yet fit enough for torture. She volunteered only her name and rank, a puzzling concept for Trainer. He did discover that she was interested in a picture of her youngest sister and so he went through the personal effects of the Shark's crew which had survived. That was how he came to be caught up in the illustrations of a 'comic book,' copyright date January 2420 After the Damning. Purple-caped flying monkeys KAPOWed ferocious red kzin who were defending the walls of their captured Elvis Presley Monastery.
Something made him check the data-link files on the material they were receiving from Man-home. He didn't keep it in his head but their dating system was well known because of its oddity. All events were referenced from the time they had tortured a Trinity of Criminals on Golgotha Hill, nailing the Father and the Son and the Grandfather to wood so that buzzards (a carrion bird) might feast upon their livers.
The latest events to come in from the Patriarch's Nose and the Tigripard's Ear carried the Man-sun date: November 2415 After the Damning. By the immutable laws of physics any Solar event later than that was forbidden to Alpha Centauri. 2420 was essentially a taboo future.
Trainer-of-Slaves pondered alien copyright law for a day. Did they have a five-year grace period in which plagiarism was allowed before the copyright applied? In the meantime, his Jotoki disassembled a burned controller. All the intricate electronic parts were labeled We Made It. That would have been an ear tickler if you didn't know that We Made It was a monkey colony more than eleven light-years from Man-sun and thirteen light- years from Alpha Centauri.
There wasn't any economical way that such standard parts could be shipped via ramscoop or slowboat.
It was time for another devious conversation with the lieutenant-animal. He researched the transcripts from the First and Second Black Prides, selecting nonmilitary items that she might be willing to talk about. He had an ally in Long-Reach. His Jotok had discovered that she liked the sweet-bitter berries his slaves enjoyed with their ration of leaves.
He came armed with berry ice cream. She was still suffering from extensive burns and the after-effects of a concussion, but she could remain out of the autodoc for hours at a time, if she was properly chained.
'Fur Face, when does my uniform come back from the cleaners?'
He grinned at her around his fangs in response to her insolence, though his liver wasn't in the expression. The indignities one had to put up with from kzinretti! He was confused. He wasn't sure which rules applied to sentient females. The grin was purely reflexive.
'All right, already. Sire! I abjectly request some decent clothing, and will kiss the ground you sit on when they appear.
He put on his goggles to consult his English Vocoder, spitting and growl-hissing requests. 'I can inject you with chemicals that will make your fur grow,' said the elegant voice of the machine. Then a rougher voice. 'Auburn hair. Your head,' said Trainer-of-Slaves who hated to rely on translators, but he had to give up and let the machine finish his thought. 'Your fur will grow in fine and attractive. I have already done the experiments and can guarantee a positive result.'
So much for having 98 percent of the genes of a chimpanzee, thought Nora wryly. 'Sire! I'm sure your five- armed sewing machine over there could stitch together an elegant little outfit for me in no time at all! He gets to wear livery. Why can't 1? Please.'
The monstrous yellow-orange cross between a Basketball Center and Football Tackle didn't understand, but politely listened to the catfight coming out of his translator.
His eyes lit up as he comprehended. 'Yes. Livery. Will make red-green garters for ' he consulted his Vocoder 'knees and elbows. You like?'
'I think I need some of that ice cream,' she groaned. She had already consulted with Long-Reach about the fish in kzinti ice cream, and he'd promised a fix. He proffered a golden dish of vanilla with purple spots. He'd already stolen some of the berries, an irresistible temptation. She didn't complain. She just ate in silence, sometimes twirling her little curl nervously.
'Long-Reach will now sing Top Ten Songs of 2415 years after torture of Christ Gang. English I can speak. Sing no. Now, Number One on your Hot Shot Hour!' What else could he say? He was taking the words straight off the recording.
The green and red liveried being who was also a quintet began to sing to the naked prisoner of war as she sat among the cramped grey bulkheads of a warship, in chains, eating ice cream. She did not know that she was being deviously questioned. She did not know that this was a substitute for torture, that the answers to his questions were vital to him. Was she a seer? Could she see the future? Could she tell Trainer-of-Slaves of events between 2415 and 2420 that weren't permitted yet at Alpha Centauri?
The five voices that came from the five lung slits in the arms weren't human, but they knew harmony and each word was enunciated with passionate clarity though the accent was no sound that she'd ever heard in her short life.
'When the night* cold and my arms are bold and you are very far away…'
It was the song they'd been singing everywhere at the time her graduation prom, at the end of High School, when the two year Military Academy course was just a kid's dream. She had to cry. She tried not to, but that only made the bawling worse when it came. Charlie was dead. Prakit was dead. Those tough thugs in the hold, so gung ho to kill kzin, were wasted. Her mission had failed. She had failed her Dad. And she didn't have the least idea about what to do with a seven-foot tall kzin who courted her with a fivearmed singing comedian.
'Humans cry when the ice cream is good,' she sniffed to cover herself.
'Berries, ptui!' said Trainer-of-Slaves.
'I think too much,' continued Nora, wiping her face.
'That can be corrected,' said Trainer-of-Slaves. 'I have done the experiments.'
'How did you learn these songs?'
'You animals do not keep radio silence.'
'You listen to that? All the way out here?'
'In past-gone hour, I watch beastly halo, Blaze of Glory!
She wasn't crying anymore. She was grinning. 'Lots of kzin killing in that one. I loved it! You monsters killed my beloved Dad. That holo won an award for its acting. Passion, the spirit of mankind that you'll never crush!'
Won an award. She was predicting the future. In November 2415 Blaze of Glory had only been nominated for an award, one of sixteen. 'Bad acting,' said Trainer-of-Slaves. 'Monkey in kzin-suit, too slow. Wrong emotions. Liver was sick.'
He pulled the lieutenant-animal further into the conversation, letting her vent her anger at the kzinti. When she was angry she leapt before she thought. Three more times he caught her predicting the future.
By then he was sure.
He reported his suspicions immediately to Grraf-Hromfi, though the timelag between the Nesting-Slashtooth- Bitch and the main body of the Pride was still too great for conversation.
Trainer's old mentor took the news well. His return message read: 'So the old warrior can still sniff out a different scent. A superluminal drive is exciting. But it compromises our whole strategic position. We 11 have to react quickly. Keep me informed.'
In the vast hangar in the belly of the Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch Trainer drove his Jotoki slaves in their dissection of the wreck. How could such a little thing, lost in the spotlights of the hangar, bring back the awful fear he thought he had lost forever? He paced around the hangar, looking down at the alien shape, keeping his feet inside the local gravitic field of the catwalk. His liver was telling him to run in panic. He was no longer the mighty Hero willing to take on the whole Man-system, and after conquering it, to ride elephants to the hunt with monkeys carrying his bedding and his equipment and his kzinretti in palanquins.
He returned to Lieutenant Argamentine in the middle of the day and opened the autodoc coffin, waking her, to ask her his question directly. 'You came here faster than light!' he accused.
She smiled at him without showing her teeth. There were dimples in her furless cheeks. “That's not for me to say.'
The answer terrified him and he went away.
With a superluminal drive the animals could penetrate the Patriarchy with impunity. Every system would be isolated, on its own, unable to call on nearby warriors for aid. Heroism would be a sham. A newborn kit could kill his father with unopened eyes. In the face of such unnaturalness, rum The Fifth Fleet should run, should disperse,
