sthondat lymph, six syllable name, more powerful, few side effects, diet additives to minimize those.'
A second Kzin voice said, 'You need not taste the drug yourself, Telepath, by my alpha officer's word.'
'Only my poor kits, then. But how well do Kzinti keep each other's promises? I know that Odysseus was disabled despite all reassurance.'
What? Fly-By-Night had no way to know that. I was only guessing, and his vac refuge had floated further from Odysseus than our own.
But Envoy said, 'All follows the Covenants sworn with men at Shasht. That was my assurance, and it is good.'
'Do those allow you to maroon a Legal Entity ship in deep space?' 'Summon them. Read them.'
'My servant carries my computer and disk library.'
The pilot tapped; we heard a click, then silence.
Paradoxical turned off his talker. 'We can use this to speak to my master, but they may listen. What can you say that those oversized intestinal parasites may hear too?'
'Right now, nothing. Thrusters were yours first, weren't they? Called the gravity planer?'
'Jotoki created gravity planers, yes. Kzinti enslaved us and stole the design. Your folk stole it from Kzinti invaders.'
'Is there anything you know about thrusters that they don't? Something that might help?'
'No. Idiot. What we learned of gravity motors, we learned from Kzinti!' 'Futz-'
'I had thought,' Paradoxical said carefully, 'that they would not keep their control room in vacuum.'
'Their hostages are all frozen. Can't fight. Can't escape. Maybe they like that? Anything we try now would leave us dying in vacuum. How long can a Jotok stand vacuum?'
'A few seconds, then death.'
'Humans can take a few minutes.' Humans had, and survived. It was rare. 'I might go blind first. Do you mind if I think out loud for a bit?'
'Do you talk to yourself to move messages across that narrow structure in your brain, the corpus callosum?'
'I have no idea.' So I talked across my corpus callosum. 'This is bad, but it could be worse. We might have been in a separate cargo hold, still in vacuum and locked out of a flight cabin.'
'Rejoice.'
'I thought I wouldn't have to worry about Odysseus. The ship's on a free fall course around Turnpoint Star, through the Gap and into free space. They still had hyperdrive and hyperwave and the attitude jets, last I saw. Attitude jets are just fusion reaction motors. That won't take them anywhere. Hyperdrive only works in flat space, so it won't get them into a solar system. They could still cross to Home system, call for help and get a tow. Two weeks?'
'Envoy said all of that to Captain Preiss. Wait-but-stop-didn't Envoy confess otherwise?'
'I heard. Futz.' Fly-By-Night had done that very cleverly. But Envoy hadn't confessed; he had only insisted that he had not violated the Covenants. 'We'd better assume Packer shot up the control board. That would leave Odysseus as an inert box of hostages. Leave them falling. Retrieve them later.' Paradoxical said nothing.
'Next problem. Fly-By-Night can't get out of his refuge.'
'Surely-'
'No, look, he can't slash his way out. He's got only his claws. He can zip it open. All the air spews out, and now he can try to get through the opening. He's too big. He'd die in vacuum while he was trying to wiggle free with those three laughing at him.'
'Yes. Less than flexible, human and Kzinti. Are you small enough to get through the collar?'
'Yes.' I was pretty sure. 'Now, we can't warn Fly-By-Night. Any fighting, I'll have to start it. You're dead if I slash the refuge open, so I don't. I unzip it. Air pressure blows me out, poof. You zip it behind me quick so the refuge re-inflates. I'm in vacuum. I slash Fly-By-Night's refuge wide open and hand him the w'tsai. We're both fighting in vacuum against three Kzinti in pressure armor. How does it sound?'
'Beyond madness.'
'There's no point anyway. If we could take the boat, we still couldn't break lightspeed, because the hyperdrive motor is on the ship. We'd die of old age here in the Nursery Nebula.'
'You don't have a plan?'
I was still feeling it out. 'The only way out has us waiting for these bandits to berth the boat to Stealthy- Mating. Maybe it's a good thing Fly-By-Night doesn't have his w'tsai. Kzinti self-control is… there's a word-' 'Oxymoron. But my master integrates selves well.'
'They'll have to move the cargo modules inside the ship. Can't leave them where they are, they're blocking the magnets, the docking points. Where does that leave us? Whatever we do, we want the ship and the boat. After they birth the boat, likely enough they'll still leave the cabin in vacuum and us in these bubbles.'
'My kind can survive six days without food. Two without water.'
Two of the Kzinti crew might have been asleep. The third wasn't doing much. One presently stirred-Envoy, by his suit markings-got up and disappeared into the big box with a door in it. Fifteen minutes later he was back. Wouldn't a shower or a toilet have to be under pressure?
I watched my alien companions and my alien enemies. I watched the magnificent pageant of stars being born. I thought and I read.
Read everything.
Covenants of 2505. Commentary, then and recent. Kzinti sociology. Revisions: what constitutes torture… loss of limbs and organs… sensory deprivation. Violations. The right to a speedy trial, to speedy execution, not to be evaded. What is a Legal Entity…
Male Kzinti were LEs. A computer program was not. Heidi and Nicolaus were not, poor kids, but Kzin kittens weren't either; it was a matter of maturity as an evolved being. Jotoki and Kdat were LEs unless legitimately enslaved. Entities with forged identities were not. Ice Class passengers were LEs. Good! Was there a rule against lying to hostages? Of course not, but I looked.
Paradoxical produced a computer from his backpack and went to work. I didn't ask what he might be learning.
I did not see Fly-By-Night tearing at his prison. When I caught his eye, I clawed at my own bubble. Our captors might be reassured if they saw some sign of hysterics, of despair.
He didn't take the hint.
Maybe I had him all wrong.
A telepath born among the Kzinti will be found as a kzitten, conscripted, and addicted to chemicals to bring out his ability. Telepaths detect spies and traitors; they assist in jurisprudence; they gradually go crazy. Alien minds drive them crazy much faster.
If a telepath feels an opponents' pain, he can't easily fight for mates. For generations the Patriarchy discouraged their telepaths from breeding. Then, battling an alien enemy during the Man-Kzin Wars, they burned them out. Probably Envoy had spoken truth: what the Kzinti wanted from Fly-By-Night was more telepaths.
They'd get the location of Sheathclaws out of him. After they had what they wanted, they'd give him a harem. They'd imprison him in luxury. Envoy had said they wouldn't force the drug on him; it might be true.
A Kzin might settle for that.
I could come blasting out of my plastic bottle, screaming my air away, w'tsai swinging… cut him loose, and find myself fighting alone while he blew up another bubble for himself.
Fly-By-Night floated quite still, very relaxed, ears folded. He might have been asleep. He might have been watching his three captors guide the boat toward Stealthy-Mating.
I watched their ears. Ears must make it hard for a Kzin to lie. Lying to a hologram might be easier… and they wouldn't have called him Envoy for nothing.
Flick-flick of ears, bass meeping, a touch on the controls. We were flying through a lethal intensity of gamma rays.
The Jotok's armtips rippled over his keyboard. His computer was a narrow strip of something stiff; he'd glued or velcroed it to the bubble wall. The keyboard and holoscreen were projections. I knew the make-'Paradoxical? Isn't that a Gates Quintillian?'
'Yes. Human-built computers are superior to Patriarchy makes.'
