by Larry Niven
“I suppose you must hold to my tail,” she said. He felt the long, wondrously luxuriant tail whisk across his chest and because it was totally dark, did as she told him. Nothing short of true and abiding friendship, he knew, would provoke her into such manhandling of her glorious, her sensual, her fundamental tail.
They scrambled past mounds of soft dirt until Locklear felt cool night air on his face. “You may quit insulting my tail now,” Kit growled. “We must wait inside this tunnel awhile. You take this: I do not use it well.”
He felt the cold competence of the object in his hand and exulted as he recognized it as a modern kzin sidearm. Crawling near with his face at her shoulder, he said, “How’d you know exactly where I was?”
“Your little long-talker, of course. We could hear you moaning and panting in there, and the magic tools of my mate located you.”
But I didn’t have it turned on. Ohhh-no; I didn’t KNOW it was turned on! The goddamned thing is transmitting all the time…He decided to score one for Stockton’s people, and dug the comm set from his ear. Still in the tunnel, it wouldn’t transmit well until he moved outside. Crush it? Bury it? Instead, he snapped the magazine from the sidearm and, after removing its ammunition, found that the tiny comm set would fit inside. Completely enclosed by metal, the comm set would transmit no more until he chose.
He got all but three of the rounds back in the magazine, cursing every sound he made, and then moved next to Kit again. “They showed me what they did to Scarface. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Kit. He was my friend, and they will pay for it.”
“Oh, yes, they will pay,” she hissed softly. “Make no mistake, he is still your friend.”
A thrill of energy raced from the base of his skull down his arms and legs. “You’re telling me he’s alive?”
As if to save her the trouble of a reply, a male kzin called softly from no more than three paces away: “Milady; do we have him?”
“Yes,” Kit replied.
“Scarface! Thank God you’re—”
“Not now,” said the one-time warship commander. “Follow quietly.”
Having slept near Kit for many weeks, Locklear recognized her steam-kettle hiss as a sufferer’s sigh. “I know your nose is hopeless at following a spoor, Rockear. But try not to pull me completely apart this time.” Again he felt that long bushy tail pass across his breast, but this time he tried to grip it more gently as they sped off into the night.
Sitting deep in a cave with rough furniture and booby-trapped tunnels, Locklear wolfed stew under the light of a kzin glowlamp. He had slightly scandalized Kit with a hug, then did the same to Boots as the young mother entered the cave without her kittens. The guard would never be trusted to guard anything again, said the towering Scarface, but that rescue tunnel was proof that a kzin had helped. Now they’d be looking for Boots, thinking she had done more than lure a guard thirty meters away.
Locklear told his tale of success, failure, and capture by human pirates as he finished eating, then asked for an update of the Kzersatz problem. Kit, it turned out, had warned Scarface against taking the priests from stasis but one of the devout and not entirely bright males they woke had done the deed anyway.
Scarface, with his small hidden cache of modern equipment, had expected to lead; had he not been Tzak-Commander, once upon a time? The priests had seemed to agree—long enough to make sure they could coerce enough followers. It seemed, said Scarface, that ancient kzin priests hadn’t the slightest compunctions about lying, unlike modern kzinti. He had tried repeatedly to call Locklear with his all-band comm set, without success. Depending on long custom, demanding that tradition take precedence over new ways, the priests had engineered the capture of Scarface and Kit in a hook-net, the kind of cruel device that tore at the victim’s flesh at the slightest movement.
Villagers had spent days in building that walkway out over a shallowly sloping lake, a labor of loathing for kzinti, who hated to soak in water. Once it was extended to the point where the water was four meters deep, the rough-hewn dock made an obvious reminder of ceremonial murder to any female who might try, as Kit and Boots had done ages before, to liberate herself from the ritual prostitution of yore.
And then, as additional mental torture, they told their bound captives what to expect, and made Scarface watch as Kit was thrown into the lake. Boots, watching in horror from afar, had then watched the torture and disposal of Scarface. She was amazed when Kit appeared at her birthing bower, having seen her disappear with great stones into deep water. The next day, Kit had killed a big ruminant, climbing that tree at night to recover her mate and placing half of her kill in the net.
“My medkit did the rest,” Scarface said, pointing to ugly scar tissue at several places on his big torso.
“These scum have never seen anyone recover from deep body punctures. Antibiotics can be magic, if you stretch a point.”
Locklear mused silently on their predicament for long minutes. Then: “Boots, you can’t afford to hang around near the village anymore. You’ll have to hide your kittens and—”
“They have my kittens,” said Boots, with a glitter of pure hate in her eyes. “They will be cared for as long as I do not disturb the villagers.”
“Who told you that?”
“The high priest,” she said, mewling pitifully as she saw the glance of doubt pass between Locklear and Scarface. The priests were accomplished liars.
“We’d best get them back soon,” Locklear suggested. “Are you sure this cave is secure?”
Scarface took him halfway out one tunnel and, using the glowlamp, showed him a trap of horrifying simplicity. It was a grav polarizer unit from one of the biggest cages, buried just beneath the tunnel floor with a switch hidden to one side. If you reached to the side carefully and turned the switch off, that hidden grav unit wouldn’t hurl you against the roof of the tunnel as you walked over it. If you didn’t, it did. Simple. Terrible. “I like it,” Locklear smiled. “Any more tricks I’d better know before I plaster myself over your ceiling?”
There were, and Scarface showed them to him. “But the least energy expended, the least noise and alarm to do the job, the best. Instead of polarizers, we might bury some stasis units outside, perhaps at the entrance to their meeting hut. Then we catch those kshat priests, and use the lying scum for target practice.”
“Good idea, and we may be able to improve on it. How many units here in the cave?”
That was the problem; two stasis units taken from cages were not enough. They needed more from the crypt, said Locklear.
“They destroyed that little airboat you left me, but I built a better one,” Scarface said with a flicker of humor from his ears.
“So did I. Put a bunch of polarizers on it to push yourself around and ignored the sail, didn’t you?” He saw Scarface’s assent and winked.
“Two units might work if we trap the priests one by one,” Scarface hazarded. “But they’ve been meddling in the crypt. We might have to fight our way in. And you…” he hesitated.
“And I have fought better kzinti before, and here I stand,” Locklear said simply.
“That you do.” They gripped hands, and then went back to set up their raid on the crypt. The night was almost done.
When surrendering, Scarface had told Locklear nothing of his equipment cache. With two sidearms he could have made life interesting for a man; interesting and short. But his word had been his bond, and now Locklear was damned glad to have the stuff.
They left the females to guard the cave. Flitting low across the veldt toward the stasis crypt with Scarface at his scooter controls, they planned their tactics. “I wonder why you didn’t start shooting those priests the minute you were back on your feet,” Locklear said over the whistle of breeze in their faces.
“The kittens,” Scarface explained. “I might kill one or two priests before the cowards hid and sent innocent fools to be shot, but they are perfectly capable of hanging a kitten in the village until I gave myself up.
And I did not dare raid the crypt for stasis units without a warrior to back me up.”
“And I’ll have to do.” Locklear grinned.
“You will.” Scarface grinned back; a typical kzin grin, all business, no pleasure.
They settled the scooter near the ice-rimmed force wall and moved according to plan, making haste slowly to avoid the slightest sound, the huge kzin’s head swathed in a bandage of leaves that suggested a wound while—with luck—hiding his identity for a few crucial seconds.
Watching the kzin warrior’s muscular body slide among weeds and rocks, Locklear realized that Scarface was still not fully recovered from his ordeal. He made his move before he was ready because of me, and I’m not even a kzin. Wish I thought I could match that kind of commitment, Locklear mused as he took his place in front of Scarface at the crypt entrance. His sidearm was in his hand. Scarface had sworn the priests had no idea what the weapon was and, with this kind of ploy, Locklear prayed he was right. Scarface gripped Locklear by the neck then, but gently, and they marched in together expecting to meet a guard just inside the entrance.
No guard. No sound at all—and then a distant hollow slam, as of a great box closing. They split up then, moving down each side corridor, returning to the main shaft silently, exploring side corridors again. After four of these forays, they knew that no one would be at their backs.
Locklear was peering into the fifth when, glancing back, he saw Scarface’s gesture of caution. Scuffing steps down the side passage, a mumble in Kzin, then silence. Then Scarface resumed his hold on his friend’s neck and, after one mutual glance of worry, shoved Locklear into the side passage.
“Ho, see the beast I captured,” Scarface called, his voice booming in the wide passage, prompting exclamations from two surprised kzin males.
Stasis cages lay in disarray, some open, some with transparent tops ripped off. One kzin, with the breast scars and bandoliers of a priest, hopped off the cage he used as a seat, and placed a hand on the butt of his sharp wtsai. The other bore scabs on his breast and wore no bandolier. He had been tinkering with the innards of a small stasis cage, but whirled, jaw agape.
“It must have escaped after we left, yesterday,” said the priest, looking at the “captive,” then with fresh curiosity at Scarface. “And who are—”
At that instant, Locklear saw what levitated, spinning, inside one of the medium-sized cages; spinning almost too fast to identify. But Locklear knew what it had to be, and while the priest was staring hard at Scarface, the little man lost control.
His cry was in Interworld, not Kzin: “You filthy bastard!” Before the priest could react, a roundhouse right with the massive barrel of a kzin pistol took away both upper and lower incisors from the left side of his mouth. Caught this suddenly, even a two-hundred-kilo kzin could be sent reeling from the blow, and as the priest reeled to his right, Locklear kicked hard at his backside.
Scarface clubbed at the second kzin, the corridor ringing with snarls and zaps of warrior rage. Locklear did not even notice, leaping on the back of the fallen priest, hacking with his gun barrel until the wtsai flew from a smashed hand, kicking down with all his might against the back of the priest’s head. The priest, at least twice Locklear’s bulk, had lived a life much too soft, for far too long. He rolled over, eyes wide not in fear but in anger at this outrage from a puny beast. It is barely possible that fear might have worked.
The priest caught Locklear’s boot in a mouthful of broken teeth, not seeing the sidearm as it swung at his temple. The thump was like an iron bar against a melon, the priest falling limp as suddenly as if some switch had been thrown.
Sobbing, Locklear dropped the pistol, grabbed handfuls of ear on each side, and pounded the priest’s head against cruel obsidian until he felt a heavy grip on his shoulder.
“He is dead, Locklear. Save your strength,” Scarface advised. As Locklear recovered his weapon and stumbled to his feet, he was shaking uncontrollably. “You must hate our kind more than I thought,” Scarface added, studying Locklear oddly.
“He wasn’t your kind. I would kill a man for the same crime,” Locklear said in fury, glaring at the second kzin who squatted, bloody-faced, in a corner holding a forearm with an extra elbow in it. Then Locklear rushed to open the cage the priest had been watching.
The top levered back, and its occupant sank to the cage floor without moving. Scarface screamed his rage, turning toward the injured captive. “You experiment on tiny kittens? Shall we do the same to you now?”
Locklear, his tears flowing freely, lifted the tiny kzin kitten—a male—in hands that were tender, holding it to his breast. “It’s breathing,” he said. “A miracle, after getting the centrifuge treatment in a cage meant for something far bigger.”
“Before I kill you, do something honorable,” Scarface said to the wounded one. “Tell me where the other kitten is.”
The captive pointed toward the end of the passage. “I am only an acolyte,” he muttered. “I did not enjoy following orders.”
Locklear sped along the cages and, at last, found Boot’s female kitten revolving slowly in a cage of the proper size. He realized from the prominence of the tiny ribs that the kitten would cry for milk when it waked. If it waked. “Is she still alive?”
“Yes,” the acolyte called back. “I am glad this happened. I can die with a less-troubled conscience.”
After a hurried agreement and some rough questioning, they gave the acolyte a choice. He climbed into a cage hidden behind others at the end of another corridor and was soon revolving in stasis. The kittens went into one small cage. Working feverishly against the time when another enemy might walk into the crypt, they disassembled several more stasis cages and toted the working parts to the scooter, then added the kitten cage and, barely, levitated the scooter with its heavy load.
An hour later, Scarface bore the precious cage into the cave and Locklear, following with an armload of parts, heard the anguish of Boots. “They’ll hear you from a hundred meters,” he cautioned as Boots gathered the mewing, emaciated kittens in her arms.
They feared at first that her milk would no longer flow but presently, from where Boots had crept into the darkness, Kit returned. “They are suckling. Do not expect her to be much help from now on,” Kit said.
Scarface checked the magazine of his sidearm. “One priest has paid. There is no reason why I cannot extract full payment from the others now,” he said.
“Yes, there is,” Locklear replied, his fingers flying with hand tools from the cache. “Before you can get ’em all, they’ll send devout fools to be killed while they escape. You said so yourself. Scarface, I don’t want innocent kzin blood on my hands! But after my old promise to Boots, I saw what that maniac was doing and—let’s just say my honor was at stake.” He knew that any modern kzin commander would understand that. Setting down the wiring tool, he shuddered and waited until he could speak without a tremor in his voice. “If you’ll help me get the wiring rigged for these stasis units, we can hide them in the right spot and take the entire bloody priesthood in one pile.”
“All at once? I should like to know how,” said Kit, counting the few units that lay around them.
“Well, I’ll tell you how,” said Locklear, his eyes bright with fervor. They heard him out, and then their faces glowed with the same zeal.
When their traps lay ready for emplacement, they slept while Kit kept watch. Long after dark, as Boots lay nearby cradling her kittens, Kit waked the others and served a cold broth. “You take a terrible chance, flying in the dark,” she reminded them.
“We will move slowly,” Scarface promised, “and the village fires shed enough light for me to land. Too bad about the senses of inferior species,” he said, his ear umbrellas rising with his joke.
“How would you like a nice cold bath, tabby?” Locklear’s question was mild, but it held an edge.
“Only monkeys need to bathe,” said the kzin, still amused. Together they carried their hardware outside and, by th
e light of a glowlamp, loaded the scooter while Kit watched for any telltale glow of eyes in the distance.
After a hurried nuzzle from Kit, Scarface brought the scooter up swiftly, switching the glowlamp to its pinpoint setting and using it as seldom as possible. Their forward motion was so slow that, on the two occasions when they blundered into the tops of towering fernpalms, they jettisoned nothing more than soft curses. An hour later, Scarface maneuvered them over a light yellow strip that became a heavily trodden path and began to follow that path by brief glowlamp flashes. The village, they knew, would eventually come into view.
It was Locklear who said, “Off to your right.”
“The village fires? I saw them minutes ago.”
“Oh shut up, supercat,” Locklear grumped. “So where’s our drop zone?”
“Near,” was the reply, and Locklear felt their little craft swing to the side. At the pace of a weed seed, the scooter wafted down until Scarface, with one leg hanging through the viewslot of his craft, spat a short, nasty phrase. One quick flash of the lamp guided him to a level landing spot and then, with admirable panache, Scarface let the scooter settle without a creak.
If they were surprised now, only Scarface could pilot his scooter with any hope of getting them both away. Locklear grabbed one of the devices they had prepared and, feeling his way with only his feet, walked until he felt a rise of turf. Then he retraced his steps, vented a heavy sigh, and began the emplacement.
Ten minutes later he felt his way back to the scooter, tapping twice on one of its planks to avoid getting his head bitten off by an all-too-ready Scarface. “So far, so good,” Locklear judged.
