The Man-Kzin Wars 04

CHAPTER 13

(2402 A.D.)

In its simplest design, the kzin gravity polarizer just floated. If it was shoved toward a mass, energy was fed into its polarizer field which forced it to rise. If it was pushed away from a mass, energy was drained from its polarizer field which forced it to fall.

The shuttle "platforms" that transported freight and passengers into and out of Wunderland's mass-well were straight modifications of this primitive device. Descent was controlled by electromagnetically bleeding the field to charge molecular distortion batteries. Ascent was controlled by feeding the field from those same batteries. Horizontal velocity was controlled by a torsion field interaction that spun-up or spun-down Wunderland's rotation.

The cycle was highly efficient, leaking some spillover energy at the electromagnetic-gravitic interface and some in tidal friction. When dropping from orbit around Wunderland to the surface, the shuttles polarizer rose only a few degrees in temperature.

Munchenport was a depressing introduction to the fabulous wealth that Trainer-of-Slaves had heard about all his life. A proper spacedrome had yet to be constructed. They settled onto an open field that was serviced by extruded buildings of recent fabrication, all square and ugly, all laid out and finished by forced labor. The Wundervolker wryly called it the "Himmelfahrte" both because it was from here that one ascended to the heavens and because so many of them had "gone to heaven" building it.

The number of unleashed man-beasts was appalling, lined up with their baggage, milling around, shuffling through the weapons scanners, arguing with attendants. Most of them were looking for work in the military industries of the Serpent's Swarm, needing the wages badly enough to be willing to build weapons that would be used against their father system. They smelled of unwashed bodies and poverty, a peculiar sweet-sour odor blending with the machinery-and-synthetics smell of the building and the residual ozone from cheap electric vehicles.

Ssis-Captain knew the routine. He hired some manbeasts of burden to carry his and Trainer's luggage to the aircar terminal. The clean cool breeze inside the car was a relief. "We'll go to the old city. It's better there," he said.

To a Hero born in space on a hostile outpost near a dying star, Munchen was odd for a city. This was a city? The low-pitched tile roofs weren't airtight and the windows opened to the atmosphere. From some views the buildings were hidden by the trees that shaded streets. The broad blue waters of the Donau cut through parks of palms and blooming frangipani. Of what use was the steel steeple of the Saint Joachim cathedral?

Ssis-Captain found a room for them in an old four-story brick mansion that had been converted for kzin use by knocking out the tops of all the interior doors.

He gave their luggage to an old man-female who staggered under the load, finally setting* down to breathe before dividing her job into two trips.

"She's ready for the glue-factory, commented Ssis, who was three times her size.

"It's a she? But she took your instructions!" Of course."

He stared at the old lady. Dumb male-animals Trainer-of-Slaves could understand, but females who comprehended sentences' He tried to imagine his mother speaking in whole phrases. He had talked enough to her, and sometimes… sometimes he had imagined that she was listening, such big round eyes she had.

It was a powerful deception. A kzinrett always gave the impression of being intelligent. Once as a spoiled hit in the Chirr-Nig household he had been so taken by this illusion that he had given his mother an adventure picture-book to read to him at nap-time. She had chewed the book to pieces.

But enough of amazement. They beeped their automatic car on its way, settled into their room, and set about to pad the rest of the way to the Admiralty by foot.

Trainer-of-Slaves had been close to only two monkeys in his life and found a city-herd of them disconcerting. Ssis-Captain just ignored the animals while they scurried around him or waited against a wall. They all wore clothes a fact somehow surprising to Trainer though obviously they belonged to no military unit. Since Chuut-Riits hunt on Hssin, he had imagined that naked was the natural state of all manbeasts.

The Admiralty could have whatever it wanted. At the time of the occupation they had wanted the Landholder's Ritterhaus. It stood with great Gothic arches and stone buttressing at the head of the cobblestoned

Grunderplatz. The victorious Heroes had not bothered to demolish the crowded bronze memorial of the Nineteen Founders, perhaps because the Ritterhaus dominated the group and the kzinti were in the Ritterhaus. Down there, those laboring bronze figures looked like hard-working slaves.

The Fourth Fleet bureaucracy was at a frenzy with the final logistic preparations and assignments just months away. Trainer-of-Slaves was received by a harassed kzin officer who kept having to duck under manheight doors as he busied himself trying to find his files. He couldn't remember which computer he had fed them to. Finally, in distraction, he reset his batlike ears and offered the absolute certainty of his help tomorrow, at the same time, if Trainer would be so good as to return.

They retreated to their lodgings in the old manor house. A dignified kzin passed them on the stairs with two leashed kzinretti. Females could be dangerous in a city; they tended to spat with any unpleasantly odorous animal who dared approach them, and man-beasts with alcohol on their breath were always likely victims. They would even attack a male kzin twice their size if the lives of kits were at stake.

"Reasonableness does not control female emotions," explained their patriarch. "Have a good night. You'll have to fold your ears against the kzin at the end of the hall he growls and fights ghosts in his sleep."

A return to the Admiralty in the morning produced puzzling results. The kzin clerk dismissed Trainer-of-Slaves, and when Trainer politely persisted, another kzin ducked out of an adjoining office.

"You are not qualified for the Fourth Fleet and your rating application has been refused."

"I have these recommendation…"

The huge red officer with yellow splotches in his fur hissed. Trainer-of-Slaves immediately took the hint, saluted with a sharp claw-across-face, and retreated.

That evening Trainer and Ssis-Captain were considering their other options at a trunkshuppen off one of the side streets that led into the Grunderplatz. There were no other kzin present at the Mondschein. The waitress was clearly terrified to serve them but she was brave in her order-taking.

"Guten Abend, ehrenvoll Helden," she trembled. "Haben Sie gewahlt?" When they were slow to reply, she suggested a popular bourbon with milk.

"Ich… nehme eine… Coca Cola," said Trainer-of-Slaves, twisting his tongue around his teeth with his best animal imitation.

Ssis-Captain's remarks in the Hero's Tongue were meowls and spits of derision and approval. "The place smells like vatach-in-a-cage." He was referring to the humid scent of furless fear. "Nice little planet, Hr-r?" He nodded his mane at the waitress while playfully punching Trainer. "I'll take one of those to curry my backside in my European castle." Then, he consulted his translator. "Ich nehme einen Whiskey Kentucky mit Milch," he ordered, before he returned to business.

"You have some slandering enemies here in Munchen so we shall go elsewhere which will lead directly back to higher lairs." Ssis-Captain had an invitation to the base at Gerning in the isolated northern province of Skogarna. "Friend Detector-Analyst is pleased with his post. The vast woods are isolated both from man-beast traffic and the arrogance of kzin patriarchs who are so well fed with land that they guard their holdings against the likes of us as if we were one-eyed kzinrett bandits."

Ssis-Captain rearranged his ears knowingly and flared his nostrils to hint that what he knew about the base was special. "Chuut-Riit established the Gerning station within months of his ascension as governor. The officers there are all kzin who sided with him in the struggle. Good contacts."

As he leaned forward with more conspiratorial details, Ssis-Captain s chair suddenly collapsed, and milk-in-bourbon arced to slosh onto his mane and vest. His massive head rose above the table with a fanged grin. When he was fully erect, his mane touching the low ceiling, he snarled in the direction of the pale bartender.

The other patrons, who had been uneasy, were now no longer even twitching.

Their waitress calmly dried her hands, sauntered to the door as if there was nothing more important going on than quitting time then fled.

Ah hero the giver rules the mind, thought Trainer-of-Slaves, noticing both the man-beast behavior and Ssis-Captain's rising rage. How much different was rage than fear? He knew enough not to touch Ssis for he could not hide his amusement, and too much tail whacking would turn the rage against himself. He appealed to the Captain's vanity as he, too, rose, "We'll have to wash your vest right away before the milk dries. Come." To the bartender he raised his glass, careful not to smile. He wanted to put that apprehensive creature at ease. "Zum Wohl!" he said, proud of his growing facility with animal grunts.

Ssis-Captain did not come right away. He took his rage out on the chair, taking the remnants of its poor wooden frame apart with bare hands and teeth as if it were a United Nations Warship.