who seemed to lose track of his surroundings after that.
Buckminster waited a little, then started zooming the view for the more distant fleets.
Peace found Corky sleeping under a table in the kitchen, on top of seventy hand towels. She got herself corn muffins and a crock of stew, brought up a seat, and began eating. Presently Corky said, 'Why don't you wear clothes?' irritably.
'Why don't you wear chain mail?' she replied.
'Chain mail isn't about keeping your organs of excretion out of sight,' he said.
'No, it's about keeping the rest of your organs from coming into sight,' she said.
Evidently he understood the implicit comment: That's usually irrelevant, too. After a moment he said, 'Are those muffins?'
'Yes.'
'They smell unusual.'
'It's maize. Didn't get sent out with any first-wave colony ships-lacks some amino acids. So it's sort of an Earth specialty. Try one.'
She was handing it under the table when Buckminster came in. The kzin's tail lashed once, his ears curled tight, and he blinked rapidly a few times and fled the room.
'What just happened?' Corky said indistinctly, around a muffin.
Peace waited until he swallowed the first bite. 'He's been kidding me about keeping pets,' she replied.
After a few seconds Corky burst out laughing.
The laughter went on too long, and when she moved the table and saw him weeping hysterically it was no surprise-he was long overdue. When it started to exhaust him she got him a mirror and some more muffins, these with honey.
His reflection calmed him in seconds, and he wiped his face and bit into a muffin. Once he'd swallowed he said, 'That's good. What's on it?'
Honey was unknown on Pleasance-bees steer by the sun. 'Bug vomit,' she said.
He made a brief scowl and went on eating. Presently he got up and tossed the towels out, then worked the dispenser. 'How do I get a chair?' he said. She brought one up, and he said, 'Why not just tell me?' as he sat.
'I don't want the place filled up with brooms,' she said. It went right by him, as he hadn't gotten acquainted with the entire seven centuries of recorded visual entertainment history. 'You're not a coward, you know,' she added.
He stopped chewing. Then he resumed, swallowed, and said, 'I didn't expect him to tell you.'
Another expression Peace had on tap was rolling her eyes. 'Because it was between guys? I'd give a lot to learn how to inhibit the human tendency to Identify With Everything. You're an alien. It wasn't important enough for him to tell me. This place is fully monitored. What else would you expect?'
'… I hadn't thought about it.'
Peace refrained from saying, Miraculously I conceal my astonishment. 'What's happened is, you've worked very hard, and you're tired enough that you're not completely crazy any more. So now you care if you live or die.'
'We don't like the word crazy,' Corky said.
Peace paused, then leaned right, then left, to look carefully past him on either side. Then she sat straight and laced her fingers. 'Do your friends have any messages for me?' she said interestedly. 'Or do they only talk to you?'
Corky looked annoyed, which was a more participatory expression than the usual scowl. 'Psychists,' he grumbled.
'Yes, I know that,' she said patiently. 'And I do like the word. It's to the point. You're not as crazy as you were twenty-two years ago.'
'I'm forgetting them,' he whispered, haunted.
Peace shot him.
The dart hit the thick pad of his left pectoral muscle, hard, and he screamed and went over backwards out the right side of the chair, which of course didn't go with him. He came to his feet with dart in hand, face bright red, and screamed, 'What the hell was that for?'
'Memory,' she replied.
He stood glaring and panting for a long moment, then looked down at the dart. Then he threw it on the floor. 'Why didn't you just tell me and give me the shot?'
'Seeing as how you're so cooperative and such a good listener, you mean?'
Corky scowled. 'So what happens now?' he said eventually.
'Now you eat,' she said, and got up to toss out her dishes.
'I want some answers!' he roared.
'Emulating Richard Sakakida,' she said, and left.
He was too baffled to follow her at once, and naturally after that there was no catching her.
'Buckminster, is there-what are you doing?'
'Cleaning your ship.'
Corky clearly had a lot of thoughts about that, most of them disagreeable. Finally he said, more or less humbly, 'Thank you.'
'It'll all be on the bill,' Buckminster said.
'Bill?' Corky said blankly.
'Joke. What were you asking?'
Corky shook his head a little. He seemed easily confused. 'Can I get into the databank here?'
'You can't be serious.'
'Just to look something up.'
'Oh. Certainly. Let me shut this down.' The cleaning robot was in an air duct at the moment, which meant it could just be shut off-it wouldn't drift. 'What did you need?' Buckminster said, fingers poised over the screen.
'Richard Sakakida,' Corky said.
Buckminster thought about it. Then he sent some commands, and handed Corky the screen. 'You'd better do it. Too many ways to spell 'Richard' in Hero.'
