'He won't call?' I made it a question.
'He would not expect answer. Packer and Envoy would be hiding in the Waterfall,' Paradoxical said.
That satisfied us. We were tired.
For three days we lived in the waterfall room.
One Kzin would have crowded the waterfall. With a man and a Jotok it was just that much more crowded. The smell of an angry Kzin made me jumpy. I couldn't sleep that way, so a high wind was kept blowing at all times.
We used the sand-patch in full view of each other. There were ribald comments. The Jotok was very neat. Fly-By-Night covered his dung using gloved feet and expected me to do the same, but it wasn't needed. The magnetized 'sand' churned and swallowed it to the recycler.
Somebody had to come out for food. It developed that nobody could do that but me.
Our talk ranged widely.
Fly-By-Night never told us how he had reached Fafnir, nor even how he had passed through Customs. He did tell us something about the two who had come with him on their name quests. 'I left Nazi Killer still collecting computer games and I set out to buy a Jotok-'
'What kind of name is 'Nazi Killer'?'
'It's an illicit game. Our First Sires' children found it among exercise programs in Angel's Pencil. Nazi Killer is very good at it. On Shasht he bought improved games and modern computers and waldo gloves for Kzinti hands, thinking these would earn his name.'
'Go on.'
'Maybe he's already home. Maybe the Longest War caught him. He would not have survived that. As for me, I wasted time searching out medical techniques to heal my broken bones. Such practice has only evolved for Humans! Kzinti still keep their scars. Customs differ.
'But Grass Burner got what he wanted. Kittens!'
'Kittens?'
'Yes, six unrelated, a breeding set. On Sheathclaws there are only photos and holos of cats, and a library of tales of fantasy cats, and children who offer a Kzin kit a ball of yarn just because it makes their parents angry, nobody remembers why. Cats will get Grass Burner his name. But we remember Jotoks too. Paradoxical, if two species are smarter than one, three should be smarter yet. You will earn my name, if we can reach Sheathclaws.'
I snapped out of a nightmare calling, 'What was its name? Stealthy-Mating?' 'We were asleep,' Paradoxical complained. 'We love sleeping in free fall. Back in the lake. But we wake and are still a self.'
'Sorry.' I almost remembered the dream. A lake of boiling blood, Kzinti patrolling the shores, wonderfully desirable human women in the shadows beyond. I was trying to swim. The pain was stunning, but I was afraid to come out. Broken blood vessels were everywhere on my body. It hurt enough to ruin my sleep.
It was our fourth morning in hyperdrive.
'Sraff-zisht,' said Paradoxical.
'Pleasemadam, seek interstellar spacecraft local to Fafnir, Kzinti crew, Heroes' Tongue name Sraff-zisht. Run it.'
Fly-By-Night woke. He said, 'Make a meat run, Mart.'
When I went out for food, we detached the shower blanket so I could use it as a shield. Meebrlee-Riit had ordered us to keep the boat in free fall. No way could we be really sure he wouldn't call. I had to use handholds. I'd made a net for the food.
My computer dinged while we were eating. We listened:
Sraff-Zisht was known to the Shasht markets, and to Wunderland too. The ship carried red meat to Fafnir and lifted seafood. At Wunderland, the reverse. Crew turnover was high. They usually stayed awhile. This trip they'd lifted light and early.
'Sraff-Zisht is not armed,' I said. I'd hoped it was true, but now I knew it. 'Wunderland customs is careful. If they never found weapons or mounts for weapons, they're not there. We have the only gun!'
'Yes!' Fly-By-Night's fully extended claws could stop a man's heart without touching him.
'I've been thinking,' I said. 'There has to be a way to close that window strip. A Kzinti crew couldn't hide out in here! They'd tear each other to pieces!' 'I knew that. It's too small,' Fly-By-Night said. 'I just didn't want to go out there. Must we?'
We three crawled out with the shower blanket over us, Paradoxical riding the Kzin's shoulders. We stayed under the blanket while we worked the controls. I felt like a child working my flatscreen under the covers after being sent to bed.
There was a physical switch under a little cage with a code lock. None of us had the code. The switch wasn't a self-destruct. We knew where that was. When we ran out of options I sliced the cage away with the w'tsai, and flipped the switch. From under the blanket we saw the shadows changing. I peeked out. Lost my vision, lost even my memory of vision… saw the edge of a shield crawling across the last edge of window.
If Meebrlee-Riit had called earlier, he would have seen us flying hyperspace with windows open. Some mistakes you don't pay for.
'I think you'd better spend a lot of time in disguise and out here,' I told Fly-By-Night. I saw his look: better not push that. 'The next few days should be safe, but we should practice getting a disguise on you. Meebrlee-Riit will call when he drops us out, and he will expect an answer, and he will not expect you to be still covered with blood and half hidden in ripped-up armor. Home is an eighteen- to twenty-day trip, they said. Ten to go, call it three in hyperspace.'
The Kzin was tearing into a joint of something big. 'Keep talking.' 'We need to paint you. Envoy had a smooth face, no markings except for what looked like black eyebrows swept way up.'
'What would you use for paint?'
'The kitchens on some of the Nakamura Lines ships offered dyes for Easter eggs. Then again, they went bankrupt. What have we got? Let's check out the kitchen wall.'
Choices aboard Sraff-Zisht's boat were sparse. One variety of handmeal. Paradoxical's green sludge. Twenty settings for meat… 'Fly-By-Night, what are these?'
'Ersatz prey from Kzin, I expect. Not bad, just strange.'
They weren't all meat. We had two flavors of blood, and a milky fluid. 'Artificial milk with diet supplements,' Fly-By-Night told us, 'to treat injuries and disease. Adults wouldn't normally use it.'
Three kinds of fluids. Hot blood- 'Is one of these human?'
'I wouldn't know, and that's one damn rude question to ask someone you have to live with-'
'I'm sorry. What I-'
'-for the next nine to ten days. If I get through this they'll have to give me a name.'
'I just want to know if it coagulates.'
Silence. Then, 'Intelligent question. I've been on edge, Mart.'
I didn't say that Kzinti are born that way. 'Ease up on the cappuccino.' 'We should thicken this. Mix it with something floury. Mush up a handmeal?' The handmeals would pull apart. We worked with the layers: a meatlike pate, a vegetable pate, something cheesy, shells of hard bread. The bread stayed too lumpy: no good. Cheese thickened the blood. One kind of blood did coagulate. We got a thick fluid that could be spread into a Kzin's fur, then would get thicker. Milk lightened it enough, but then it stayed too liquid. More cheese? We covered Fly-By- Night in patches everywhere, except his face, which we didn't want to mess up yet. This latest batch looked good where we'd spread it on his belly. I gave him a crossed fingers sign and worked it into his face. Not bad.
We tried undiluted blood for the eyebrows. Too pale. Work on that later. I stood back and asked, 'Paradoxical?'
'The marks weren't symmetrical,' Paradoxical said. 'You tend to want him to look too human. They're not eyebrows. Trail that right one almost straight up-' 'You'd better do it.'
He worked. Presently he asked, 'Mart?'
'Good!'
That was all Fly-By-Night needed. He set us spinning as he jumped for the waterfall room. We gave him an hour to dry off, because the shower blanket didn't suck up all the water, and another to calm down. Then we started over. We couldn't get the eyebrows dark enough.
