Chapter 20
(2438 A.D.)
The domain of the Patriarch was sparse, austere, even gloomy when compared 4th W’kkai. The granite walls were ancient and of a cruder stone masonry than one might expect at the center of galactic power. Spiraling stone stairs to the attic guest rooms had depressions where thousands of years of feet had polished them. The decorations were simple. Tapestries. Ancient, fragile weapons. Armor of beads and woven metal. A collection of w'tsai blades. Vases from an age when fire was the mightiest of energies.
Grraf-Nig was guided everywhere by a kdatlyno slave who had strict orders; thus he saw but a small portion of the Palace. He didn’t even know which Riit Palace he was in. He had glimpses of passages. From his room he could see a rotunda’s dome and on a distant bill the ruin of the old Palace destroyed more than eight millennia ago by the Jotok traders who had been annoyed by the murder of an accountant. Few kzin could any longer imagine their spiderlike Jotok slaves as fierce merchants. An old trainer-of-slaves could. Their fierceness had not altogether been bred out of them.
When his kdatlyno led him to his endless interviews with the science bureaucrats of the Palace, he took quick peeks into chambers, galleries, and into a fascinating maze where an earless snow-furred kzintosh led a bevy of silent kzinretti in flowing lace. He longed to sneak off on his own but in this awesome seat of power he had no intention of disobeying even a slave’s suggestion. Everywhere there were signs that the slightest infraction meant an instant death.
His guide had orders to give his life to stop any transgression-or face death himself. Who knew in what black arts the beast had been trained? His arms were huge, even in proportion to a height that was taller than any kzin. The hands were strangler’s hands that brushed his knees as he led, eight retractile claws at the knuckles. Horns marked his knees and elbows. Attack him? They were filed sharp and then buffed to a polished glow. His brown hide would have stopped a knife. With only his radar sense to shape his surroundings, he had nothing resembling eyes. His face was marked only by a gash of a mouth and by a lumped region above it where the skin was stretched taut.
On the fourth day his kdatlyno made an awkward gesture of obeisance, a bow that forced the beast to lift his hands slightly so that his fingers would not touch the floor. A machine strapped to his body spoke in the Hero’s Tongue. “Make ready for your audience with the Patriarch.”
Jotok slaves dressed him. One of them was propped on three hands while two other hands cut and sewed. The other sat on its underbelly mouth to free five hands for rapid hem-work. They produced a heavy, flowing robe that would have hampered any fighting; indeed, guards attacking him could have used it to wrap him into a sack. It looked good in the mirror, though not up to W’kkai flamboyance. Grraf-Nig followed the kdatlyno through keeps he had never seen. A pride of kzinti guards let them pass into the sanctuary of the Patriarch’s lair.
It was a huge room, furnished simply in slashtooth fur and kudlotlin hide rugs, wooden chairs, tables. The ceiling frescoes blazed from curved arches that rivaled the sky. A gravitic sleeper, elaborately inlaid, peeked from behind a screen-he was clearly equipped to work here for long periods. A huge flatplate dominated his desk, wooden, cluttered. Ostentatious kzinretti tents filled a distant corner. An orange and yellow striped kzinrett lounged before the flaming hearth that fed into its chimney’s giant tower.
Nobody had given Grraf-Nig instructions. His inclination was to crawl forth on his belly, but the Patriarch stood and beckoned him forward across that great expanse of territory with the age-old sign of well-met in the wilderness. The grizzly old kzin next to him did not move. That would be High Admiral Ress-Chiuu.
It took all his willpower not to crawl but he did stop at a distance to give his snappiest slashing claw-across- the-face, first to the Patriarch and then to Ress-Chiuu. The impatient Patriarch summoned him again. The Riit did not even bother to introduce himself or the admiral. Instead he turned with happy ears to the reclining kzinrett by the fire. “My gift to you. From my harem. Well trained, docile. She will serve your every need. She’s been trained to do an extraordinary number of tricks. Lismichi.”
At the sound of her name, Lismichi looked up with large yellow eyes that peered out between her languid ears. The ears waved sensually.
“Come here, wench. Meet your new mount” She rose and came. “Lie.” The Patriarch indicated a chair for Grraf-Nig-and Lismichi lay beside it, ready to have her back scratched or not “Horowrrr!” exclaimed the Patriarch, “I believe you are more comfortable now than when you entered my lair I smell more raunch than fear!” His ears were flapping, not nearly such beautiful ears as those of Lismichi.
Grraf-Nig remained speechless.
Ress-Chiuu was ready to begin serious discussion. “My engineers have interviewed you and believe that you can help us to build one of those ghostships that come and go. They’ve been a fearsome puzzle to us. I understand from Hwass-Hwasschoaw that you worked on a similar program at W’kkai. If we give you the whole of our resources, can we catch up? I dread to see those W’kkaikzin in a position of dominance. A brash, superficial culture ignorant of its birthing nest Hwass tells us that W’kkai will field a major ghost fleet within an octal year. Is this truth or fantasy? In these grim days we have few sources of good information.”
“Truth. When I first arrived at W’kkai I thought in hopeful despair that it would take us an octal-squared of years to achieve our goal, and only then if we could draw upon the smuggled covert creativity of the entire Patriarchal realm. W’kkai’s naturalists astonished me with their technical powers. My best estimate is that Si-Kish’s arm is as long as his ambition. His numbers, you see, are the very numbers I gave him. I will add that I expect your naturalists to astonish me, too.”
The Patriarch cleaned his fangs with black claws. “We have different strengths. The W’kkaikzin have always enjoyed puzzles and the abstract whim of symbol Our muscle lies more in the practical, though we do have a mathematical tradition that extends back to the time of Chmeee the Blind. You’ve never been to Kzin? You must visit the caves of the Mooncatcher Mountains where the Weirdmind-Hunters chiseled the tenets of their geometry into the walls. They flayed their better theorems onto the pelts of enemies but unfortunately few such hides survived the coming of the Jotok.”
Lismichi was placidly out of the conversation but she was winding her tail up between his legs and flicking its tip. The sensation was very distracting.
Ress-Chiuu had more on his mind. “Hwass brought us an analysis of the situation on W’kkai that is disturbing, but he also brought us another very peculiar document that may mean something to you. It means nothing to any of our engineers-who claim that only a major research project can translate it into something they can even read. You were present during the humiliation at Ka’ashi. Did you ever smell the urine of Ulf Reichstein Markham?”
“On a distant breeze. He was a feral-slave who preyed in the Serpent Swarm. There was a reward offered to any kzin who brought in his head.”
“He is now Interworld Space Commissioner for the man-beasts. We have had very peculiar dealings with him. He sent us messages via Wunderland repatriates. We ignored him.” Ress-Chiuu switched into the Mocking Tense. “But he will not be ignored; we are to conquer the galaxy together with animal curiosity and Heroic discipline.” The admiral paused, as if trying to comprehend something incomprehensible. “Lately he begins to suggest that he might be able to cooperate with us-against Man-home. Monkeys delight in betraying each other. What could we lose by encouraging such folly?”
“You have contact with the tree-swingers? At W’kkai there is none.”
“At W’kkai they are wasps, swarming at every prod. We have no choice but to make contact and restrain our patrols. The MacDonald-Rishshi Treaty was written here. It needs adjusting, discussion, concession. Markham has helped us with some commercial deals. We are cut off by the blockade and are forced to use human ships for trade. Our trade is stifled, theirs prospers. They forge wealth at our expense. We tinker a little money, too, with cooling iron castoffs in a cold corner of the mongery-but it is their money which must, in the end, be spent on them.
We sent Markham some money to grease our pitiful trade interests. Strangely, he has just sent us a document via Hwass.”
“Hwass mentioned some nonsense. I mean no offense-was the Markham-beast offering human subservience and tribute to the Patriarchy?”
Ress-Chiuu stood up to pace. “Subservience and tribute” is not the correct translation of the word”-he butchered his attempt at English-“ ‘peace.’ I refer you to the linguists. But let us not deal with incomprehensible
