Not always.
We must have missed a survivor once, who told the tale.
Finally we found kzinti who were ready for us.
Then, with our fleet slashed by kzinti claws, it was ground fighting again. We of the Ninth-the Caledonian cales were mostly expended by then-and what Jotoki could be spared.
A couple of the Jotoki ships, almost empty, with only the barest shadows of Jotoki crews, escaped. We bought them that chance of escape at the cost of our own. I do not know where they went. But perhaps they led the kzinti away from Terra as they promised. Perhaps they escaped and bred their little swimmers again.
We were left behind to divert and delay the kzinti like Horatius on the ground, defending the abandoned hulks of most of the Jotoki ships. Jegarvindertsa were one of the Jotoki who remained with us. The kzinti had withdrawn at last, but we knew they would soon be back, with fresh legions of their own.
Again the picture flickered and jumped.
'We have lost everything and there is no hope. We die here on a strange, cruel world. Well, we can still die like Romans. We are not strangers to hardness. I suppose we had better kill the women and children first. We will not give them to the beasts as if they were criminals in the arena.'
'It may not be necessary to die at all,' said Jegarvindertsa. 'We still have other weapons.'
'I see none. Can we fight the felines with short swords?'
'No. With gold.'
'I do not understand.'
'We will hide. Human and Jotok together. There is gold on this world, and we know the kzinti like gold as do so many species.'
I did not understand.
'This world has underground rivers.' I did not then know how he knew that, but I accepted that he did. 'Many could hide in the wilderness, where kzinti believe nothing could live, for a long time.'
'The felines would hunt us out. I do not want to die like criminals I have seen, fleeing and hunted by lions in pits and cellars under the arena.'
'There are caves. We Jotoki might even breed there. It is unfortunate we are unlikely to have more than a little time to deepen them further.'
That gave me a thought. I have seen the mines on my Sardinian estates. 'Use your gravity engines, then. With them and Jotoki weapons you can break and move great masses of rock very quickly. You can enlarge the caves, join them up, and you can dump the spoil in the sea where it will not alert the enemy.'
The kzinti returned in strength. We hid and fled. The kzinti hunted and captured and killed as they might. And then they began to see this world had much rich land that supported the game and hunting they craved. Perhaps they thought us all dead.
Another gap. Then a new speaker took up the story. He looked enough like Maximus Gaius Pontus to be his son-Perpetua realized he almost certainly was his son-but, like a number she had just seen, with red in his hair, that suggested something other than Latin in his parentage.
Gold was left out for the kzinti. It came to be seen that when and where gold was left out, the kzinti would take it and not attack. That was the first real victory.
There were other things we left-platinum, precious gems, carvings… slowly, the kzinti began to take it for granted that these would be left for them in certain places. A human bringing them would be unmolested, and allowed to depart in peace. It took decades. It was the first modification of total war…
'Total peace was too much to expect,' said Marcus Augustus. 'We settled for the best that could be hoped for: low-intensity, contained conflict along defined borders while we bought peace elsewhere.
'But there were two things to note: We brought the kzinti gold and other tribute on our terms. We were not slaves but, tacitly at least, trading partners as well as game. And slowly, slowly, as they became used to luxury, they became dependent on us, used to the luxuries we could provide, even as they hunted us. At last, it was our artisans-brave ones, those-who offered themselves as slaves and who installed hypocausts to warm their floors in the long nights. Over the centuries, we have got as far as you have seen. A fragile, unspoken, imperfect modus vivendi far too fragile ever to put to a real test.'
VIII
Marcus Augustus looked steadily at Perpetua. 'And now men make allies of the kzinti?' His expression did not indicate that he considered this probable-nor particularly desirable.
It seemed like a very good time for Ginger to switch on their translator's active function. 'Not all kzinti,' he said, the speaker startling Marcus for a moment. 'I am what the humans sometimes call a kdaptist. Kdapt-Pilot was a Hero of noble birth who had the radical inspiration that peace was better than war. He found followers after the First Defeat. Some fought on the human side in the Second War with Men, simply because Men were the only ones who were trying to establish peace.'
'Indeed.' The translator carried overtones well; which was not to say agreeably.
Ginger said, 'I don't know it all, but there's a poem. About the siege of a base on an asteroid orbiting Proxima Centauri. A human wrote it.' He half-closed his eyes and ears, and began to recite:
We served the deep-space radar guiding the giant laser guns:
We'd hold for fifteen days, or twenty at the most.
Hold! Manteufel told us, in that dark Hell past the suns!
Hold! His dying words: Let every Man die at his post!
We fought with desperate makeshifts, caught unprepared for war
Found death as we manned our weapons, death as we burned the dead.
Death at gunport and conduit, death at each airlock door,
Death from the Vengeful Slashers in the sky of black and red.
Handful that we were, we were Man in heart and limb
Strong with the strength of Men, to obey, command, endure!
Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung on only him,
Though the siege went on forever and it seemed our doom was sure.
But honor our kdaptist allies, and give the kdaptists their due!
Remember the valiant kdaptists, who fought by us, faithful and few,
Fought as the bravest among us, and slashed and burned and slew,
Where blood flowed under the blood-red sun, kdaptist blood flowed too!
Ginger trailed off, and said, 'I don't remember everything, but I do know the end.'
Saved by kdaptists, sing their praise,
Saved by the blessing of Heaven!
We couldn't have held for twenty days.
We held for ninety-seven.
Marcus Augustus cleared his throat. Then he cleared it again. 'I must speak with you sometime soon, of Horatius,' he said at last. 'Excuse me a moment.' He left the chamber, not wishing to show his face just now.
The translator had carried overtones very well indeed.
Ginger switched it off as Perpetua said, 'Quick thinking.'
'I got up and read some of their literature last night. Learning sets cost me sleep. How are we going to get them out of here?'
