Man-Kzin Wars XII Read online

  "I know that, Ginger."

  "Anyway, it seems there is something in the reports. Despite Warrgh-Churrg's lack of specificity, there may be unrepatriated slaves here. What did you think about the ears? I didn't want to be seen looking too closely."

  "They might be human. But it was hard to tell. The slaves we saw shuffling round might have been human too, under those sacks they wore—I didn't see that they weren't, anyway."

  "I'll have to get on a hunt."

  "Will that be possible?"

  "I don't know, but I don't see why not. A part of hospitality, and it could be very beneficial for him. He likes gold. I could see that, all right. And his ears twitched when I mentioned that I trade in it."

  "He certainly seemed to have plenty of it around."

  "Which is an infallible sign that he wants more. Excuse me, Perpetua, I'd like to brush my fangs. That vatach stinks. As if his piss wasn't enough to put up with!"

  "Won't they be offended?"

  "Let them think it's an exotic offworld custom. They expect offworlders to smell funny. Mark you, this place smells odd to me itself."

  "How do you mean?"

  "It's hard to say. The closest I can come is, it's not pure kzinti. Or not any pure kzinti I know. The large windows are the most obviously strange thing. I've never seen that in a major kzinti dwelling before."

  "Different worlds, different styles, I suppose."

  "Even the Patriarch's palace wouldn't have them so close to the ground. He must be very confident."

  "Aren't all kzinti confident? Or fearless?"

  "They try to be. If they have fears, only Telepaths know about it, which is one reason Telepaths of the Patriarchy are hated and despised—and short-lived. But big windows are a definite cultural statement. . . . Our footprints in the snow as we came back—there was something odd there too, but I can't get my claws into it. . . . Apart from a few slaves, who did we see as we returned?"

  "Other kzinti."

  "Yes, and they took you for granted."

  "I hadn't thought of that!"

  "Human slaves are not rare. Well, that may be understandable. . . . But there was something else. By human standards kzinti culture is pretty uniform, with some local variations, but I get a feeling that there is something different here, something non-kzinti . . ." His voice trailed off.

  "Can you be more precise?"

  "I'm trying . . . gold . . . there's something . . . You don't really walk like a slave."

  "I'm sorry."

  "It could be fatal for you on some—probably most—kzinti worlds. But here you hardly rated a glance."

  "I didn't realize you were watching like that."

  "We must always watch like that! In this job the vigilant and the dead are the only kinds of operatives they are—though sometimes the vigilant are the dead all the same. Anyway, we've used fang paste for five generations and I'm not changing now."

  "What if there is a telepath?"

  "It would be dishonorable to use one on me unless he can be certain I've lied about something significant. And you may have noticed I've told as few direct lies as possible in case his ziirgrah picks them up. Even the occupation 'slave trader' can, with rationalization, be translated into something approximating the truth, since the Heroes' Tongue has no expression for our particular task."

  "And does your own ziirgrah pick up anything?"

  "This feeling of oddness, which, no, I can't be more precise about. And that he's keeping a lot back. When I mentioned 'honor'—which was a mistake, by the way; it's slightly bad form to talk about honor to a noble kzin—I felt an odd stiffening. As if he's doing something his own sense of honor is not entirely happy about. I must say that doesn't surprise me much. Any noble kzinti house tends to have plots and secrets, the more subtle and complex because kzinti hardly ever actually lie outright. It makes for certain tensions.

  "But I can't see that any plots are remotely likely to be anything to do with us. I don't feel more suspicion emanating from him than kzintoshi usually feel in the presence of strangers like me. But if I feel anything I'll leap it back here and we'll be off. You'd better keep alert in case we have to move quickly."

  "Don't you worry about that, I'll not be goofing off. A human doesn't on a kzinti world."

  "It would be bad manners—and theft—for anyone else to eat you, unless I get into a duel and lose. Then my property becomes my conqueror's. But we may have to take off in a hurry. By the way, I take it you've noticed these." He pointed to dots of orange light circling the hologram of the planet.

  "Orbiting spaceships."

  "Yes, they still have a couple of battle wagons, though they look dead. My guess is they're either laid up or have small maintenance crews on board."

  "Two ships aren't enough to do much."

  "They're big enough to be carriers. And even if not, if they've got weapons systems functioning—and these are kzinti ships we're talking about, so they will have if they're alive at all—they could make any takeoff hairy. If you do have to lift on your own, keep well away from them."

  "The alarms are set. All the cloaking devices are ready. And the missiles are armed."

  "Good. But I don't think trespassers will be a problem. Now that I've been pissed on I'm formally Warrgh-Churrg's guest . . . though he might send agents to check if I'm telling the truth about the hyperdrive."

  "That's a cheery thought. So I'm to wait here tonight listening for the pad of little cat feet while you're partying?"

  "Yes. It goes with the territory. Keep your eyes on the sensors and lock yourself in the furthest possible cabin if anything gets in. At discretion, you are to take off. That is an order, by the way, and I'm formally recording it as such. You have your suicide pill if need be. It's unfortunate that buildings here are much closer together than they usually are on kzinti worlds, but you've got a clear field of vision round the ship. . . . I wonder why the architecture is different?"

  "Yes, now that you mention it, it looks different even to me."

  "But if you think I'm dead, or it seems I can't get back to you, take off fast. I gather they have too few deep-space ships left now to keep many simply sitting around on standby, but the fact we've seen none docked doesn't mean there aren't any—from what he said, they have a few at least—and there are aircraft that could pursue, not to mention beams and missiles, plus whatever war satellites they may have put up in the past. I'm nearly sure those ships they're got in parking orbit are empty, or have only maintenance crews at most." The kzin wrinkled his ears thoughtfully. "But if we do have to run, they will wonder why we affected so much interest in the kz'zeerekti here."

  "But they won't know. The kz'zeerekti will be no worse off than they are already."

  "That's probably plenty bad enough, Perpetua. I think he'll let me join a hunt. Don't talk to me in English anymore. From now on I've got to think in the Heroes' Tongue."

  "Good luck, Ginger."

  "A Hero does not need luck. Snarr' grarrch."

  "Urr."

  III

  Sunset had deepened into night. The gravity vehicles halted near a small observation tower.

  Ginger, known to these kzinti as Trader, disembarked from the car which Warrgh-Churrg had lent him, and joined Hunt Master, Estate Manager, and the other local gentry, including one with the accouterments of a full-Named noble, grim-eyed, his jaws set in a permanent snarl. A couple of eights of kzinti youngsters, proudly bedecked with the time-honored weapons of the hunt and with minor, kittenish trophies, frolicked around them. A small squad of guards with modern weapons deployed around the vehicles.

  Hunt Master gestured to the others to follow him in single file to the crest of the slope. Trader spat a command in the slaves' patois to the human squatting in the shadow of his car. It prostrated itself and crept back into the vehicle.

  Silently, the felinoids moved through the tall grass up the ridge. Three moons, small but with brilliant albedo, cast a bright light and confused patterns of shadow. From the cre
st there was a panoramic view across a wide valley and plain, to a distant slope dark with vegetation. Instinctively, they had gone down on all fours, crawling forward with bellies to the ground, tails twitching.

  "Kz'zeerekti country," Hunt Master said. He touched a stud on his helmet and vision-enhancers slid over eyes already far better than those of any human. The other kzinti copied him. "See there!"

  The beam of his laser, set to illuminate rather than burn, touched what the others recognized as a scatter of brown, weathered bones on the other side of the river that ran below. It jumped to light other such jumbled heaps nearby. Here and there round, small-toothed skulls stared back at them—convincingly human.

  "You recognize the bones of kz'zeerekti? Indeed. But it is my duty to point out to you that not all the bones that lie under the sky were owned by monkeys." His laser touched upon what was plainly a kzinti skull, broken and weathered. There was a stir and growl among the youngsters who had been following his pointer. A respected warrior who died in battle might expect his bones to be recovered by his companions or sons for installation in an ancestral shrine. An unblooded kit who perished in his first action far from home often left his bones where they fell.

  "Kz'zeerekti killed a Hero on Kzrral?" asked one kit, in a tone of outrage that provoked a ripple of amusement from some of the elder kzinti.

  "Kz'zeerekti have killed many Heroes," Hunt Master replied. "And even more kits. And they have killed not only on Kzrral. Look and you will see. And at present we are but at the marches of one planet's Monkeydom. Look, cubs, and be wise. You too, offworlder. I do not know if the kz'zeerekti of this planet will make the slaves you desire."

  "When do we see them, Respected Hunt Master?" asked a cub, jumping and rolling on the ground with excitement.

  "Probably soon after we cross the valley and climb the next slope into the trees. Be sure, youngster, that they watch for us. You see how short the grass is on the slopes beyond the river? The monkeys burn it to deny approaching Heroes cover. Now arm and armor yourselves as I have shown you." The hunting kzinti's rifles were powerful and accurate repeaters, but antiques for all that: solid-bullet projectors with chemical propellants, rifles in the literal sense, not beam-weapons. The kits were given a few scraps of leather "armor."

  "By the standards I am used to, these indeed seem fierce kz'zeerekti, Respected Hunt Master," Trader remarked. He passed Hunt Master a generous flask of shrimp-flavored bourbon, part of his stock. "But surely they are no match for modern weaponry," he continued. "I wonder you do not simply wipe them out."

  "If we use modern science in the hunt—real body armor, overly enhanced heat and other sensors, beam-weapons—where is the sport in that, Trader?" Hunt Master replied, disposing of the bourbon in a single, gracious swig. "Where the training of kits? We might as well simply missile them from the air or from space. Besides, we have come to realize that exterminating a cunning and warlike species would deprive us permanently of both a valuable training asset and a rewarding game. The world would be duller with no kz'zeerekti."

  "I have heard some of our ancestors regarded the Sol monkeys so. Until they deployed relativistic weapons and acquired the hyperdrive."

  "These aren't like that. I have studied them. Indeed to conserve the species, I have often allowed young ones and pregnant females to live when, hunting alone, I came across them."

  "Do they ever cross this valley?"

  "They go as far as the river, but they never cross it in force. If they did, I suppose it would become a matter of exterminating them. They would be a menace to other game. Rogues or single scouts do cross though. I've found monkey droppings this side of the river a few times. I also found individuals, including that one." He pointed to a weathered skeleton scattered in the grass nearby. "Old villain! He got careless. But when they cross they don't usually attack or draw attention to themselves. I think they spy out the land, with a little thieving. As it is, they occupy only some fringe wooded country here and roam south into the hot savannah and deserts beyond.

  "I do have some supplies of special body armor," Hunt Master continued. He could not ask Trader if he wished to avail himself of this without implying an insult to his courage. Kzinti had dueled to the death for saying less.

  Trader replied with a casually polite ear twitch, as if Hunt Master's words had been a mildly interesting pleasantry about his collecting hobby, rather than a potentially dire test. Now that they were ready to move, Hunt Master glanced quickly over the kits' armor and weapons.

  These were sprigs of landowners and various, mainly minor, nobility and he was tasked not only to train them but also to protect them to an elementary extent. However, any young kzintosh, once weaned, was expected basically to look after himself, and even the games and competitions of young kits were often and deliberately lethal. Apart from the sheer enjoyment, a large part of the purpose of hunting dangerous game on all kzinti worlds was to teach youngsters by experience the difference between the quick and the dead. It was never expected that all would survive their teaching, and a Hunt Master who trained kits without casualties would not be doing his job. Those who survived would be fit for proper warrior training.

  "I leave the bones here on purpose," Hunt Master remarked to Trader. "They serve as a valuable reminder."

  Weapons at the ready, the kzinti spread out and descended into the valley. Silent as they were, a few small animals scuttled away at their approach and some flying creatures burst noisily into the air out of the low ground cover. The kits, and one or two of the older hunters, leaped at these tantalizing things. They splashed through the wide, shallow river at the valley bottom. All kzinti hated getting wet, and across the deeper channel in the center there were crude fords and weirs of stones that they might have used for stepping, had not Hunt Master stopped them. He had a small rocket gun that fired lines tipped with articulated-tentacle grapnels.

  "Fools!" he snarled. "Do you not think the monkeys know the paths? Did they not place the stones? May they not have fixed weapons sighted on each one?" He cuffed a kit marked with four white stripes on its side, who had been first to the river. Some of the kits looked thoughtful as he hurried them, clutching the lines he'd fired across, at points which he selected apparently at random. Once across the deeper channels he kept them on all fours until, wet and foul-tempered, they assembled in a concave bay of dead ground on the other side.

  "There," said Hunt Master, "is a sign of kz'zeerekti territory. They scratch it on trees and rocks sometimes." He pointed.

  "They seem to think in terms of a frontier," Trader remarked. He memorized a copy of the sign.

  "Yes, very much so. As I have said, it is as well for them that they don't make excursions in force beyond it."

  One kit, falling back with a flying creature clutched triumphantly in his claws, disappeared into the ground with a scream, abruptly cut off. Hunt Master strode to the spot with grim deliberation. The kit lay bleeding in a pitfall, already dying, the wooden spikes at the bottom driven through his body. The spikes were triangular in cross section, with what looked like grooves down each face: a wound couldn't clamp shut, but blood could get out freely. One could be lethal in the right spot. The pit held more than sixteen.

  "I have already said the kz'zeerekti came as far as the river," Hunt Master told the other kits. "You see now that you hunt real game."

  Krrar Landowner, the sire of the dead kit, furious and ashamed, dashed forward, then fell. A dozen arrows whistled at them. Kzinti reflexes preserved all except one Hero, younger brother of Krrar Landowner, who was struck in the forearm. Rifles blazed into the bushes from which the arrows had been fired. Hunt Master, crouching, ran to the fallen kzin and kicked the vegetation away from around him. A stout rope had been stretched a little way above the ground.

  "Stop wasting ammunition," Hunt Master said. "There are no kz'zeerekti here. Remember the Fanged God gave you ziirgrah and be proud to use it!" Ziirgrah was the rudimentary telepathic sense all kzinti possessed which, properly
used, allowed them to sense the presence and emotions of game—the terror of Zianya at table was an instance—and which in the case of certain rare kzinti could be developed with drugs and training into full telepathy. Since telepaths were not warriors but among the most despised and downtrodden of the kzinti castes—the condition had unpleasant side effects—many kzinti now felt ziirgrah was something very impolite to mention. Hunt-Master plainly had no such inhibitions.

  "It was another trap, long-set," he told the kits, who were now standing round-eyed and silent, their earlier exuberance greatly modified. "There are many such. This place is well defended."

  The arrow had been double-barbed, and was securely lodged in the forearm of the wounded kzintosh, who was dripping orange and purple blood copiously from severed veins and arteries—competent weaponcrafting again, as an ordinary wound would have squeezed down to a trickle. Hunt Master inspected the damage.

  "I advise you solemnly to return to the cars for treatment," he said. "I cannot remove this. Tendons have already been cut. Further, I smell poison."

  The wounded kzintosh snarled curses at his elder brother. Krrar Landowner, already furious, drew his wtsai and the two flew at each other. They rolled down the slope, slashing and screaming.

  "We are doing well, as you see," said Hunt Master quietly to Trader. "Two or three casualties already and not a sniff of a kz'zeerekti yet, though that noise will certainly have alerted every monkey for miles around. See there!" He pointed to a hole in a jumble of rocks ahead.

  "A cave. Should we investigate it, esteemed Hunt Master?"

  "That cave, Trader, is one of the openings of a tunnel system the kz'zeerekti dug. We entered it when first we became aware of it.

  "The main passages were quite spacious. Big enough for a warrior to pass through easily, even with weapons. We soon realized it was a labyrinth of tunnels below tunnels. What we did not realize was that it was threaded with other tunnels, too small for a Hero to crawl into but quite big enough for a monkey. Many Heroes died in that system."