Richard Sakakida was the name of an intelligence academy-ship in the Third War, and a singleship-infiltration carrier in the Second-the same vessel. The name had been held by various people over previous years, but the search for relevance went all the way back to the 20th century, to the war that had established the UN's existence.
Richard Sakakida, an American of Japanese ancestry, had washed ashore in Japanese-held territory during the war and explained that he was a defector. After some torture to make certain that he wasn't lying, he was accepted as a civilian servant. His work as a servant was exemplary, and he was soon taken into the service of the local commanding officer. He was a fine valet, though not much of an aide-when told to clean the CO's sidearm, he displayed a thorough ignorance of military matters by polishing the exterior to a high shine, without taking it apart.
In the course of his duties as a servant, he also acquired, and delivered to US Army Intelligence, the entire Imperial Japanese order of battle: name and function of every division, where the men in each were from, who their officers were, organization of the chain of command, and the overall war plan. That is, what places would be attacked, what size and type of force would be used to do it, what contingencies had been anticipated, and how they would be responded to. Once this was in American hands, the Japanese never won another battle.
In the Fourth War, the kzinti had won exactly one battle: the surprise attack on Pleasance. After that, every attack force they sent anywhere had been ambushed by human fleets, usually within minutes of entering a region where they couldn't use hyperdrive to escape. The forces guarding Kzin itself had ultimately been drawn off by diversions, allowing individual stasis capsules of Hellflare troops to hit the planet at hundreds of miles per second, unmolested. The Fourth War had lasted less than six years, from the invasion of Pleasance to acceptance of the terms of surrender. The Patriarch had called for armistice about a week after the arrival of the human commandos, who displayed an understanding of kzinti anatomy rather better than that of most kzinti field surgeons. Peace Corben must have gone to Kzin at the start of the War, gotten into their toughest security areas, and walked out with the entire military database.
A childless Protector could adopt the entire species; Peace Corben had done a fine job indeed of caring for her wards. Decidedly better than a certain psychist.
Buckminster flinched as Corky burst-almost exploded, really-into tears. He said, 'You want me to take that?' and reached for the screen.
Corky looked at him.
Buckminster carefully drew back his hand. Corky was taut as a bowstring, and his face bore an expression of kzinlike wrath. 'I'll just go get a drink,' Buckminster said, and kept his movements slow as he got up and left.
Buckminster called Peace as soon as he was clear. 'Corky's in death-seek,' he said.
'That was quick.'
'Oh. What did you do?'
'Injected him with one of my witch's brews. He thought he was forgetting his family, so I put together some stuff that'll let him call up old memories without swamping them with irrelevant associations.'
'How did you manage that?'
'I synthesized the things that let me do it,' she said. 'Do you want details, or did you have plans for the next month?'
'I was thinking of eating and sleeping, which I'm sure would slow things down. What do we do now?'
'Have you gotten the Silver Bullets out of his ship?'
'Oh yes.' He'd done that before starting the cleanup.
'Then you keep out of sight, and we wait for him to come see me.'
Corky was waiting for her in the kitchen when she went in for a scheduled meal. (As a breeder she'd suffered from depression and hypothyroidism, so she was accustomed to eating whether she felt hungry or not-yet another lucky break for humanity, since there was no tree-of-life growing where she made the change to Protector.) He said, 'I need to leave.' Then he actually looked at her.
Peace was wearing a knee-length singlet, in white, with the usual array of pockets down both sides to the knees. There were black letters on the chest:
BECAUSE I'M THE PROTECTOR, THAT'S WHY!
His fierce expression went blank with surprise, then developed into amusement and dismay-the latter largely at the amusement. He cleared his throat superfluously, then said, 'I need a pressure suit and a schedule of the Patriarch's movements-I want to know when he'll be away from his palace.'
'You've given up on assassination.'
'Yes,' he confirmed unnecessarily. 'I still don't think it's a bad idea, but his successor wouldn't understand. The trouble with kzinti is they're still too much in shock over losing. They don't take it personally.'
'True,' she realized, suddenly admiring his plan. 'He won't be traveling for a few months yet.'
'I have to get back in condition anyway, and practice with my lift belt, so the pressure suit first, I think.'
'First we eat.'
'I'm not hungry.'
'Don't make me cut up your meat for you.'
That look of dismayed amusement returned. Corky shut up.
Less than a day later he was gone. Peace had gotten a tissue sample in the course of fitting the suit, and was telomerizing some cells when Buckminster found her. 'You let him go,' the kzin said.
'Had to.'
'Are those his cells? Are you cloning him?'
'Yes and no.'
'What does that mean?'
'Yes, they are, and no, I'm not. I'd been planning to provide infertile women of good character with viable ova containing my original gene pattern, suitably modified to meet local fertility laws, and large trust funds. I had enough for one or two Peace Corbens per human world. Now, though, I'm adding his genes to the recipe. The paranoia can be retained as a recessive, and there'll be more variety in their appearance.'
'You're having children with him, you mean.'
'Near as I can.'
'Why?'
Peace looked up at him. 'Same reason I had to let him go. He's a good father, Buckminster. Whether he believes it or not-he's a very good father.'
Harvey Mossbauer's family had been killed and eaten during the Fourth Man-Kzin War. Many years after the truce and after a good deal of monomaniacal preparation, Mossbauer had landed alone and armed on Kzin. He had killed four kzinti males and set off a bomb in the harem of the Patriarch before the guards managed to kill him… The stuffed skin was so scarred that you had to look twice to tell its species; but in the House of the Patriarch's Past it was on a tall pedestal with a hullmetal plaque, and there was nothing around it but floor…
It's safer to eat white arsenic than human meat.
