Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

AT THE GATES

Righteous Manslaughter

Righteous Manslaughter dived into the dust and asteroidal grit of an aborted solar system choking a brown dwarf star with only a string of cryptic numbers for a name. There was no escape. The human dreadnaught, Pick of the Litter Alaric, pounded them with lasers, missiles and, as the telepath felt, blazing hatred. Humans had come a long way in the three wars and kzinti were dying-courageously as always, but dying.

“The humans are going to exploit a slowly spreading hairline fracture on our starboard hull,” Righteous Manslaughter’s Telepath screamed in terror. “We have to leap into hyperspace!”

“Silence, you subkzintosh, I am in command of this ship! Our orders are to hold this Fanged God-forsaken system even if the molecules of our ship join the thick orbiting haze,” Fnar-Ritt roared at the Telepath, trying to maintain some semblance of dominance in this insane situation. Telepath, like all his kind, had no dignity to forget, but his abject fear could not be allowed to infect the remainder of the crew.

All surviving warriors had come together on the bridge as other sections of the ship were abandoned to the devouring vacuum. Manslaughter’s Telepath, pumped full of the sthondat drug, tried to push out of his mind the young Heroes’ panic and focus on the savage cunning of the humans. One more well-placed missile and the Manslaughter would be slag.

He knew that the incompetent Fnar-Ritt had no intention of withdrawing and no skill for a fight. He had been handed the captaincy of this ill-fated vessel only because he was of the Patriarchy’s line and had been bred with the rare ability to navigate in hyperspace.

The mind of Tdakar-Commander, a battle-weary veteran who had no particular fear of attempting the impossible, brimmed with stratagems, but he knew his place and held his muzzle shut.

As the humans launched the killing missile at the dying ship, Manslaughter’s Telepath felt Fnar-Ritt’s fear swell almost beyond reason. This was the telepath’s only chance for survival. With the speed of thought he tore at the stretched-thin film of duty and honor that barely held back the vestigial flight response and let the captain’s own overriding terror spill over him. In a last act of cowardice, Fnar-Ritt threw himself onto the crackling console and activated the hyperdrive.

The missile hit and everything flooded with blinding pink light.

The Raoneer Wilderness

The plains of Raoneer were chill under the shifting light of the aurora. A heavily muscled kzintosh watched as a small pride of hunters waded through the feathery, lavender grass. They approach the black-furred dome that had been his home for several years as he had roamed the savage land. Healer-of-Hunters had stalked and killed the hefty animals that early human explorers had named wombadons for their supposed resemblance to an Earth animal called a wombat and made their thick hides into a shelter. He had studied wombats when he was still at crèche and found very little similarity between those cute little creatures and these fiercely territorial monsters. Also, these beasts were no marsupials: like all higher life forms on Sheathclaws, they were neither mammals nor reptiles, but a deadly synthesis of the two. The planet was at an evolutionary stage roughly equivalent to the Permian period on Earth. The advancing pride dragged the heavy carcass of one behind them. Healer thought that he would eat well tonight.

“Are you Healer-of-Hunters?” The leader of the small band asked in Interworld. Three cautious females, one clearly his daughter, circled closely around the male. They kept their distance from the wild-looking young kzintosh. These hunters were too well-groomed to have been living wild for long. They were recent arrivals from Shrawl’ta.

“Yes,” he growled.

“I am Maintainer-of-Communications; at least, I was back in Shrawl’ta. My idiot son has been attacked by a pack of alliogs while on a hunt. One of them took a chunk clean out of his side,” the father said, pulling back the obsidianlike hide of the wombadon, revealing a mutilated kit, almost a kzintosh. The adolescent stoically bore the pain as a kzin should.

“Take him into my hut. I’ll see what I can do.”

Inside the structure of animal bone and rawhide was an impressive array of chirping diagnostic equipment and a blinking new autodoc. “You’ve got a field hospital here,” said the father, sniffing the antiseptic chemicals in the hut.

“You’d be surprised how many kzinti injure themselves on the hunt or in duels in these backwoods.” Healer examined the kit sprawled out on the pallet. “Well, perhaps it would no longer surprise you. Please wait outside.”

Healer connected the juvenile to the doc and immediately administered a strong painkiller. The kit’s writhings ceased. He sighed through clenched teeth in instant relief. The kit was missing a U-shaped chunk of flesh under his right arm. Luckily, the bite hadn’t penetrated through the boney mesh of the kzinti skeleton. Healer sprayed synthetic skin, cultured from the adolescent’s own DNA, onto the bloody hole. “You’re going to be fine. It was a small alliog.” He wrapped the kit’s torso in a tight bandage.

“It didn’t feel like a small alliog.”

“Why did you leave Shrawl’ta? Your father held an important position there.”

“Everyone is saying a kzinti warship has entered our system. My father had always dreamed of living free in the Raoneer country. He said now was his chance before the Patriarchy exterminated us all for breeding like vermin.”

A kzinti warship? Surely, thought Healer, we would all be dead by now. This thriving amethyst planet would be reduced to a dusty disc of debris, but being Maintainer-of-Communications, this kit’s father would be privy to the truth of such information.

He adjusted the flow of anesthesia and sedated the kit. He called for the waiting kzintosh to return to the hut. The former Maintainer-of-Communications entered and made appreciative prostration. “Is the stupid kit going to survive?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you and the Maned God!” He prostrated himself a little lower. “Please, Healer-of-Hunters, take my daughter into your harem. We are of praiseworthy stock, sired of Shadow.”

Healer had instinctively breathed in the young, attractive kzinrett as she approached his hut, but her pheromones carried the uncomfortable tinge of the incestuous.

“Thank you, brave Hunter, that is a most generous offer, but I do not wish to complicate my life in these uncertain times.” He scratched his scruffy neck, hoping the excuse and change of subject were not too obvious. “If what I’ve heard is true, this small hut will be swollen with the bodies of wounded Raoneers.”

The kzintosh rose quickly. “You know of the ship?”

“Your son purred about it while under the influence of the autodoc. Is it true, a warship?”

“Yes, it’s true. Ceezarr himself met with the human Triumvirate about the matter. According to their analysis, and ours, the ship is unresponsive, probably wrecked.”

“That is somewhat of a relief.”

“Yes, still the threat was enough for me to reevaluate my life.”

“Indeed.” Healer was no longer listening to the other kzintosh. He pawed at the possibilities this ship presented. Were there survivors? Perhaps frozen in coldsleep caskets, unaware that their ship had been attacked? He grabbed his wristcomp and moved toward the flap in the tent. “You can sit with your son until he wakes. I am going on a hunt.”

Healer-of-Hunters dashed through the wispy purple reeds as though in hot pursuit of quick and cunning prey. “Get me Daneel Guthlac,” he hissed into his wristcomp and kept running until he had reached the gravcar he’d tucked away beneath blood-colored brush.

The image of a human male with a mane of sandy, wavy hair, a close-trimmed beard and strong jaw line winked over Healer’s wrist.

Harp, Angel’s Tome

Dan lay on the floor of his lab calibrating the compact gravity motor of his car for the eighth time. Its hum was so perfectly pitched that it purred like newborn kit. He had reached the limits of what he could squeeze out of this ancient kzin-derived technology and he was becoming bored with it.

His wristcomp pinged and he pushed himself from under the triangular gravcar. The grainy hologram of a kzin with black markings lost in dark orange, almost chocolate, fur, beamed out of his wristcomp. Its piercing amber eyes scrutinized him for a long second.

It took just as long for Dan to place this savage-looking face. “My God, I haven’t heard from you in ages! Where the tanj have you been?”

“I’m out in the Raoneer wilderness, hunting and providing medical care for other kzinti out here.”

“All that academic excellence back at the crèche and you’ve gone bushcat!” Dan couldn’t suppress a smile.

“I need your help. I’ve just got word that a kzinti warship was sighted in our neighborhood. Can you verify that claim?”

“Yeah, there are media rumors circulating that a scout ship was detected in our system. Anyone with any sense knows that’s got to be false because our planet is not a cinder.”

“Agreed.”

Dan could hear his old friend panting like a thirsty dog. “But something’s got the A.T. Triumvirate all in a huff.”

“Word from Ceezarr’s mansion says the ship is incapacitated.”

“Is this why you called me?”

“I want to pounce on it, but I’m going to need your help. I need all the information the Triumvirate has on the ship and I need an engineer once I get to it.”

“Whoa, I’d love to get my hands on a modern warship with technology one hundred years ahead of anything we’ve got in this miserable marooned colony, but the risks seem a bit too high. I’d hate to be the guy that points the Patriarchy to our doorstep.”

“I believe the risk is acceptable. I plan to fly the barge my father has set up as a useless museum piece and tow the derelict back here. Will you join me?”

“Come on, I haven’t see you in years. I don’t even know what you’re called now! And you drop this on my lap all of a sudden?”

“My provisional name is Healer-of-Hunters. I don’t have any other friends. You’re an engineer and you have poor judgment. I figured you’d leap at the chance to sink your blunt little nails into state-of-the-art technology.”

“Nice to meet you, Healer-of-Hunters. What do bushcats care about advanced technology?”

“Absolutely nothing. You can have the ship and open it up like a fresh kill.”

“So why are you so interested in this ship?”

“Do not worry about that.”

“Dishonesty comes across as stiff and unnatural on kzinti. You lack the neurological architecture to shamelessly lie.”

“I’m sorry. I was informed you worked at Harp University’s engineering department, not in neural science.” Healer’s ears rippled at his own joke and Dan imagined his tail whipping around. “Besides, I’m not lying. I’m withholding information.”

“Sarcasm? Humans are ruining a proud and unflappable species!”

“Will you help me? If not, I’ll do it alone, but the odds of success will be greatly reduced.”

“I don’t know, you’re not exactly convincing me to give up my cushy life as a researcher to go on a potentially world-devastating endeavor.”

“Remember back when we were kits and you used your monkey wiles to talk me into eating Mrs. Davis’ pug. I didn’t question you, I simply attacked. I need you to attack.”

“I remember your dad tore you up when she showed up at his mansion blubbering. Was it really worth it?”

He absently licked his lips. “Oh yes, that plump little dog was utterly delicious.”

“Alright, who am I to argue with a million years of kzinti killer instinct?”

“Can you get an audience with the Triumvirate?”

“With a name like Guthlac? I’ll be sipping tea with them by noon.”

“How much time do you need to get the information and get to Shrawl’ta?”

“Give me four hours.”

“That fast?”

“I have a very fast car.”

The bushcat abruptly cut off the transmission.

Dan’s arrowhead of a car shot around the city of Harp in a wide arch. He saw the gleaning white skyscrapers topped with radiant blue domes that tastefully hid beam cannons and rocket launchers, all pointed toward the sky. The coastal metropolis was a Byzantine sprawl of culture and commerce. Its wide and bustling walkways were lined with plants like black orchids the size of grand palms. Of the three human settlements in Angel’s Tome, Harp had become the richest and largest. It imported meat from Raoneer and exported seafood which the kzinti loved. The University of Harp had finally unraveled the captured alien technology and churned out lucrative spin-offs, like his gravcar. He circled the extravagant Triumvirate House and remembered one of its architects deliriously describing it as what the Hagia Sophia would have looked like if they’d had ultra-light building materials with the tensile strength of carbon nanotubes.

“Triumvirate House accepts your request to land. Please direct your vehicle to the south parking garage,” his onboard computer chimed.

A security officer marched him toward a private elevator. When he finally entered the massive indoor amphitheater, its grandeur floored him. The underside of the luminous blue dome displayed a high-resolution image of what Earth’s sky would have looked like on a sunny spring day. Its clarity had a charm Sheathclaws’ complex sky lacked. The vast space was empty but for three stern humans. They radiated a haughty annoyance.

He sat in a central chair surrounded by an azure, half-moon desk. Facing the three politicians, he quickly scanned them with his weak empathic powers. “Thank you for granting me the honor.”

“The Triumvirate has a tough decision to make and since you called us about this mysterious ship, we thought it natural the only native of Raoneer in Harp should partake in the discussion,” Jibunoh, the spokeswoman told him. “We might benefit from your unique input. Your heritage was also a factor, of course.”

“Thank you again, Triumvir, but there are quite a few people from Raoneer here.”

“Correction, as the only human.” She looked at the unruly specimen before her, as if she didn’t quite believe in his humanity. “What do you know of the matter at hand?”

“Only that what appears to be a damaged kzinti ship penetrated our sensor swarm not too long ago.” Dan’s mind prowled around the three heads-of-state like a predator trying to pick out the lame prey.

“A month ago, to be exact, every sensor in the system began screaming when a Patriarchy warship suddenly appeared in our system’s heliosphere. The three of us and Apex Leader of Raoneer quickly gathered to strategize and ready our defenses, but all subsequent scans show that the ship is indeed badly damaged and currently tumbling toward the sun. Ceezarr lost interest when the chance for battle became remote and returned to Shrawl’ta.”

“You attempted to communicate with it?”

“No. This meeting is precisely to determine our next step. Images of the ship indicate that it’s far more advanced than the ships our founders confronted.”

“They’ve had about a hundred years to improve.”

“Exactly. The question is, do we want those upgrades or do we let the derelict go on its way.”

“There are barbarians at the gates and you talk of trinkets?” murmured Triumvir Bhang. The woman had aged rather well, but her dark almond-shaped eyes were filled with fear. She wanted nothing to do with kzinti, local or otherwise.

“Well, the up-to-date information held in their computers would be incredibly valuable,” he said, ignoring the anxiety of the three leaders. “The fact that the ship just popped up suggests to me as an engineer that they have one of those FTLs we’ve been hearing about for the past twenty years.”

“Are you a Rejoiner, Mr. Guthlac?” Anxiety was suddenly laced with suspicion.

“I don’t subscribe to bipartisan rhetoric. I definitely understand the Separatists’ pragmatic reasons for keeping Sheathclaws hidden. We are uncomfortably close to Patriarchy space.”

The only male Triumvir in the room spoke for the first time. “For the past twenty years, we’ve been bombarded with stray radio signals announcing human victories over the Patriarchy in several wars, because of hyperdrives just like the one that has landed on our doorstep. The time is ripe to regroup with the other human worlds in Known Space!”

“We’ve all heard your arguments, Triumvir Delmar. The one flaw is the word ‘several.’ It’s only a matter of time before another war flares up and if we’ve revealed ourselves we’ll be the first planet conquered! Simply because of proximity!”

Not to mention the value of a planet full of potential kzinti telepaths, Dan thought.

He sensed Triumvir Delmar’s unabashed interest in the ship. The other two minds of the trio were already made up. He needed to delicately appeal to Delmar. “Just because we bring in the ship doesn’t mean we’ll all hop on the next flight for Earth. The information in those computers as well as the FTL would go a long way in strengthening our defenses.”

“That is a very valid point, Mr. Guthlac,” exclaimed Delmar.

“We’re not here to discuss the theoretical capture of this crippled warship, which I have no intention of voting for,” Triumvir Bhang said, slamming the palm of her hand on the podium. “What I’m interested in is the kzinti reaction to our letting their brethren glide into the sun.”

“The kzinti of Raoneer have no love for the Patriarchy. I don’t know Ceezarr personally, but I was crèchemates with one of his sons.”

Bhang flinched at the outright inhuman term. “So you don’t believe there would be unrest among the kzinti of Sheathclaws?”

“You said so yourself, Ceezarr lost interest when reports of the ship’s state came in. I believe that’s how most kzinti and humans will react, with vast collective indifference.”

“Thank you, Mr. Guthlac for your singular insights on the matter,” said Jibunoh. He knew, in her mind, the discussion was over. “Let’s vote, shall we? All those in favor of letting this ruined craft continue unmolested raise your hand.”

Triumvirs Bhang and Jibunoh stylishly raised their hands. Triumvir Delmar simply shook his head in obvious disgust.

“Wait a minute, that’s it? You’re going to reject an enormous boon for Sheathclaws after one meeting? You’re not going to put it to a popular vote?”

“Our pronouncement may seem swift to you, Mr. Guthlac, but I assure you that we’ve been weighing the issue for a month now. As for a popular vote, you yourself said that the general public would be indifferent to the final fate of the ship.”

“Can I at least have all the information on the ship obtained from the probes? Maybe I can study those and find something useful to us.”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Guthlac. A young, intelligent man such as you could cause all manner trouble with that data. I believe it will remain safely classified.”

Delmar burst out of his chair with explosive frustration and stormed out of the meeting chamber.

Jibunoh turned to Bhang and said, “We can even spin the situation as not wanting to sully this ship out of great respect for the fallen Heroes aboard.”

Dan knew he was already dismissed.

Minutes later, no longer having access to the private elevator, he jogged up the wide marble steps leading to the garage. His mind chewed on the state-of-the-art kzinti ship. The technological treasures that were found on the ones a hundred years ago had taken eights of years for the colonists to decipher. How long would it take him to reverse-engineer this one, a lifetime?

“A word, Mr. Guthlac,” Triumvir Delmar sat on a bench near his car, watching a few leathery pteranobats languidly circle the sapphire-domed spires of Harp. Dan had known he was there.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more convincing,” Dan said in the absence of any real salutation.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, young man. We didn’t summon you to our meeting because of your Raoneer citizenship or your impressive engineering degree. We invited you because of who your grandmother was. Jibunoh and Bhang didn’t want posterity to say they made a crucial world-changing decision without consulting a Guthlac! No, you were there simply so that the record could show that you were there.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s politics,” he waved a dismissing hand as if they’ve talked enough nonsense and it was time for business. “The truth is we need that ship and everyone is too afraid to go and get it.”

“I agree.” Although not about joining the rest of humanity. Not yet anyway.

“Excellent!” Delmar handed him a tablet scrolling with information and displaying a red elliptical line spiraling through their system.

“Is this the warship’s current position and its projected circuit toward our sun?”

“Correct. As the leader of Hem, I would like to extend our full support if you decide to mount an expedition to this ship. We can’t provide you with shuttles, of course; my hands are tied as you witnessed back at the House, but I can give you data and will run interference with those two.”

“If I don’t have access to a shuttle, how can I get to the ship?”

“I was hoping you could use your name and connections to Raoneer elite.”

If Dan possessed the flexible ears of a kzin, they’d be beating. Got you.

Shrawl’ta, Raoneer

Dan tore over the hourglass-shaped landmass at a roaring mach 5. The vantage point always gave him a healthy sense of perspective. From up here, the rambling megalopolis of Harp and the adjoining green and gold agricultural fields seemed a tiny freckle on the plum-colored rain forests that dominated Angel’s Tome.

The original colonists, being severely traumatized by their hideous encounters with kzinti, decided that cohabitation would be too much for them. So the commanding personnel of Angel’s Pencil and Gutting Claw’s rogue telepath agreed to divide the large Panunguis continent between the two species: humans took the subtropical and tropical southern bulb because its fertile jungles provided excellent soil for farming and the kzinti had taken the colder, northern bulb with a wide open steppe teeming with therapsidlike creatures to hunt.

He zoomed above the volcanic mountain range of the connecting land bridge. Dan found it appropriate that the two bulbs, once separate islands, were being ground together by unhurried geological processes. After a century of mutual segregation, the two species had begun to mingle: industry, education, sport, tourism had all blurred the hard isolating line.

After a couple hours of contemplative driving, his onboard computer jolted him, “You are now crossing the border into Raoneer. Your passport has automatically been stamped. Welcome home, Daneel Guthlac.” The cool mauve tundra that hugged the open plains of Raoneer greeted him like a stern and proud father. His car spooked large herds of iguanalope and sent them racing across open territory. His pride had been part of Raoneer from the start. His grandmother, Selina Guthlac, had decided to stay with the kzinti and help build Shrawl’ta. Of course, she did her part for the human population of the planet as well, having children from the genetic stock frozen aboard Angel’s Pencil. She even got the ship’s geneticist to clone four kzinti kittens from the bodies salvaged from the Tracker, including Tracker’s Telepath, and raised them along with her biological children.

From the air, Shrawl’ta looked more like a colossal star fort on the shores of a great lake than a proper city. Its tall stone and steel walls surrounded the squat settlement. The highest structures were massive gun turrets emerging from each star point, and Ceezarr’s mansion, the Hall of Harmonious Dominance. The estate was the largest living space in Raoneer, a square edifice the color of sun-burnt gold rising some thirty meters above all other surrounding buildings except for the laser towers. It was the practical and ceremonial center of kzinti power on Sheathclaws. Dan had grown up in its shadow.

He landed his car in the plaza near Healer’s gravcar. His old friend paced fretfully.

“Did you get anything useful?” he asked, as Dan exited his car.

“I got all the data captured by the sensor swarm, courtesy of the Triumvir of Hem. Now all we need is a ship.” The frigid breeze of his native Raoneer stung Dan’s nose and burned his lungs. He went back into the car for a leather jacket.

“Let’s go see my father.” Healer-of-Hunter’s fur flattened on his muscular body, as if expecting a fight.

They walked up to the wide, red arched entrance of the Hall of Harmonious Dominance. The head of a lion, its mane blazing like the sun, was carved into the keystone. Two full-grown alliogs snapped and clawed at each other while chained on either side of the gate. The sparsely furred reptiles looked a lot like alligators with the fast frames of wolves. The result was something like prehistoric pristerognathus, although all Earth analogies failed to match the truly alien biology of these creatures.

They crossed a spacious, echoing vestibule. The interior of the Hall was no less lavish than Triumvirate House but it was warmer, less airy, like a medieval castle. The hide and heads of worthy game and rivals hung from the walls. They paused respectfully before the crystal sarcophagi that enshrined the remains of Selina Guthlac and Shadow.

“They died too young,” Healer said, noticing his ancestor’s small, frail body. Selina too was rather young despite the gray in her blond curly locks.

“Shadow had one foot in the grave, even before he got to Sheathclaws, and his rapport with my grandmother was much too strong. When he died, she simply faded away. Do you think our remains will rest in this great hall?”

Healer slapped a large paw across Dan’s back, breaking the reverie. “Oh, I assure you we will rest in this hall; the question is will we be honored relics or trophies?”

They continued on their way to Ceezarr’s office and passed an elderly orange and white kzinrett who gave Healer an affectionate lick from chin to cheek. On any other world, she would be severely disciplined for showing a kzintosh such tenderness in front of a human. Healer nuzzled her head. “Grandmother-aunt, Rilla, please make sure my stubborn father takes full advantage of the autodoc after our discussion is over.”

“I will,” she purred in her limited Interworld.

“Autodoc?” Dan looked to Healer nervously, but before he got an answer, Healer pushed open the heavy double-doors that led to Ceezarr’s private den.

The office was a simple and elegant affair of polished cherry wood and dark leather furniture. Four kzinti pelts hung from the red brick walls, mockingly referred to as the senate, trophies from his unification of Shadow’s competing heirs. He chose the Name Ceezarr after that battle and built the Hall of Harmonious Dominance.

“If it isn’t my first-born son, the bush doctor!” Ceezarr roared, his luxuriant black-striped, ochre fur showing distinguished silver streaks that Healer didn’t remember from before. How long had it been? He studied them as a geologist might examine the ancient bands of sedimentary layers in exposed rock. Ceezarr poured vodka into the coagulated blood of an alliog and gave it a quick stir. “Want a drink?”

“I don’t drink,” Healer snarled, thin membranous ears flattening on his head. The essay he had written back in med school postulating that the early human settlers had intentionally introduced alcohol to the kzinti in order to keep them docile (and the interspecies controversy it caused) had been one of the major ideological wedges between them.

The older kzintosh took a hearty swig. “What do you want, Healer-of-Hunters?” He ignored the human in the room.

“Honored Ceezarr, I know about the kzinti warship that suddenly appeared at the edge of our system.”

“It’s dead. The robotic sentries around the system aren’t detecting any active signatures. I say give them the fiery end these brave Heroes deserve.” Dan understood that the Great Ceezarr wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Patriarchy. He was as eager to be rid of this ship as the leaders of Angel’s Tome.

“Those sentries are a hundred years old. They could be faulty!” That came out dangerously close to sounding like the derision tense.

Dan could feel the situation quickly spiraling into fury. He needed to splash some cold reason on these potential fires. “Dominant One, I’ve met with the Triumvirate and I feel they aren’t fit to claim this prey. The Separatists will stifle all research and the Rejoiners will foolishly bound into the jaws of the Patriarchy. I believe this ship would be better off here, in Shrawl’ta, where we will use its secrets to further strengthen Sheathclaws as a whole.”

“Do not presume to dictate to me, boy! You are not your grandmother.” Fear flew off this mighty kzin like cosmic rays from the sun.

Healer hesitated for a second, then leapt into what would surely end up as a word-duel, or worse. “I mean to lead an expedition to the ship. I need Shadow’s Chariot. If I can rescue anyone aboard, my mission would be complete, but if I can bring back much-needed technology to our young civilization-”

“Civilization!” The old kzin gulped the rest of the drink and slammed the glass down on the bar. “Since when does my savage son, the one who abandoned an honorable career as a brilliant doctor to chase down game in the wilds of Raoneer, care about civilization?”

“You know many of my generation, of yours too, chose to live as kzinti should, hunting the brutal creatures of this untamed world. There is no shame in that!”

“No, there isn’t. Normal kzintosh are allowed the luxury of roaming the cold steppes of this world and live as the Maned God intended.”

“Am I not a normal kzintosh?”

“No, you are the direct descendant of the Ancestor. You have a duty to Shrawl’ta, the settlement he founded on Raoneer.” He glowered at Dan with ember-colored eyes, “Your ancestor too, boy.”

“Don’t be so proud, Ceezarr! All kzinti on Sheathclaws are descendants of Shadow! The original refugees amounted to barely two eights. We’re already having to abort fetuses with severe health problems! If I can bring back any survivors, we can deepen our gene pool.” Dan sensed the acute single-minded sting of primal emotion springing from Healer. It was almost a biological imperative, like the fundamental passions of pteranobats on their long, arduous journey from one end of the Panungius continent to the other to mate.

“Do not speak of our Ancestor’s blood with such insolence!” The tips of teeth poked out from Ceezarr’s jaw. His ears virtually disappeared.

“Careful father, I believe Shadow would disapprove of your creating a new Patriarchy around his lineage.” Four sicklelike claws raked across Healer’s face as the last syllable rolled out of his mouth. The powerful blow threw him clear across the room. Years of living rough allowed him to quickly recover. He’d been thrown off wombadons too many times. He poised himself, ready to pounce on the graying kzintosh, purple blood dripping on the lavish carpet.

“If you believe you can kill me, leap now and take Shadow’s Chariot!” Ceezarr bent his knees digging his protracted hind claws past the carpeting and well into the floorboards, his thick tail cracking like a whip, an impressive show of dominance. “If not, go back to your miserable hinterland and don’t return until you’ve earned a proper Name!”

The rational part of Healer, telling him that this was his father, receded with his lips leaving behind only a mouth full of sleek pearly teeth. They screamed and leapt. Dan backed away against the wall. It wasn’t the two massive bodies tearing each other and the office apart; it was the raw inhuman emotional emissions coming from the blazing tornado of fur.

Ceezarr mangled his son’s blocking arm with no visible sign of restraint. Despite the awful pain, Healer-of-Hunters struck with the speed of a killer and the conviction of a surgeon. With four black scalpels, he sliced muscles and tendons, punctured vital organs and severed fat oozing arteries. Twenty-three precise incisions later, the leader of all Raoneer dropped like a limp orange pelt.

“I wasn’t asking permission to take the ship,” Healer growled in the venomous Menacing Tense. He stalked out of the room leaving a sprinkled trail of urine in his path. Dan scurried out behind him careful not to step in the victory piss.

Several long minutes of crippling pain and fury passed. Ceezarr breathed deeply, carefully contemplating each stinging gash and aching bone. Then he clawed his way up to his desk and slammed on the holocomm. He snarled the voice command for the Triumvirate offices in Harp.

The crisp holographic portrait of Trimunvir Jibunoh appeared standing next to him. Horror spread across her perfectly rendered face. “Ceezarr! What happened? Has there been a coup?”

“Of a sort, Triumvir, my son, Healer-of-Hunters and Daneel Guthlac are taking control of Shadow’s Chariot and plan to rescue the smashed warship. We can no longer ignore the problem.”

“This is terrible!” She looked away as if absently listening to an aide, then turned back to Ceezarr. “Why are your ears flapping like a giddy old fool?”

“Because, Galia, my wayward kitten has finally become a grown kzintosh.”

Shadow’s Chariot

Healer hastily spritzed artificial epidermis on his shredded arm as they made their way toward the great plaza where Shadow’s Chariot had been reverently parked. Dan didn’t speak. He simply processed all the primal sensations he had just bathed in.

They entered the flat, ovoid vehicle as kzinti and human tourists gaped in horror at their sacrilege.

“If it was this easy to jump into the ship and take it, why did we bother confronting your father?” Dan finally mustered.

“That would have been disrespectful.”

“But maiming him wasn’t?”

“No.”

Shadow’s Chariot had a small command bridge consisting of a plush, crescent-shaped couch hugging an intricate command console clearly designed for massive paws.

“I know why you’re so focused on this warship,” Dan said finally, plugging his data tablet into the barge’s control panel. All information on the warship immediately downloaded into the antique ship’s navigational computer. New charts and figures appeared on the surrounding screens.

“Do you?” Healer played at the controls and the long-atrophied gravity motors hummed to life.

“Yeah, you’re lonely.” Now that Dan had said it, he felt the waves of loneliness languorously rolling off his companion.

“Kzinti don’t require the complex social structures of primates.”

“Still, at your age you should already have a couple mates and a few kittens running around.”

The museum artifact that had lain dormant for a century achieved escape velocity in impressive defiance of inertia. Tight laser communiqués were pouring in from all over Angel’s Tome, particularly from Harp. They ignored them.

“I could say the same for you.”

“I do alright. I work at a university, have a dangerous Raoneer accent and drive a sexy car.”

A new red line had appeared on all the displays of the solar system, this one cutting a straight path directly toward the other wandering line of the warship.

“Really, the accent?” Healer’s ears flicked like the elongated thoracic ribs of the small gliding pangolins found all over the indigo canopies of Angel’s Tome.

“The females love it when I turn my S’s into Z’s and roll my R’s.”

“To be honest, since deceit is apparently physiologically impossible for me, I’m finding it difficult to find a compatible mate. They smell uncomfortably familiar to me.”

“That’s because they are,” Dan said, but noticed that Healer’s ears stopped flicking. He knew he had touched a sore spot. “Look, it isn’t a problem for other kzintosh. It’s got to be mental with you. I think because of your medical training, you know that genetically all kzinti on Sheathclaws are closely related, so it’s become a thing for you.”

“Possibly,” he said, scratching the tan fur on his chin. “Why did we stop being friends, Dan? I believe kzinti are better off with humans calling them out on their quirks.”

“You grew up too fast. You were out picking off wombadons while I was still picking my nose.”

“Perhaps there’s a harem of foreign kzinretti on that ship waiting to be rescued.”

“You know females aren’t allowed on warships.”

“Unless there’s an Admiral aboard.” Healer dialed up four scarlet meal bricks and demolished them in two gulps. “Hungry?”

“Yes, but I’d rather have a medium-rare steak and a glass of wine.”

Healer and Dan stopped talking a hundred kilometers away from the derelict, their radar bounced back a significant ping. They toggled the screens to video view. The blast-smeared, crimson ship looked like the jagged disc of a crab’s discarded carapace.

Shadow’s Chariot warily approached the drifting ghost ship and matched speeds with it. It was so immense that it could easily swallow their barge whole. A series of blackened commas and dots were emblazoned on its side.

“What is that, the ship’s name? What does it say?”

Healer looked at it for a moment and said, “I have no idea. My written Heroes’ Tongue is horrible. My instruments confirm that there are no life signs. Although, some basic system is still running because I can detect an active power flow.”

“Yeah, I’m not picking up any emotional activity at all.” He felt Healer’s deep disappointment and added, “But I wouldn’t if they were frozen. The good news is that the long-range communications antenna has been destroyed. The bad news is that all that mysterious machinery that seems to be part of their FTL also looks damaged.”

“Look there.” Healer highlighted the area on the screen. “That gash on the starboard side, that’s what killed it. If we can seal it, we can repressurize the whole upper deck and get access to the bridge.”

“Alright, I’m releasing a repair robot now.” Dan typed the instructions into his tablet. A fat robot the size of a pregnant wombadon jetted out from the underbelly of Chariot and proceeded to work on the fissure in a blur of quick and numerous articulate manipulators.

“I’m going to take us in. We can land in the hanger bay and simply walk to the bridge without excursion suits.”

“Is that wise?”

“Perhaps not, but I want to inspect the ship first before I tow it any closer to Sheathclaws.”

Healer sent ancient override codes from Shadow’s Chariot archives until one managed to coax the hanger bay doors open, then they deliberately burrowed into the wrecked craft, like a scavenger digging into a rotting carcass. The Chariot touched down in the cavernous boat deck amid rows of smaller, long dead fighters.

The repair robot finished spraying the gash with epoxy and Healer and Dan waited impatiently for the warship’s resurrected life support systems to slowly refill the chamber with atmosphere.

Righteous Manslaughter

“We have air outside,” Healer reported at last and grabbed a supply pack. “Let’s go. We can move behind the wave of life support activation.”

Dan grabbed a beam gun. It was manufactured for big dexterous paws, but he’d hunted with them extensively in his teens.

“You don’t think any frozen passengers we thaw might find the weapon a bit provocative?”

“Well, I was going to have claws and fangs genetically implanted, but I don’t think I could pull off the look.”

“Point taken.”

It took an arduous hour of trekking through murky, labyrinthine corridors and service tubes. The corpses of kzinti warriors, contorted by explosive decompression, were scattered everywhere. Healer stopped here and there, taking DNA samples from the bodies showing the least amount of cellular damage from space.

“The bridge should be through here. It’ll take a minute for the atmosphere to build up, then-”

A detonation of emotions shook Dan. He bashed the back of his head on the floor repeatedly and his limbs flailed about wildly. He vaguely felt Healer restrain him before he thrashed himself to death. With great effort, Dan pulled himself together and croaked, “There are kzinti here. Alive! It’s like they just sprang into existence, radiating rage, confusion and terror.”

Healer looked at the tablet that was slaved to Chariot’s sensor array and saw that seven individuals had suddenly appeared on the bridge. “Rest. I’m going to talk to them.”

“Talk to them?”

Healer ignored the protestation and punched up the bridge, relaying the signal through Chariot. Instantly, the furious face of a warrior showed on the screen. Three black stripes ran down his face like war paint. “Who is this?” he snarled.

“I am First Medic. Are you in need of medical assistance?”

“I am Tdakar-Commander. Our Captain Fnar-Ritt is a corpse honorably still at his post. There are six of us wounded Heroes and one telepath sheltering on the bridge.”

“And the Admiral?”

“There is no Admiral aboard Righteous Manslaughter. Fnar-Ritt was the highest ranking officer and now that honor falls on me.”

Healer felt a knot tighten in the pit of this stomach. There are no females here. All he could hope to accomplish now was boosting Sheathclaws’ general gene pool, if not his own. He pushed his loneliness aside and asked, “Where were you a second ago? My ship’s sensors failed to pick you up.”

“Obviously in stasis!” The stupid question roused suspicion in the commander. “First Tech tells me you are aboard an outdated Admiral’s Barge. Explain.”

“No, we are outside the bridge, but we’re relaying the transmission from the barge. We lost our ship in battle and this was all that was available to us, but we continue to perform our duty of search and rescue.”

“What are you doing?” Dan whispered. He could feel the velvety footfalls of a powerful alien telepath prowling in his mind. He tried to push it out.

“Lying through my teeth, despite my neurological handicap,” Healer hissed to the side, then continued speaking to Tdakar-Commander. “Permission to enter the bridge and attend the crew?”

The commander scowled at Healer through narrowed blue eyes for a chilling moment, then barked, “Permission granted!”

“The telepath scanned us, but I don’t think he’ll report us. What’s the plan?”

“We go in there and I deal with the injured warriors. Since you’re the only one with any kind of active telepathic ability, you need to appeal to the telepath. Tell him that if everyone is to survive, he needs to mentally persuade all the warriors to cooperate.”

“Failing that?”

“We kill everyone in that room and clone them afterwards.”

When Dan didn’t reply, Healer allowed his ears and fur to sleek over with fear. “If I am permitted a moment of weakness, Dan, I dread these warriors may be too fierce for me. They are truly of the Heroic Race.”

“Trust me, it’s not their ferocity we should fear, it’s their philosophy. I sense nothing but utter contempt for humanity in that room.”

Healer forced his ears to ripple. “A barrel of bloodka would go a long way in pacifying them.”

“You’re a hypocrite.”

The door to the bridge slid open exuding the foul stench of kzinti blood and sweat. Seven badly injured creatures, miraculously still at their stations, all bared slobbering canines like dripping icicles. Dan was acutely aware that he was the only human in the room and reflexively held his heavy gun a little tighter.

“What is this pathetic kz’eerkt doing on my bridge? No filthy monkey slaves are permitted here!” Tdakar-Commander roared at the rude affront to his ship’s honor.

“He is not a slave. Daneel Guthlac is a valued companion. He’s here to help.”

The wounded warriors’ ears flapped like a flock of migrating pteranobats. Healer controlled his withdrawing lips and used the break in tension to begin examining the kzinti. Not one of them was older than the foolish youngster he had healed back at his hut.

Dan stayed focused on the empty-looking, shriveled kzin that sat in the far corner of the room. He looked like the many corpses they had passed on their way to the bridge. Slowly, the wraithlike kzin reached over to a stand near his couch and plucked a needle from a wide assortment of syringes arrayed like instruments of torture. He thrust it into his arm.

“Who…What, are you? I’ve examined both your minds and you are neither man nor kzin, but an abomination,” Manslaughter’s Telepath directed the thought toward Dan.

Dan, not used to direct mental communication, transmitted his response. “We come from a planet colonized by humans and an escaped kzin telepath. We’re here to offer you sanctuary.”

Healer cracked a leg of a kzintosh that had started to heal wrongly and set it right. The warrior only winced at the excruciating pain. He tore away sheets of charred flesh from the muscles of another Hero who had suffered third-degree burns over his body and drenched him in synthetic skin. All the while, he subtly delivered a mild sedative to each one. Tdakar-Commander watched him like a hungry predator. Healer-of-Hunters continued until all the wounded were taken care of. Then he warily moved toward Tdakar-Commander. “These warriors are mere kits. Their spots not yet faded.”

“The grand campaigns against the humans have left us scrounging for war-ready Heroes,” Tdakar-Commander replied, eying his motley assortment of bloodstained warriors. “These kits, as you call them, hail from all over the Empire: First Tech from a moon orbiting Hssin, Weapons Master from Ka’asai, Navigator from the habitats of Sårng, Chief Programmer from Shasht, Systems Controller from W’kkai. Young perhaps, but Heroes all.”

“Can it be that against all odds, in my desperation, I’ve landed us at the gates of paradise?” The telepath silently asked Dan, his body slouched lifelessly, as if his disembodied spirit had spoken.

“I wouldn’t call it paradise. It’s more a boondocks full of scared people who just want to hide. You’ll be safe there and free to earn a Name and a harem, but it’ll take hard work and cunning,” Dan thought back.

“You’ve got a serious gash running down your side,” Healer moved to look at the commander’s oozing scar.

“Do you think me a fool?” Tdakar-Commander unsheathed eight long, black claws. “Your strange accent and odor, your whole demeanor screams impostor, yet you know your craft well.”

“I really am a doctor.”

“I don’t doubt that, I doubt your Heroic nature.”

“Let’s cut the crap then, commander. I am not a Hero. In fact, I come from a world free of the Patriarchy, a world with wide wintry steppes and tundra the color of venous blood. Our multihued sky lights up under constant bombardment from our orange, subgiant sun. Strange and challenging beasts are plentiful for the cunning hunter and many of us have chosen to live as kzintosh were intended.”

“Are you telepathically calming the warriors?” Dan asked the telepath when he didn’t get a mental reply.

“Quit jabbering, monkey, I wish to hear more of this savage utopia,” the telepath snapped, without moving his jaw.

“It sounds glorious, Imposter, and I believe you. I can taste sharp, sylvan molecules rising from your fur. I would like very much to hunt on these alien moors, but I am bound by Honor to continue the war with humanity until we’re victorious or I die.”

“I can provide you and your warriors with two females each and enough land to lose yourselves in.”

Dan wasn’t getting anywhere with the telepath. “Can you psychically persuade Tdakar into coming to Sheathclaws? It should be easy, I can sense his desire to abandon this futile war and live the simple life of a hunter.”

“Tell me about this Maned God I read in your minds.”

“It’s nothing. A local superstition, a religious syncretism.” Dan failed to see how the question related to their immediate predicament.

“I see that Gutting Claw’s Telepath had a vision of the human’s Bearded God merged with the kzinti Fanged God.”

“It was a drug-induced hallucination.”

“I sincerely hope this Maned God is more merciful than the Fanged God.”

Suddenly, Dan felt something deeply wrong with Manslaughter’s Telepath. Years of suffering and drug abuse had left his mind critically scarred and twisted.

“My tormentors and slave masters will not lay a hind claw upon the soil of paradise.” It was the last coherent thought sent by the telepath. After that there was only mental static.

“I take it you will not give us any other choice?” Tdakar-Commander said to Healer.

Healer protracted his own claws, sharpened on the bones of animals far larger and less injured than Tdakar-Commander. “I’m sorry. I cannot allow you to escape and reveal our position, but your ship is severely damaged and you wouldn’t be able to leave even if I allowed you to.”

“A death-duel then.” Tdakar flipped out his gleaming wtsai with well-practiced elegance. “If I die, my warriors are ordered to stand down and retire to your primeval hunting park.” Tdakar’s tail moved in a way that subtly told Healer this was as far as he was willing to yield. At least the kit warriors under his command would have a better life.

“He’s mentally ill!” Dan screamed. “He’s going to kill them all!”

Tdakar plunged his blade into Healer’s gut. Healer let rip a terrible, shrill whine. He staggered as the skilled Hero pulled it cleanly out. Blinded by pain, Healer-of-Hunters lashed out instinctively, chomping down on Tdakar-Commander’s neck and pulverizing his spine. Steamy purple and orange blood gushed out of Tdakar’s yawning mouth, black nostrils and limp ears. His body went rigid, then fell into Healer’s arms. They both collapsed to the floor in a jumble of damp fur. For a second, Healer sat there, horrified.

“Do not mourn the good commander, Healer-of-Hunters. If you’d been born on another world, around another star, he’d have bound you in the unbreakable chemical shackles of the sthondat drug and enslaved you without a moment’s hesitation.” Manslaughter’s Telepath spoke verbally for the first time. His voice was harsh and raspy like mauve grass during the dry season. He lurched out of his couch and paced the bridge without taking his eyes off Healer. “These common brutes are not worthy of, what is it, Sheathclaws?” He bent over and took the sidearm from Fnar-Ritt’s burnt corpse.

“What are you doing?” was all Healer could say before his lips and ears pulled back in unrestrained rage.

“Calm yourself, Healer, I have a proposition for you. I can sense your lust for unrelated females. The Patriarch is desperate to breed more Heroes able to use a mass pointer for navigation, so he conceded two females aboard this ship, in Fnar-Ritt’s quarters. They were probably locked in a stasis field once that deck decompressed.”

He fired a shot at one of the young warriors, the tall, lanky one from Ka’asai, sending him sprawling over his console. “Allow me to cleanse this vessel of butchers and we can all go down to Sheathclaws victorious.” None of the other lame Heroes moved. The cadaverous telepath dulled their already distressed and anesthetized minds. Another beam ignited System’s Controller.

Dan felt Healer waiver. He’d have mates and DNA samples, his friend would have all the technology he wanted, and this poor wretched telepath would finally find refuge, but as he looked at the remaining spot-spangled adolescents frightened and vicious, he couldn’t let them be simply slaughtered. Was it his training as a doctor or had a century of living with humans infected this carnivore with crippling humanity? “No,” Dan heard his friend hiss through still-gritted, exposed teeth. He tried to push Tdakar off him.

“I’ve read your minds and I know their continued existence is not necessary for your mission to succeed. You can always grow them in a vat later. Is that not what you said?”

Healer could no longer speak, so Dan shouted for him, “This is murder! We had them sold! A simple push would’ve been enough!”

“No, monkey, this is vengeance!” The psychotic telepath turned his awful power on Dan’s meager defenses. “I can mow you all down and pilot this ship to your planet if I have to. Take the females for myself!”

Dan’s verbal ability was torn from him along with shreds of his higher brain functions. His frontal lobes pulsated with slashes of pain. With what little control he still possessed, Daneel Guthlac bared his teeth, raised his gun and squeezed out a neat blue shaft of light that scorched its way between the telepath’s eyes. The preternatural din died at once. Dan’s quivering husk buckled.

Hours passed and Righteous Manslaughter continued on its tumble toward the hungry orange sun. Healer-of-Hunters woke with a pounding headache and excruciating pain in his stomach. The wrecked bodies of kzintosh and Dan were tossed helter-skelter across the bridge, an occasional twitch the only sign of possible life. The faint scent of cooked brains still lingered in the recycled air.

Chief Programmer loomed ominously over him. “Can you really deliver on all your promises?”

“Yes,” Healer said, trying to get up, readying himself for another fight.

“Take it easy, Imposter. While you were unconscious we agreed to abide by Tdakar-Commander’s last order. We cleaned and bandaged your wound from the supplies in your medical pack. Your brave monkey is still out cold. Also, we checked on the kzinretti. Once we got life support working down there, the stasis field winked off.”

Healer sat on his haunches at the center of the bridge for a long while, like a hunter waiting for prey to amble by. He ignored the pain shooting through his abdomen. All this chaos had been his fault. He had a responsibility to salvage it somehow.

“Thank you, Chief Programmer. I will take my friend and go back to our ship. I can tow us to Sheathclaws with it.” Healer took careful tissue samples from the two fallen kits, then from Tdakar-Commander and Manslaughter’s Telepath. Perhaps the two bitter enemies would be reborn on Sheathclaws as allies. When Healer-of-Hunters was done, he threw Dan’s body over his shoulder like a fresh kill.

He noticed the innocuous little tray with its collection of needles. He was, in theory, a powerful telepath, the product of uncontrolled breeding (inbreeding) with the genes of two telepaths in his pride. He had no training in the Telepathic Arts, but maybe he could make up for that in raw talent. Without a moment’s hesitation, he walked to the tray, selected the largest dose of the sthondat drug and left the bridge.

Healer marched back down long twisting corridors toward his ship. The insubstantial weight of his friend was heavy on his mind. He entered the cramped bridge of Shadow’s Chariot and carefully laid Dan’s unconscious body on the command couch. Although the damage was not physical, he hooked Dan up to the barge’s autodoc.

He piloted his ship out of the hanger bay of the colossal derelict. Healer took hold of it with magnetic grapplers and began steering the wreck toward his planet. Healer-of Hunters had won. He had taken an advanced warship for Sheathclaws and mates for himself. He saved four young kzintosh from certain death. His triumph felt utterly empty. When he was sure they were on course, he administered the sthondat drug into the crook of his arm and sat next to Dan.

The Eleventh Sense burst within his skull and his awareness of the universe blossomed into pure satori. It was a near impossible task to focus on the pale, dismembered mind lying before him. He took a deep breath and set to work on the tattered mind of his only friend. He mended memories and reattached loose bits of personality. After the initial high, Healer’s body began to shiver and his fur became matted with sweat, but he continued to toil with the resolve of a dedicated physician. He diligently stitched intellect, instinct and soul as close as possible to how it had been before the attack. As the massive dose of the unfamiliar drug bled from his system, he hung on long enough to seal Dan’s mind, then fainted.

When Healer came to for the second time, his mouth was parched and his long pink tongue hung from his jaw like dried leather. He pushed himself up and waves of nausea swirled in his belly, the taste of sour, half-digested meal bricks in the back of his throat. Dan still lay unresponsive on the couch. He looked more at peace, but the doc registered no change. Had he dreamed his telepathic surgery? Healer dialed Manslaughter’s bridge, and two of the warriors, First Tech and Navigator, came on the commscreen. “What’s going on?” His booming roar came out a hoarse whisper.

“We’ve established a parking orbit around the planet,” First Tech said formally. “We’re receiving many messages from the surface, but we decided you should be the one to answer them.”

Healer-of-Hunters stood and paused a minute, letting the queasiness subside. “In a minute,” he said, and the silent juvenile waited. He switched the view to the barge’s external cameras and looked at the magnificent bruise-colored world, still new and untamed. Despite an overwhelming sense of loss, Healer’s ears weakly flitted. A young Hero could be happy down there.