The pain in his head was continuous now. Sometimes he felt as if his brain were being dragged out, and he found himself walking in a circle to the left, head bent to his shoulder. When it lessened, he was conscious of the voice again. It was daylight, but he was uncertain of the day. They were over the pass, and the ground on either side was covered in long grass, with patches of trees on the higher slopes. The cool damp scent from the lowlands spread out below him was like a benediction in his nostrils; there was no sight of Man, not even of his herdbeasts.
“Very well,” Durvash said. “We will proceed straight.
That pack of scavengers probably finished them off in any case. No time may be spared to go back, in any case.”
Bigs mumbled something. He felt he should resent the tone; did the ancient revenant not know he was speaking to a Conquest Hero? Soon to be the greatest of all Conquest Heroes? Yet the emotion was r away, as if muffled behind a thick layer of sherrek fur. Why was his mind wandering so? Great chunks of time seemed to be missing, and sometimes his vision would blurr like a badly adjusted holoscreen. It kept the grief at bay, though. With that he began to weep, an eeeuuureuee sound.
“My brother fought for me when the older kits pulled my nose,” he mumbled to himself “I grew bigger, but he never quarreled with me.” Not enough to really draw blood. “We shared our first kzinrett.” An under-the-grass transaction with a warrior needing quick cash to cover a gambling debt. “We -“
“Silence.”
“Urr-urrr-” Bigs’s throat would not work anymore, and he found he had lost interest in speaking.
Well, now I know how the implant will work on. these kzin, Durvash thought sourly. Badly. It had been designed to use on thrint and thrintun slave species, of course, with multiband capacity. Kzinti seemed very resistant to pain-center stimulus, and on a strange species the control of volitional routines was impossibly coarse.
Report, he thought/ordered the autodoc system. Impatiently, he ran through the diagnostic and came to the conclusion. Prepare to decant me, he told it. Warnings flashed, but he overrode. The autodoc would be priceless as part of his breeding program, since it was capable of acting as an artificial womb, but he must not run down the base supplies of organic molecules for recombinant synthesis before he was sure of obtaining more. The local biochemistry was unlikely to have all a tnuctipun metabolism required.
Besides, I am hungry and mad to see the sky, to smell fresh air again. If he was to be reborn into this new world, let his fangs and tongue take seizin of it.
“I will emerge,” he said to the kzin. It stood apathetic, eyes dull; he ordered the machine to jolt its pleasure centers and relax forebrain restriction, and awareness returned to the big golden eyes. “Where are we?”
“Near… hrreeawho, how did we come here so fast? Where is… we are near Neu Friborg, I think. We are there, I think.”
It lifted the module to the dirt and sank exhausted to the ground. Fluid began to cycle out of Durvash’s lungs, and he wrapped his lips against the pain.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Something was biting his tail.
Spots groaned and tried to open his eyes, but they were gummed together. The biting stopped, and water fell across his face. He heard shouting. Feebly, he scrubbed at his eyes with a wrist, and blinked back to wakefulness. An advokat slinked in the middle distance, huge jaws working, matted pelt stinking of carrion.
Jonah-human was looking down at him, from a safe distance, canteen in hand. Matted blood covered one side of his face, and fresh blood glistened on clumsy bandages around his neck and one arm. They glanced aside from each other’s eyes, and the human stepped forward and sank down by the kzin’s side.
“Got to stop the bleeding,” he rasped. “Here, drink.” Spots lapped water from his cupped palm, and then seized the canteen to guzzle with his thin lips wrapped awkwardly around the spout. He coughed and felt tearing pain in his chest; water spurted out of his mouth. Looking down, he could see the bright gleam of steel among the tangled red mass of his flank.
“It is not as bad as it looks,” he wheezed, after taking a careful deep breath. “See, the steel must have turned aside and snapped on the ribs-thanks to your cutter bar, which weakened it. My lungs are not pierced, nor my intestines.” He licked at his nostrils and sniffed again. “I would smell that.”
“Could be stuff inside hanging on by a thread,” Jonah said worriedly.
“I will survive while you pursue the oath-breaker,”
Spots said grimly. Then the voice broke into a howl of woe.
“Not until we get you to help. This would happen while Hans and Tyra are away with the medkit… that’ll be the closest place. You can lean on one of the mules, I can catch them. I think.”
My sibling attacked him dishonorably, yet he will forego revenge to save my life, Spots thought. I am ashamed.
“First,” he said aloud, “you’ll have to get this out of me”
Jonah blanched as he looked down at the knifeblade. The stub of it moved with every breath.
“We really should get under way,” Tyra urged, with a sigh.
“Yep. Figure we should.”
Hans smiled beatifically, and leaned back in the hammock. His was strung between two orange trees, and a few blossoms had fallen across his grizzled face. He brushed them aside and took another sip of the drink in his hollowed-out pineapple. There was rum in it, and cherries and cream and a few other things-passionfruit, for example-and it helped to make the warmth quite tolerable. So did the tinkling stream which flowed down the narrow valley under the overhanging cliff, and the shade of the palm trees. Hans Shwartz had been a grown man when the kzinti came; he was into his second century now, and even with good medical care your bones appreciated the warmth after so much hard work. The air buzzed with bees, scented with flowers.
“Thank you, sweetling,” he said, as a girt handed him a platter of fried chicken; it had fresh bread on the side, and a little woven bowl of hot sauce for dipping. The girl smiled at him, teeth and green eyes and blond hair all bright against her tanned skin. Someone who looked like her twin sister was cutting open a watermelon for them. Not far away in a paddock grazed six horses, three for him and three for Tyra, and they had been turning down gifts of pigs and sheep and household tools for a solid day now.
“These are sweet people,” Tyra said, as the girl handed her a plate as well.
“No argument,” Hans said, gesturing with a drumstick. The batter on it was cornmeal, delicately spiced; he bit into the hot fragrant meat with appreciation. “They need some help, though. Someone to guide them through the next few years, getting back into contact with things. Otherwise they’ll be taken advantage of.”
“True enough,” Tyra said, more somberly. “I was surprised at you, the way you diagnosed those children and managed the treatment.” Her young eyes were guileless, but shrewd. “What did you do before the conquest, Freeman Shwartz?”
“This and that, this and that,” Hans said, repelling her curiosity with mild firmness. The youngsters were all up and about, although they would need further therapy. Unfortunately, that would cost; it would be some time before Wunderland could afford planetary health insurance again.
“And we should get going; I’m worried about Jona-about Freeman Matthieson, alone with those kzin.”
Hans suppressed a smile. His tolerant amusement turned to concern as the headman of the village dashed up, sweating, his eyes wide.
“Your friend,” he gasped out. “Your young friend-and one of the accursed ratcats-they are here. They are hurt!”
Hans tossed his plate and drink aside, yelling for his medkit as he landed running down the pathway. Tyra was ahead of him, her long slim legs flashing through the borrowed sarong.
“Finagle, there is a heaven after all,” Jonah murmured.
The cool cloth sponged at his face and neck as he looked up through matted lashes at Tyra’s face. Sheer relief made him limp for long moments, his head lolling in her lap. A man could get used to this, he thought.
Then: “Spots!”
