The guards growled and grumbled at the implication, but the old kzin merely blinked at me. “Little slave,” he rumbled, “a Hero’s Word is binding. I stake my Name on it, my lands, and my sons.”
Kraach-Captain did the kzinti equivalent of a shrug. “Do not fail.”
Kraach-Captain tapped a clawlip on an innocuous-looking holocube sitting on his desk He picked it up and extended it to me. “Take this recording. Watch it, then carry it with you as a reminder.”
“What is it?” I asked dully, taking it. But I knew the answer.
“It is a recording of my session with your mate, when I removed her hand,” the old kzin rasped. ‘This interview is concluded.”
The guards’ hands released my shoulders, and Jacobi murmured in my ear. “Come on, Kenneth. Kraach- Captain has laid in everything we need. There is much to plan.”
I let Jacobi lead me away.
Chapter Three Catspaw Gambit
Lies. They made a sour lump in my chest as I stood waiting in Feynman’s airlock.
Control was everything at this point, but it was difficult to stay focused. I thought of my children. My wife. I thought of the cryobox on that huge table back at Blackjack. I thought of Kraach-Captain’s oath, delivered four light-years away. My children’s faces swam in my memory Did little Gretha remember me? She was not so little now, it occurred to me suddenly; it had been four years in absolute time, a few weeks to me.
The damned holocube seemed a massive weight in my inner pocket, reminding me of what was at stake. I could not let any of my children become a plaything in a kzin hunting park. Not even to save elitist, cowardly Herrenmann lives. No choice. So I swallowed my bile and looked at the opening inner lock with false calm.
The hatch to Feynman finished sliding open with a metallic grinding and a blast of compressed air. My little Herrenmann friend stood just inside the lock, a welding laser held meaningfully in his hands. Not much of a weapon, but one that would do the job, yes. His eyes flicked swiftly from side to side, scanning the airlock behind me. A young Herrenmann woman stood near a doorway about ten meters away and watched us intently.
“Ah, Herr Bergen, I presume,” I said, forcing a smile to my lips and tone. Hard to do, but what choice did I have?
Act like Jacobi, yes, perhaps-but don’t become like him.
Bergen pointed the big laser at my chest and waved me inside with his free hand “You are to please keep your hands away from your body where I might see them.” The little dyed tufts of his asymmetric beard made Bergen look like a goat I had once seen at a zoo in Tiamat.
“I understand your caution,” I said. Reassuring tone, bland face. All the while, my wife’s voice and children’s faces were in my heart like a knife. I spread my hands carefully and stepped inside the slowboat. The airlock cycled shut behind me, sealing with a hiss like an angry kzin.
Bergen watched me and took a few steps backward. He handed the welding laser to the woman. She braced herself in marksman position, trim and efficient. He whispered to her, then came toward me again, magnetic soles of his shipshoes clicking on the deck. He reached into a toolpouch on his belt.
“It is good to see you again, my friend,” I said easily Too friendly? Got to get the right tone.
Bergen ran a small box with blinking lights over the outlines of my shipsuit and carryall, looking for energy weapons or inappropriate electronics. He grunted approval and put the box away. The woman with the welding laser did not relax.
“Trust is a wonderful thing,” I observed. Ironic? Witty? What character was I playing here? No one replied.
I popped my helmet and left it on a Velcro patch near the airlock I picked up my carryall and raised an eyebrow at Bergen in question. A nod. He escorted me toward the doorway. The silent woman came behind us. I could feel the itch of a laser sight in the small of my back. The shot would flash-boil the water in me like a steam jet.
Suspicious elitists, yes. But then, they would soon discover that they had reason to be suspicious. Not that the fact made me feel any better.
Feynman had been designed to run nearly automatically. Crew of three to five, carrying well over three hundred coldsleepers, with a sizable cargo bay. The life support sections we walked through were therefore small and cramped. Huge slowboat, tiny lifebubble. Well kept, though, even neat. Large wallscreens with complex automated monitoring readouts caught my eye as we passed.
The 0.1 g was enough for a strong up-and-down orientation. Magnetic shipboots kept us from leaping like Wunderland zithraras down the hallways. Soon, I could see the slight curve to the main ring corridor, which gave true perspective to the size and bulk of Feynman.
It felt huge, empty lonely. Dim corridor lights, chilly echoing halls. Walls stained by time, stinks flavoring the air, aromas both biological and mechanical. Only a few crew could be awake on Feynman; life support systems couldn’t handle more. Many doors and hatches were closed along the main ring corridor, some with oxidized seals. Some led to the cargo bay, I knew, and others to ship function areas. A few would lead to the liquid nitrogen chambers.
Coldsleep. There had to be a passenger manifest somewhere. I had sworn to myself that I would have a little talk with my cryogenically suspended mother at some point soon. I wanted her to see where her cowardice had led.
We stooped through one low hatchway and down a short corridor. It opened to the small control room for the slowboat. An old woman sat in front of a console, her face dimly lit from the control boards. On one of her screens I could see a wide spectrum scan of Victrix running. The old woman looked up, eyes tired.
“You are Hochte?” she snapped. A voice cracked and brittle. Her hair was ice-white and thin. This woman had taken no anti-aging drugs. Time had carved deep lines into her face, which was dark and leathery with a fusion drive tan. She must have spent too much time at the core of Feynman, monitoring the fire fed by the ramscoop fields. But her eyes were bright and alive.
I kept my smile intact. “That is correct, Madame. And to whom have I the pleasure to speak?” She carried herself like an old-school Herrenmann women, like the great aunts I met while my parents were alive, or some of the collaborationist doyennes I had seen in Munchen. No jewelry, a wiry frame in a simple shipsuit. Her expression was more than merely haughty, though. There was another quality to it, one I could not quite name. Disturbing.
She stared at me coolly for a moment, then chuckled low in her throat. “I am Freya Svensdottir. I command on this shift. You have met Klaus Bergen, and his silent but efficient wife, Madchen Franke.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” Murmured pseudo-formalities took a moment while our eyes assessed each other. There could only be one or two more crew awake, if that. The lifesystem capacity was small. This would be simpler than I had planned. But something about the woman made me edgy, eager to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Her expression did not change. “And you bring us news that the ratcat kzinti have been defeated? Driven from Wunderland?”
I nodded. “It is my distinct pleasure to tell you so.” Gesture with the carryall. “May I?”
She nodded. I opened it and removed the items that Jacobi and Kraach-Captain had so carefully prepared during the voyage out to Feynman. Holocubes. False historical records. Even the loop of kzinti ears I had shown Bergen earlier over tightbeam. Kraach-Captain had earned those himself, dueling for authorization to form his expedition to the slowboat.
For the next hour, I explained about the mythical Free Wunderland Navy and its equally mythical victories. About driving the ratcats out of Wunderlander space. Great stories. I had spent plenty of time on them.
If only they had been true.
The crew had no way of knowing the truth, after all. There had been no attempt by the slowboats to contact Wunderland. Sol had not been in contact either, so far as any human knew. Hard to do, through the plasma plume and the forward bow shock.
We Wunderlanders had been left on our own by our so-wise Solar brethren. This slowboat was in the same
