The Man-Kzin Wars 12

XIII

Old Conalus Leophagus, whose scars were mute testimony to the standard that had won his family their surname, walked with a marked limp until he was near his commander's workroom; then he straightened and strode as befit a herald. Outside the groveroom he coughed for attention; then he coughed a lot more.

Marcus Augustus came out and guided him in, bent over and gasping, to a seat with a back, and put him in it. The Jotoki leader, Kaluseritash, who had been coordinating plans with Marcus, opened a medical kit and got out a patch, which they slapped onto Conalus's neck. "You should not be performing extra duties," they said sternly.

"I wanted to be the one," Conalus wheezed, the adrenaline opening his lungs already, "to give the news. Caesar, the hyperdrives"-he pronounced the foreign word carefully-"are being installed even now. The crews will be ready to steal the ships as soon as we can start our diversion."

"Well done," said Marcus. "Ask each legionary if he is certain, then tell them: the morning after tomorrow. And Conalus…are you certain?" he said, a little sadly.

"I am, Caesar. I am too weakened to hold a shield on the line, but I can kill one more kzin this way." He grinned abruptly. "Maybe two or three. I'm a big man."

"So say the women, too," Marcus replied, and they laughed together for a moment before Marcus Augustus sent the man who taught him swordsmanship out to die.

"Trader, your resourcefulness is truly astonishing," Warrgh-Churrg said, admiring his reflection in the stasis box. "I accept your opening offer."

"Thank you, Potent One," Ginger said, astounded and not a little concerned that he'd underpriced the thing-oh, well, they had two more. "It might be best not to deploy it before opening of outright hostilities."

"Deploy?"

"On your flagship?"

"Ftah. This thing guarantees fresh meat whenever I want! What is it?" Warrgh-Churrg snarled at the human messenger who had just crept in.

"Warrgh-Churrg, there is an attack by ferals on your hunting estate," the messenger quavered from the floor, emphasizing his entire Name, as was wisest when delivering really bad news.

"Fools. What part of the border?"

"All, Warrgh-Churrg."

"WHAT?" he screamed. "How many?"

"The immediate report was more than five sixty-fours, Warrgh-Churrg."

Warrgh-Churrg howled red wrath. "Trader, do you wish to go on a hunt?"

"I wasn't expecting to leave my monkey alone that long," Ginger said. "It gets into things… "

"Fine, go to your ship! You, tell my bursar to pay for this!…I'll be using this at once," Warrgh-Churrg said with some satisfaction. He switched off the field, then folded the container and left with it.

The messenger peeked after him when he was gone. Then he looked at Ginger.

And winked.

Slave Instructor was overseeing circuit tests of the new installation when the emergency call came in. He listened to his helmet speaker in growing amazement, then announced to his gang, "Down tools, we're stopping work to go planetside."

A human slave with a welding laser raised his visor. "Master, I've got the gravity planer working well enough to take the ship there directly."

"That hardly matters to me," Slave Instructor said haughtily.

"True," said the human, lowering his visor again.

Slave Instructor just had time to notice the other humans and the Jotoki covering their eyes before the laser flared.

They were in zero gee. Slave Instructor's last sight was an inverted view, of a kzin, in space armor, arms flailing, looking very foolish without a head.

The loading might have been practiced every day. In a sense, it had been; a legionary's life was one of constant drills and exercises, almost all of them (up to now) for things that never did happen.

The Jotoki had maintained piloting skills with tenderly preserved simulators.

The noncombatants-meaning the very young and the crippled, for everyone else fought-had centuries they were attached to, and if some became confused and didn't form up with the troops, they were found. A number of children were found in favorite places they didn't want to leave; but they were all found.

There were others who were normally noncombatants…

Warrgh-Churrg had commanded that he be uninterrupted in the hunt.

The ferals didn't provide much sport, but they displayed astounding destructive capabilities. A favorite tactic was setting a grass fire upwind of a herd of zianya. This had the added effect of overloading the ziirgrah sense, making the humans harder to pay attention to.

The hunt took eleven days. Messengers for him-all kzinti-had been sent back to his palace to await his pleasure.

When Warrgh-Churrg's cargo carrier, bearing tons of fresh meat in stasis, landed in his courtyard, the first thing the Marquis saw on emerging was Trrask-Rarr. The lordling appeared to be sunning himself. Warrgh-Churrg-who had been getting a little twitchy just lately-was too startled to be angry. He ambled over to where his rival lay and said, "What are you doing here?"

"Being courteous," Trrask-Rarr literally purred. "I was certain you wouldn't want to hear this from someone you liked. The humans and Jotoki are gone."

"Have someone round them up," Warrgh-Churrg told Hunt Master.

"They're gone, Warrgh-Churrg," chuckled Trrask-Rarr. "They took the ships you rebuilt for them, and they left. The only ones left on the planet are in your meat locker there."

He was far too pleased for Warrgh-Churrg not to take offense. He took a deep breath and began to crouch, and a voice from the donjon gate called, "Warrgh-Churrg, I have come to guide you on a journey."

He froze, and slowly turned.

Great golden eyes in a face of deepest black confronted him. More golden eyes were tattooed on the ears and the tail.

His tail drooped and lay on the ground. "Holy One, your Name?"

"I am Nabichi," said the Blackfur. "You are called upon to share your wisdom and be instructed in turn."

The Question, and death by torture. "But why?"

"Your plans were revealed earlier, though not in time to prevent the theft of the slaves. We will learn where you have had them taken, be assured."

Warrgh-Churrg sagged all over, and followed the Inquisitor of the Fanged God out the castle gate, to his doom. There was really nothing else he could do.

Trrask-Rarr bounced to his feet and said, "Show me those supplies." When the stasis box was opened, he took a long sniff and said, "Already seasoned. How very thoughtful. Invite the other lords to a feast tonight. I am celebrating the ownership of my new castle."

The ships had to break out of hyperspace periodically to communicate for course adjustments, as Jubilee had the only hyperwave. There were meetings of leaders at those times. During the fifth such stop, Ginger found time to tell Marcus Augustus, "I figured out about the garlic."

"I am impressed."

"Not as impressed as I am. You've had it planned for how long?"

Marcus looked surprised and said, "I don't know." He looked at Kaluseritash.

"About three hundred years," said the Jotoki leader.

"What about the garlic?" Perpetua said.

"They've been eating garlic before going out to fight kzinti," said Ginger, "to get their enemies accustomed to the smell. Their gold ore was combined with tellurium. It's a poisonous metal. One of the symptoms of tellurium poisoning is 'garlic breath,' according to Jubilee's database."

Marcus took over. "It tends to accumulate in the liver. A man can build up a tolerance for it, but it makes his lungs collect fluid." He looked distracted for a moment, then went on. "We had hundreds of volunteers-men and women too old or injured to fight very well or for long, but who wanted to strike one last blow."

"As did we," said Kaluseritash. "Anyone who eats them will suffer massive neural degeneration and circulatory disorders, and if lucky will die."

Perpetua was very wide-eyed. "You had that planned for three hundred years?"

" 'Use any weapon you can make, and make any weapon you can use.' Brutus Leophagus," said Marcus. "I hope it isn't much further to Wunderland. Metal walls disturb me. Are there caverns? It will be some time before we have trees growing properly."

"There are," Ginger said dubiously, "but there are dangerous native creatures in them. We thought we had killed them all, but the caverns stretched further and deeper than we knew. You might want to dig your own with disintegrators."

"Disintegrators? Are these weapons?" Marcus said, interested.

"Not very good ones. Too slow. They're used for digging and large sculpture," said Ginger. "They work by decreasing the charge of atomic particles, positive or negative depending on how they're set."

"What happens when you have one of each kind side by side?" said Marcus.

Ginger looked at Perpetua. Perpetua looked at Ginger.

"I think you'll be very welcome when the next war starts," said Perpetua.