[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

personal. "A legitimate bastard of a long line of bastards, who does his best
to out-bastard them all. He'd cut your throat for six rounds of pistol
ammunition, if he needed them."
"Didn't strike me as a bandit."
"Worse, a True Believer . . . and you can whistle in the wind for that ship."
She smiled. "That ship, you might say she has a mind of her own; really, we've
got a hold on it."
Then you'll be off to the Swarm, Yarthkin thought.
Playing dodgem with the ratcats, you and that Jonah. Flirting with danger and
living proud. There was a taste of bile at the back of his mouth. Remembering
the long slow years of defeat, strength crumbling away as one after another
despaired; until nothing was left but the fanatics and the outlaws, a nuisance
to the enemy and a deadly danger to their own people. What was honor, going on
with the killing when it had all turned pointless and rancid, or taking the
amnesty and picking up the pieces of life? But not for you. You and Jonah,
you'll win or go out in a blaze of glory. No dirty alliances and dirtier
compromises and decisions with no good choices. The two of you have stolen my
life.
"Get out," he said. "Get the hell out."
"No." She took his hand and led him toward the stairs.
Chapter 5
Chuut-Riit shook his clawed fists in the air and screamed. "I will have his
ears! I will have his testicles for my cubs to eat! I
will kill, kill, kill-"
Someone bit his tail, hard. The kzinti governor leapt for the ceiling
screeching, whirled, and landed in attack position;
almost horizontal, with hands outstretched.
It was Conservor. Chuut-Riit halted his leap before it began, glaring
murderously at the priest-counsellor. His calm was unkzin, only a slight
quirking of eyebrow-tufts and whiskers indicating sympathetic amusement; his
scent had the almost buttery flavor of complete relaxation. Yet of his own
will
Chuut-Riit was apprentice in the ways of the
Conservors-unorthodox for a high noble, but not without precedent-and such
tricks were among the teaching techniques.
"You must think before you attack, Chuut-Riit,"
Conservor said firmly. "You must. This I lay on you in the name of the God."
The younger kzin rose and began pacing; the inner sanctum was a five-meter
square of sandstone block, with the abstract-looking sculptures and
scent-markings of his ancestors standing in niches in the walls. Iron braziers
wrought in the shape of crossed claws glowed, sending trails of incense to the
high blackened beams of the ceiling. For the rest it was empty save for the
low desk and three reclining cushions, with floors of sanded pine.
Traat-Admiral occupied the third cushion, and he was quivering-eager for
battle, ears folded away and gingery anger-smell rising from him.
"I cannot tolerate open flouting of my authority,"
Page 182
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Chuut-Riit said. He had forced enough relaxation that his tail lashed instead
of standing out behind him like a rigid pink column of muscle. "What am I to
do?
Turn him loose in my harem? Invite him to urinate on the shrines?"
One arm slashed at the figures; some of them were so ancient that nostrils
must flare to take their scent. He licked his nose and inhaled deeply with his
mouth open. The smell of their strength and pride flowed into him, heartening
and maddening at the same time.
"Ktrodni-Stkaa disclaims all responsibility for the destruction of the Feud
and the Severed-Vein," Conservor said. Traat-Admiral let his lips flutter
against his fangs, derisive laughter.
"No," Conservor continued, making a palm-up gesture:
do not seize what you cannot hold. "Ktrodni-Stkaa is . . . hasty. He is your
enemy. He is not the best tactician in the fleets of the Great Pack. He is
overproud of his blood. But he is a Hero; he would not engage in such
deception against an honorable"-that was, kzinti-"foe."
"Unless he has decided that I am not worthy of honorable combat, because of my
cautious ideas," Chuut-Riit said. He snarled, drooling slightly, fingers
flexing as he imagined fangs grinding into bone as he brought up his rear feet
and ripped and ripped and ripped . . .
"That is so," Conservor acknowledged with a ripple of his spinal fur. "Yet the
balance of hard data could be construed to support his claim of
noninvolvement.
Is this not so?"
Traat-Admiral gave a grunting cough and licked angrily at his forearms for a
moment. "The fur lies flat in that direction," he
said grudgingly. "Few recordings survived the EMP of the engagement. They show
only a corvette of the
Bone-Breaker class, of which there are thousands.
Data is insufficient for identification. With the damage to our systemwide
surveillance net, we have no direct remote tracking of where it went. Perhaps
it is as Ktrodni-Stkaa says"-Traat-Admiral's claws slid in, sign of
unconscious distaste-"and an individual firebrand was responsible."
"Arreeoghw," Chuut-Riit said; he had stopped in mid-stride, his fur bottling
out. "Bone-Breaker class-that is the older specification, is it not?"
The other two kzinti flexed thumbclaws in agreement;
when Chuut-Riit had arrived two decades ago he had brought the latest designs
from the inner worlds. Not that there had been great differences-warship
design was a mature technology, like most within the Patriarchy-but there had
been some refinements in weapons mountings.
"Many of those would have been dispatched with the
Fourth Fleet," Chuut-Riit continued softly, musing. "Very many. According to
the reports of the survivors, Kfraksha-Admiral lost a number of vessels
relatively intact."
"Arrrh." Traat-Admiral came up on all fours, back arching. Conservor sank down
fluidly, eyes seeking something beyond the walls.
"Arrrh," Traat-Admiral repeated. "The mass is low enough that the human
ramscoop vessel could have included a corvette. But deceleration-the energy
discharge- No corvette could carry enough fuel, not with the most efficient of
polarizers. And a reaction-drive deceleration is ridiculous; such a discharge
would have been a banner across the system for days."
Chuut-Riit licked meditatively at his wrist and smoothed his ears with it,
fluttering them out for the soothing feel of cool air on the pink bare-skin
membranes.
"Hrrrr. Doubtless correct. A thought, no more."
"Still," Conservor said. The two younger kzin started slightly. "Physics is
Page 183
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
not my specialty. Yet consider: we and the humans have been learning of each
other, in the best of schools." War-nothing taught you a being's inwardness
like fighting it. "If such a thing were possible, and if the humans had
learned somewhat of us, would this not be a shrewd jugular-strike?"
"Not if we knew-arrrhhhg. Ktrodni-Stkaa."
"Yes." They were all imagining trying to convince that arrogance that mere
monkeys were capable of playing on kzinti internal rivalries. Ktrodni-Stkaa
barely acknowledged that humans existed, save when he was hungry.
"Still, it is unlikely," Traat-Admiral said, twitching the end of his tail.
"So is sentience," Conservor said. Silence dwelt for long moments. "Let us
consider, and clear our minds."
All three sank into the hands-folded-under-chests posture of meditation and
let their chins sink to the floor.
* * *
"They've accepted our bid, Captain."
Jonah nodded stiffly. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Not that I'm surprised."
"No, sir."
Back in Sol system a thousand hackers had labored to produce advanced software
they thought might be salable on Wunderland. Most of it had been too advanced;
they'd predicted a higher state of the art than
Wunderland had retained, and the stuff wouldn't work on the ancient hardware.
Even so,
there was plenty that did work. It had only taken fifty days to make Jan
Hardman and Lucy van den Berg moderately big names in the Datamongers' Guild.
The computer records showed them as old timers, with a scattering of previous [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]