'Because a real target would include something with a skeleton,' Slaverexpert said. 'I see. Richard Guthlac, I find I enjoy working with you, so I hope you will take this suggestion: Do not say things like that very often around kzinti. There is something deeply disturbing in the didacticism that humans bring to the business of battle.'
Richard could think of nothing to say-it probably had been thought up by someone sitting at a desk somewhere, who might never have so much as seen a live kzin.
Slaverexpert opened a cabinet next to the manipulator controls and put on a set of goggles from it. He looked through various compartments in the cabinet, growled very deep in his throat, and took off his goggles. 'There is no human-version viewer,' he said, putting them away, 'so we will have to use window displays. I would prefer something that stayed in view when I turned my head, but leaving you out would violate the agreement.'
Richard was about to ask why he couldn't use kzinti goggles, when the displays appeared on the window before them. The one in front of him was familiar in style, with different kinds of information displayed in different colors of high chroma, arranged in rows and columns with any useful diagrams at the top. The one in front of Slaverexpert had kzinti script in deep purple written right across light gray diagrams, whose shapes were constantly shifting, just slightly. The writing moved around slowly within the diagrams. The positions of the diagrams underwent abrupt changes every few seconds, too. Just looking at it was disturbing; trying to get information out of it would have given him a bad headache very quickly. 'Telepath should see this,' Richard murmured.
He'd forgotten kzinti hearing. 'Why?' said Slaverexpert.
'Oh, a while back he was talking to us about the similarities in human and kzinti thinking. There's some fundamental differences in brain structure suggested here, and it might be of interest.'
'Oh. Good, I thought I was going to have to wake him up. He doesn't sleep enough.' Before Richard could absorb the concept of a healthy kzin showing concern for a telepath, Slaverexpert went on, 'He's right, though. The fact that your readout looks like something I'd watch to get to sleep merely reflects a difference in hunting style.' His ears curled up for a moment as the readouts changed several times. Then they uncurled, the readouts steadied, and he said, 'Unfamiliar equipment. I've got it now.'
Behind the window, waldoes opened the bin of roots and removed one. Richard had controls at his own station, and directed a sniffer to sample the air that had been in the container. 'I did read somewhere that humans and kzinti are the only races to use fissionables to make bombs,' he remarked.
'Odd. It seems such an obvious idea,' said Slaverexpert. 'No thallium, but I didn't expect it. Air interesting?'
'Nitrogen, oxygen, a little argon. Pretty standard habitable-planet issue,' Richard said, and heard the kzin snort in amusement. 'Traces of medium-sized hydrocarbons.'
'Urr?' Slaverexpert brought some new instruments into play, then said, 'The root is rich in terpenes. And there is no taurine.'
'Taurine?'
'An amino acid human metabolism uses in dendrite connections. You do not synthesize it, so tree-of-life should be crammed with it to facilitate the change… Though you may have lost the ability to synthesize it due to the supply available in Earth prey-no, Jack Brennan had no difficulty… I am unable to detect any trace of steroid compounds. The roots from the Pak ship that came to Sol System were found to contain a hormone for rapid muscle and bone development. This does not appear to be tree-of-life,' Slaverexpert concluded.
'Good!' Richard said. 'So what is it?'
'Let me try something.' A waldo took up the uncut half of the root, then tossed it at a wall. It bounced back. 'It's rubber.'
'What?'
'Rubber. Rather, a long-chain molecule assembled from terpene monomers, suitable for insulation, seals, and padding. Hardenable and readily cast into nonconductive parts.'
'Rubber,' said Richard, amused.
'A valuable industrial material. I speculate that many of the life-forms we have found here will be tailored to produce such. Shall we investigate?'
'Let's.' Now that fear was going, avarice had come out of hiding to put in a few words.
Unreasonably many hours later, Richard said, 'Is that the last?' and wiped his brow with a hand that, he noticed, was developing a twitch from operating waldo gloves for so long.
'It is,' said Slaverexpert. 'I marvel at your endurance.'
'I'm ready to fall down,' Richard protested. 'You're in much better shape.'
'I possess medical enhancements added long ago to repair lethal injuries, and can produce my own natural stimulants at will. Nevertheless I am losing image persistence. I need exercise and sleep.'
'Me too, not in that order.'
'Urr. I can't remember whether you said there were any microorganisms present in anything.'
'Just the handmade stuff in the cans.'
'Good.' Slaverexpert cycled a sample box through the containment lock, put a few roots into it, and brought it out, saying, 'These should be amus-What's wrong?'
Richard had backed across the lab and was squinting. 'I'm not that fond of mint.' Even the traces on the outside of the closed box were disagreeably strong.
'You'll want to avoid the relaxroom, then, because I'll be bouncing one of these around. You don't like this? It seems quite pleasant to me.'
Richard's throat was trying to close up. 'Have to go,' he choked out, and fled.
Telepath was in their quarters, looking like he just woke up, which was likely. Gay, off monitor duty, was already in the shower. Richard said to Telepath, 'Excuse me please,' and began peeling off his suit.
'Certainly. What smells so good?'
'That's right, you slept through the analysis. Well, I've got time'-a pressure suit should not come off quickly-'so: there was a root that looked a lot like Pak protector root, but it turned out to be something that produced a useful organic polymer. You're smelling the monomer. There were roots that produced other polymers, bacteria that made enzymes that chelated trace elements from iodine to uranium, seeds for trees that collected other elements in their bark, other this and that. We're all going to be rich. You look better,' Richard realized.
'Possibly the good news. I feel better. I'll return to my own quarters now, in case you two wish to get in some more breeding practice.' Telepath left.
Richard, almost stripped, stared at the closed door for a moment. That had sounded like humor.
Even in the shower, Gay was bleary with fatigue. She'd been watching everything, and hadn't had the stimulation of doing the actual work to keep her going. 'You smell like a Vurguuz bottle,' she said, frowning.
'I knew there was a reason I don't like the stuff. That monomer in the roots. Kzinti apparently enjoy it.'
'What did you do, roll in them?'
'This is just what wafted over and stuck to my face when Slaverexpert got a closed box out of the containment. They're elastic, he's going to bat them around to wind down.'
'Phew.' She used a squirter and began shampooing his hair.
They'd gone straight to sleep. Richard had bad dreams, and awoke suddenly, remembering an obscure reference in chemistry. 'Fuck,' he exclaimed.
'Brush'r teeth,' Gay murmured, not awake.
He was already headed for their library.
He worked fast. Once he excluded cooking, most references to any sort of mint were in folk medicine, where their analgesic effects produced the illusion of recovery. He added a search for references to terpenes, and got false mint: nepetalactone. It was not a salicylate as mints were, but scent receptors et cetera, right, composed of two isoprene groups, aha! there's your monomer. Found in various Earth plants never successfully raised on other worlds, chiefly nepeta cataria.
More commonly known as catnip.
He wasn't aware of making any kind of sound, and Gay was later unable to describe the noise clearly, but she came running out and said, 'Richard, what's wrong?'
'The roots are made of catnip extract,' he said.
She burst out laughing. Abruptly she stopped and covered her mouth, then uncovered it and said, 'Oh my
