simply to watch them. Strange. Strange.
And tigers? What were they? Merrower! There was an image there! Kzin, and something else. Fangs, and leaping and eyes like fire. The images became conflicting. But the overwhelming impression was unambiguous: I knew what she thought of tigers.
Or did I? For in the images of blood and death and fangs and slashing claws, all the splendid rampant slaying, there was a strange claw-point of something else that Selina herself was hardly aware of, to do with my attempts to console her for the death of Rick, something that contained the words: ‘spoor creature!”
What did this mean? Did it matter? Why?
And other thoughts: I know their reaction will be disbelief, denial… And then panic? Gangs of humans swarming through hive-like cities… and screaming in terror and then… and then, perhaps…
Overwhelming all again came the image of the sheltered sheepfold and the tiger leaping from the stars. But even if the sheep were roused, what could they do? Then I thought of Tracker, and the wound blazing in the side of Cutting Claw.
And another Kzin-like thought leapt in Selina’s mind, perhaps triggered by own. A leap against Fate, a thought that in the Heroes’ Tongue might have been expressed in the God-Defying Tense itself: The launching lasers! In the human system were giant laser-cannon used for boosting the launch of reaction-drive Space-craft, some on the planet nearest the sun of the human home-system, a few on the human home-world and its moon, some in the human-settled belt of asteroids and the moons of the outer gas-giants. And then another thought, Kzin-like but of a different kind: they are obsolete. They are being phased out and not replaced! Time! Time! Will there be time?
And then: Nothing I can do.
For an instant she tried to keep these thoughts from me, knowing it was futile. In any case, what did it matter now, driving into black Space, death behind us and death, surely, before us?
That took my thoughts back to Gutting Claw, and Weeow-Captain on the bridge, in command, determined now to make an end of the Angel’s Pencil straight away, once and for all, without toying with It.
The Angel’s Pencil!
If Selina and I conferred, it was at a level too high and at a speed too fast to record. From her mind came the radio frequencies used by the human ship.
And then I cast my mind back to the Claw, and knew what Weeow-Captain planned.
Angel’s Pencil
“Explosions. And Big Cat is moving at a tangent.” Crouched over the makeshift weapons console, Jim Davis shook his head as if trying to clear it. The autodoc was good, but it was not intended to keep a man keyed to this pitch for so long.
“What does it mean?”
Steve Weaver made a gesture of incomprehension. “I can only guess… somebody else is fighting them.”
“It can’t be one of our ships. Nothing human. Not against that maneuverability.”
“Were you expecting a human ship? Why do you think there were anti-missiles on that ship we struck? They were expecting attack from… something else. Something worse than they are, perhaps. Something higher on the food-chain.”
Steve! Steve! Jim!” Sue Bhang leapt to the console. “There’s a message coming through!”
Fingers flickered at keyboards. The comscreen lit. A picture rolled, slowed, stabilized. A human woman, haggard, eyes huge in black, sunken pits, clad only in the torn scraps and under-strappings of a Spacesuit. And behind her one of the felinoids, huge and alive.
“Who are you?”
The woman and the felinoid were in a small compartment, obviously in a cat Space-ship. The fittings and design they could see were cat not human. Panels behind her head showed stars. The reply came quickly. Either she was very close or she had anticipated the question.
“I am Selina Guthlac of the Happy Gatherer. There is no time to talk. Fire your Kzin missiles now! Jettison them! They are slaved to the Kzin battleship’s computer. It can detonate them whenever the enemy wishes! Inside your own hull! Do it! Do it!”
Steve and Jim stared at each other in horror. They had been braced for a battle against odds since the huge pursuer had been detected, but not for this. The comscreen shouted at them again:
“Do it! Do it now!”
Her voice propelled Steve’s hand to the firing button. Jim snatched it away.
“Don’t! You see she’s a prisoner! The cat is forcing her to say that. You can see she’s been tortured.”
The face on the screen was still speaking.
“This is an ally. We escaped in a boat from the Kzinti ship. Listen to me!
The felinoid’s lips moved. It spoke in a hard, grating English:
“Zelina zpealcz trruth. My wurrd az my honorr.”
Then again the woman spoke.
“This is a Kzin Telepath. We read your thoughts. You think we want to disarm you. But we can prove we are your allies. We have struck a blow against the enemy. See! This is our escape!”
The screen rolled again. There was film of a ship, apparently an oversized version of the one Angel’s Pencil had encountered, burning with internal fires and spewing wreckage into Space.
“It means nothing,” said Jim. “It could be a virtual reality simulation.”
“Jim!” Sue held her voice as low and steady as she might, “There is some activity beginning in those missiles.”
On the control-panel that had been fastened to the Pencil’s main console lights were glowing. Green lights, the alien color for danger. That panel had been taken from the alien ship, as had the missiles it controlled.
“The missiles are arming themselves!”
Jim Davis stabbed the firing button. The Pencil lurched violently as, eight upon eight, the missiles fired. Propelled by Kzin gravity-planers that left no chive-flame, they were invisible from the viewing ports.
“Now we’re disarmed.” There was no question of using the ramscoop as a weapon unless an enemy with suitable physiology flew into it. Its conical field covered a vast area of Space, but it projected ahead of the ship. The laser, intended to beam messages back to the Solar System, could only be adjusted within a narrow cone behind them. The small attitude jets and gyros could be disregarded as measured against the total, inertialess, mobility of a ship powered by Kzin gravity-planer.
There was a heavy, fearful silence in the control-room. Then black visors crashed down over the ports. Across the gulf of Space, blue-white spheres were swelling like new suns.
“Where are you?” Steve asked the screen. “We’ll take you aboard.”
“No time for that. The Claw is coming. And it thinks you are clawless now.
“We are. When we armed ourselves with those missiles, we gave ourselves hope and courage.”
“No. You are not clawless and it is time to fight. Your laser is still a weapon… wait!”
The watchers in the Angel’s Pencil saw her turn to the felinoid. Something without words was taking place between them. The bulk of the Kzinti battleship was returning a bigger echo on the radar screens now, almost directly behind them. There too was a smaller echo, a little closer and to the Galactic north-west. Then the screen spoke again.
“Are they in range of your laser yet? We do not believe they know this frequency or that they could translate these transmissions.”
“Extreme range for damaging their hull-material, I think. We tested it on wreckage from the other ship.”
“No good. The Kzinti fight each other a good deal. They attack head-on and they expect to take enemy… slashes… head-on. The bow of Gutting Claw is designed against beams as well as bombs. It is mirror-finished and in battle other mirrors and dust projectors are deployed. It is made of super-hardened materials and has super- conductors to lose heat. This is a capital unit, not a scout-ship.”
“The Pencil’s laser is Tanj big. Bigger than they might expect.”
“Hit the bow and you might burn through eventually, if they kept still for you. But it would take more time than you have. And there would be beams and missiles coming the other way. The sides and the damaged area are less well-protected but you cannot maneuver to attack them. Be thankful she can launch no fighters from the boat-deck yet. Your best chance is to hit the Command Bridge or the center of the damage in the side if they are
