The Man-Kzin Wars 07

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rrowl-Captain's dreams were not pleasant.

They stalked him like a loud predator closing confidently on prey. Crippled bleeding prey, limping across a field without proper cover. Without allies or weapons.

There was no escape.

In his dream, he was still a creche-kit, with no name other than Second Son of Graach-Gunner. He and his litter brother, First Son of Graach-Gunner, had been inseparable comrades in creche. In their sleeping lair, after the illuminators were dimmed, they had often hissed and spat about what Hero-Names they would choose when they were both grandly honored for bravery.

As they surely would be so honored. Were they not brave kzinti, as they learned to stalk feral Jotoki in the hunting park?

It did not matter that the creche teachers were guiding the development of their young muscles and growing hunt-skills with great care and attention to tradition. The pair were young, but would grow into an adulthood of honor, recipients of Hero's Blood for more octals of generations than could be counted.

They were kzin, feeders at the apex of the Great Web of Life. Was there any doubt that a Warrior Heart beat within each of their young chests?

First Son of Graach-Gunner wanted to someday take a Hero-Name from their family history, C'mef. Centuries before, another C'mef had died defending a foppish relative of the Riit against an usurping colonist kzin. Honor was more important than details to Graach-Gunner's family line; the Warrior Heart burned bright in all of them. C'mef would be a proud name to weave back into the honored tapestry of their lineage.

Second Son of Graach-Gunner had admired the liver and Warrior Heart of his litter-brother very much, and wished to honor him in turn. He had always followed his elder brother, claw to claw and fang next to fang against their creche-foes. Second Son of Graach-Gunner had secretly chosen the name of C'mef's own litter-brother and duel-ally from that long dead time, Rrowl.

As it had been many centuries in the past, so it would be again, now and in the future. C'mef and Rrowl.

Or so Second Son of Graach-Gunner had thought, until his litter-brother had fallen from a rock castle during agility drills. The impact had broken his neck struts, killing First Son of Graach-Gunner instantly.

Second Son of Graach-Gunner was inconsolable, which was unseemly even for a creche-kit. He had been perhaps too close to his litter-brother, and Graach-Gunner too gruff a father.

But every kzin must stand on his own as he wrestled honor and truth from the jaws of the One Fanged God. Graach-Gunner sent a Stalker in the Night to counsel and correct his second-youngest son's unkzinlike grief.

The Stalkers were priests-of-bad-tidings, coats and thoughts black as their names. They were from every Heroic line, even the Riit, just as the Warrior Heart was part of every kzin lineage.

From time to time, an occasional litter of kits included one or two ebony offspring; the Stalkers of the Night soon took the dark kittens away for training in the priesthood. They stood out in any group of kzinti, the everyday tawny orange with dark patches, spots, and stripes becoming something the eye ignored. A jet black kzin, with eyes the color of an angry sky, was odd and frightening.

Which was, after all, the point of the Stalkers in the Night, They reminded kzinti of the Warrior Hearts devotion to honor and bravery. They were living arbiters of the One Fanged God, much feared and respected.

"So, little one," the ebony figure had hissed at Second Son of Graach-Gunner that dark day. "Your litter-brother has fallen in battle. It is the Will and Claw-swipe of the One Fanged God.”

Even frightened by the shadow-kzin priest, the creche-kit had spoken up. "He fell from a high rock to die! How is that the Will of the One Fanged God?”

The kzin-priest was silent a long moment, then had coughed laughter. "Your fangs are not blunt, small one. But mine are sharper still." A black furred hand tipped with gleaming ebony claws appeared in front of his face, almost touching his eyes. "But you must learn respect to match your liver.”

Second Son of Graach-Gunner had squeezed his eyelids closed in fearful obedience. It was the wrong choice.

"Look at me," the hissing voice roared, "Or I will peel your eyelids from your coward eyes like a vatach -pelt!”

Rrowl-Captain opened his eyes in fright, the dream dissolving into a chaos of sorrow, lost battles, and green-tinged monkey hell.

His hand leapt to his face, seeking the faint scar that had been left there so many years before by the Stalker in the Night.

He did not know where he was.

A false red sky loomed above him. The air carried odor that seemed right, but were somehow not. White traceries like chachatta webs, clung to him. He carefully stood brushing the webbing from his body. Sharpened-Fang was nearby, laying on its side on sandy soil.

The air was quiet, but his nose sniffed wetly at danger.

What has happened? Rrowl-Captain wondered to himself The ugly aliens interrupting the battle with the monkey shot my ship with some form of energy weapon… and then…

Something suddenly occurred to Rrowl-Captain, making him forget the strangenesses around him. All trace of his radiation sickness, a last dark gift from the monkey trap was gone.

Rrowl-Captain felt well fed and healthy. It should not be so.

"Greetings, Honored One," hissed and spat a voice in the Hero's Tongue behind him, but pitched as high as a tiny kitten's. "We must speak to you, having need of your bravery and honor.”

Rrowl-Captain whirled, and saw a hole hanging in midair. No, he realized, more like a window. Through which the alien called Diplomat was still speaking. "The pointless battle between your species and the kzin – “

"Wait a second," interrupted Bruno. "They attacked us, enslaved our people. I would not call our self-defense pointless.”

Carol had nipped his ear between her fingers. "Tacky, darling," she whispered sweetly. "Let the nice alien finish, would you? We can defend our actions later.”

Diplomat had craned heads at Bruno and Carol, watching them both at the same time, with the loose-lipped idiot stare that so clearly was misleading. "Thank you, Captain Faulk," Diplomat continued. "As I was singing… ah, saying… the altercation in deep space between your warring solar systems has disturbed a rather traditional faction of our hosts.”

Carol pulled at her lip again in thought. "We – the kzin there and ourselves – tread on their territory, perhaps?" "Excellent simile," replied the little alien. "It is more accurate to say that this Traditionalist faction holds the spaces between stars rather sacred.”

Bruno began to understand. "So this is a religious issue in deep space?" It was a bit amusing, and he stifled a chuckle. Both heads swiveled at once to face Bruno. "Mr. Takagama, if that choking sound you are emitting is actually a vocalization of humor, I can assure that this is a grave situation. The Zealots' so-called religious concerns are based on actual events, from the early era of this universe.”

"We have violated their temple?" persisted Carol.

"More like we have stirred up a hornets' nest," added Bruno. He took Carol's hand in his, running his thumb back and forth against her palm. Diplomat cocked a head at Bruno. "I do not understand." Bruno held back impatience. "Stinging insects that live in group nests on our worlds, Diplomat. If the nest is disturbed, they attack the disturber as a group.”

"Excellent, Mr. Takagama. You grasp the point with both mouths." Again the twin necks shot up, the heads eye to eye for an instant. "So we leave their temple alone," Bruno said. "We didn't know. Now we do." "It is not so simple, Mr. Takagama," sang Diplomat. "The Zealots now see you – and your whole species – as an irritant to be removed. Our hosts wish to change this potentially destructive point of view." "Wait a minute," asked Carol slowly. "Why are we – or the kzin, or you – important to this faction of Outsiders?”

"They are called Dissonants," added Diplomat. "They oppose the ancient strictures of the Zealots, and wish to forge their own destiny, sometimes in association with life-forms like ourselves." "Whatever. I am glad that we were rescued, but where are we being taken – and why?”

The three-legged alien's hooves beat a complex pattern It turned and sang to the larger alien, which blared music back.

"Carol – " Bruno started to ask, but she squeezed his arm to signal for silence. Diplomat turned to face them again. "My Guardian has argued for becoming yet more direct." The heads wobbled a bit. "Let me take the points quickly, as time remains short There are many things like your species in the galaxy, you know full well, considering your cargo.”

"How do you know about that?" asked Bruno. How could they know about the Tree-of-Life virus still in the hold of Dolittle? They might have found it, of course, but how would they know what it could do? The puppeteer waved a head in a slow figure eight as if dismissing his comment. "The point is that the Dissonants have worked with your various species many times in the past. Your own… more undomesticated, feral species appeals to them… well, aesthetically.”

"We'll table that for the moment," Carol said.

"As you wish," replied Diplomat. "The Dissonants wish to preserve your species – as well as my own, and the kzin. We are interesting to them, a source of information." Bruno broke in, sensing another long speech on the alien horizon. "So where are we now, and where are we going?" The hemisphere above Carol and Bruno suddenly stopped looking like a sky with fleecy white clouds. It was a bowl filled with a mottled opal radiance that hurt the eyes, Geometrical shapes swam in curdled colors that Bruno could not name. The 'sky' twisted and bent, distorted and distorting. It was like nothing Bruno had ever seen before. "We are presently," sang Diplomat quietly in his human-sounding voice, "just over one hundred light-years from human space. And moving at three hundred times the speed of light, in another dimension." "Another dimension?" "Certainly. It is the only way to travel faster than light, is it not?" "Hyperspace," breathed Bruno and Carol at the same time.

"Indeed. We are leading the Zealot spacecraft far away from human and kzinti space." "And… " Bruno prompted, still in awe of the eye-straining vision above them. A shape seemed to form, shifting and rotating, moving in a stately procession across the false sky.

It grew somehow larger and smaller, then faded into the milky clotted strangeness. "We hope to engage the Zealot ship here, away from normal space, and destroy it." "But how?" It seemed to Bruno that he and Carol were far out of their elements, pawn to unreadable forces and minds. "With your help of course, Mr. Takagama." A head wobbled for emphasis. "But don't feel alone. Guardian and the kzin will go with you.”