by Paul Chafe
Z’slee was on all fours, crawling with her hind legs stiff toward the unmated males. For the first time Ayla noticed the way the pride circle was organized. V’rli’s position was the centerpoint with Ferlitz, and to her right were the highest strakh kzinti, the inner circle members first, Kdtronai-zar’ameer with V’veen and three other females, Ztrak-Conserver, Kr-Pathfinder, then the senior hunters like Greow-Czatz and M’mewr, and so on all the way around the circle in descending order of status to youths like Quicktail and the young telepath Mind-Seer, who were on V’rli’s left. The medium status males tended to be in groups of two or three, and suddenly Cherenkova understood that status equated to mating success. What mattered was the ratio of male status to female status in the group. Higher status males were with higher status females, and more of them. Lower status males wound up with lower status females, but they could pair up to do better together than either could alone. At tale-telling-time the unmated females drifted from group to group and confused the issue, but now they were all with their mothers, and the pattern was clear. They were watching Z’slee’s performance as intently as the males, perhaps judging what they would do when their own fertility arrived.
Z’slee went to Silverstreak, an adolescent not far from the bottom in strakh, twitching her tail and chirruping at him invitingly. He watched her intently but didn’t move. She came closer, circling to present her haunches, flexing and arching invitingly. Silverstreak licked his chops and looked like he might respond, but then he looked around the circle and seemed to decide not to. After a few minutes Z’slee moved up the line to Wild-Son-of-Hrell-Hromfi and repeated her performance. Wild-Son showed no hesitation, leaping into the circle and grabbing at her, but surprisingly she snapped her tail down and scampered away. He followed her, leaping to catch her. They tumbled in the sand and struggled as he tried to mount her. He succeeded in forcing her onto her belly, but she lowered her haunches when he mounted her, frustrating his attempt to mate. He snarled and bit at her neck, and she chrowled again, her cry deep and keening. Every male in the circle stiffened at the sound, and she lashed her head back and forth to keep Wild-Son from getting a grip with his teeth. Where an instant before she had been clearly trying to induce him to mate her, now she was struggling to get away. She managed to get turned around enough to bite him on the muzzle, and he howled in pain. The distraction was enough for her to roll and kick. Unbalanced, he lost his footing and she squirmed away. He leapt again, but she dodged, and while he was recovering she ran to Quicktail and again presented her haunches, tail flipping back and forth, and chrowling loudly. Quicktail didn’t move, but when Wild-Son turned to come back for Z’slee he locked eyes with him and Wild-Son froze, snarling deep in his throat. The tableau held, Wild-Son’s tail lashing angrily. He wanted Z’slee, but in her current posture mounting her would leave his back exposed to Quicktail, whose gaze and bared fangs made his own interest clear. Quicktail was younger and smaller than Wild-Son, and Ayla now realized that before the battle in the jungle he had sat below him in pride-circle rank. Now he wore Tzaatz ears on his belt and was credited with the rescue of Kdtronai-zar’ameer and since they’d arrived at desert den his strakh, and his position in the circle, were much increased.
Z’slee looked back over her shoulder to gauge Quicktail’s interest, then slowly, keeping her haunches high, she edged herself out from between the two males. As she turned to pass Wild-Son her hindquarters were exposed to him. He grabbed at her again, and in the same instant Quicktail screamed and leapt, catching the other half-sideways. They went down in a heap of fangs, claws and screamed insults, and Z’slee, tail twitching, went on to Night-Prowler, presenting herself to him as she had to Quicktail. Her plaintive chrrrowwwll nearly drowned out the sounds of the fight.
But Night-Prowler didn’t move, and Wild-Son and Quicktail tumbled free of each other, each rolling to their feet, breathing hard, each bleeding from half a dozen minor wounds. For a long moment they faced each other, and then Wild-Son leapt. Quicktail stepped sideways and pivoted, lashing out with hind claws as his opponent came past to catch him in his cross-braced ribcage. Wild-Son screamed in pain and rolled. Quicktail leapt after him, only to catch a vicious slash across his muzzle. Blood streamed from the wounds, but then Quicktail was on top and his fangs were at Wild-Son’s throat. Wild-Son screamed, kicking out hard to disembowel with his hind claws, but Quicktail arched his back to keep his vitals out of reach without releasing his clenched jaws.
Slowly Wild-Son’s struggles subsided. Quicktail shook the limp body with his teeth, like a terrier with a rat, and then released it to fall limp on the floor. Without looking back he turned to Z’slee, still hunched over, twitching her tail for Night-Prowler. Quicktail locked eyes with the other male, breathing hard, blood still streaming from his muzzle, but Night-Prowler didn’t move, and his fangs weren’t showing. Z’slee looked back at Night-Prowler, tail twitching, then skittered away. Quicktail leapt after her and caught her by the haunches. She struggled, and rolled, but his teeth found the nape of her neck and pulled her over into the mating posture. This time she didn’t lower her tail, and when he succeeded in mounting her she raised her haunches higher to give him better access. Quicktail roared at the same instant, his body jerking hard against hers. She screamed, an unearthly sound that made her previous cries seem tame by comparison, and thrashed in his grip, and then they both collapsed.
To Cherenkova’s surprise they didn’t separate, but stayed tied together at the loins, like wolves, and crawled awkwardly from the center of the circle. The tension bled out of the pride like air from an overinflated balloon. After a long pause V’rli-Ztrak stood and went to the center of the circle.
“Was the fight fair?”
“It was fair, Honored Mother.” The pride answered, almost in unison.
“Was it fair, K’dro?” She turned to face the upper-middle-status female beside Hrell-Hromfi, who had just lost her eldest son.
“It was fair, Honored Mother.” K’dro’s voice was low but level. She lowered her head, clearly grieving.
V’rli furled her ears, satisfied, and went back to her place. Greow-Czatz stood up and began to tell the next saga of the Taking of Fortress Cta’ian, his words breathing life into the ancient story. Wild-Son’s body lay where it had fallen. Quicktail and Z’slee were still coupled, the violence of their first mating replaced with amorous licking and nibbles. They lay by Night-Prowler, who moved slightly in front of them to make his protective posture clear. A new coalition had been formed, and Ayla had no doubt that Night-Prowler would be mating Z’slee later in the night. She found she had to consciously relax herself after the intensity of the encounter, but the pride seemed to handle it quite naturally. The tight group postures relaxed, mothers chased after their younger kits, and the unmated females moved from group to group again. It was as if the encounter had never happened.
Hours later Greow-Czatz had finished his story, and Ferlitz-Telepath slipped over to Ayla, who was by then munching on a slice of dried tuskvor and caught up in the tale. “We will have the death rite for Wild-Son now. You can watch, but stay back.”
“I understand.”
The heavier mood of the challenge and mating returned to the cavern as the pride built the fire up into a roaring pyre. Quicktail rose again to kneel by the body while every member of the pride rose to stand beside them to pay homage to the dead. Some told a short story, some threw a valued possession on the fire, some simply stood in silence. There was a solemnity to the occasion, but also a wild and primitive energy. Some of the storytellers were excellent, throwing themselves into the roles as they related them, using the play of shadow and flickering firelight to add drama to their words. Around the circle some of the males sparred, sudden, snarling encounters that ended almost as quickly as they began, and Cherenkova found herself unsure if the bouts were serious or playful. At last V’rli rose and stood beside them.
“Wild-Son was brave,” she said. “Wild-Son hunted well. He fought hard at the batt
le in the jungle. He was our blood, and he remains our blood. Now he is dead.”
There were snarls and growls from around the circle.
“Quicktail was brave,” V’rli continued. “Quicktail was fast, and wise beyond his years. He was loyal and fierce. He was our blood and remains our blood. Now he is dead.” She took her wtsai from her belt and gave it to Quicktail.
Quicktail took the blade and bent to Wild-Son’s body. Two quick cuts and the severed ears were his.
“I am Swift-Claw!” He roared the name as he held the ears up in triumph. “I claim the name here before you all! No one will take it from me.” He roared again and the pride roared with him. Two males leapt forward and grabbed the earless body and threw it onto the roaring pyre, where it sizzled and was consumed. The action became a tussle, and suddenly the entire pride was rolling and fighting, male and females together. Some of the fights turned into matings, roars and screams and snarls splitting the night.
Ayla understood now why she had been warned to stay back. What is the meaning here? She watched in fascination, making quick notes on her beltcomp. The orgy, if that’s what it was, was still going on when she went down into the den to find her frrch skins, and sleep.
The next day Quicktail had new respect from the rest of the pride, and both he and Night-Prowler had moved up in the circle, with Z’slee beside them. She saw several more matings while the Mating Moon was high, and she learned the rules of the ritual. The female would choose her suitor, yowling for him, raising her haunches, flipping her tail, but if he responded she’d skitter away to tease another one. Usually the status difference between males was enough that one or the other would abandon the pursuit, but sometimes there would be a fight, short and violent and frequently bloody, although unlike Quicktail’s duel with Wild-Son, not usually lethal, a disappointment when the hostile Sraff-Tracker fought Kr-Pathfinder for M’rraow, although at least Ayla had the satisfaction of seeing him lose. The winner would continue chasing the female, who more often than not would already be flipping her tail for a third male. The females always started with lower ranked males and worked their way up the ladder until they could entice no better male to chase them. Mated males tended to have higher status, and they were approached only after a female had courted all the other males. Why not start at the top and work their way down? The higher ranked males already had mates, the highest had several. With mates already and kits to protect they risked more in the mating battles and stood to gain less. A female enticed the lower ranks to prove her desirability to the higher ranks. Bottom up worked for the males too; the higher ranks offloaded the risk of battle to the lower ranks. Quicktail had mated Z’slee first, but Night-Prowler would mate her too, without taking any risk himself. It’s an auction, she realized, sexualized and ritualized, but nothing more or less. The females wanted the fittest, highest status male they could get to sire their kits; the males proved their worth by fighting and winning, or having enough status that they didn’t have to fight. There were other subtleties. Males with their eye on a particular female would turn down another’s advances. Females who had borne kits for a male would court their sire first, and often only. Sometimes a female would fight another one who tried to court their male. There were other scuffles, physical and social, that happened away from the pride circle but served to determine who stood where in the mate competition. Cherenkova recognized the patterns. It’s little different from dating up at a bounce bar. And there was no reason it shouldn’t be. Darwinian sexual dynamics were about optimizing the fitness of offspring, and though the details changed, the game remained the same, in any species on any world.
But there were differences in detail. Kzinti pair-bonded sometimes, as Ferlitz-Telepath and V’rli-Ztrak did. Relatedness was important in determining who might mate with who—Quicktail-Swift-Claw and Night-Prowler were half brothers, she learned—and the male coalitions tended to follow blood lines. Once mating was publicly consummated the pair, or trio, would vanish from the pride circle for a more private honeymoon. It was fascinating. Kefan would be in his element here. Kzinti mating dynamics where the females were major players in the mating decision were radically different from those of the mainstream where females were simple property. The energy of the mating season threw her own glands into overproduction and she felt sexual desire, not as a passing fancy but as a deep, primal drive, and if screaming her need and raising her haunches would have brought Quacy Tskombe’s flesh to hers she would have done it. And where are you, Quacy? She didn’t want to think of him as dead. I must find my own place here first, if I’m ever going to get back to you.
Oderint dum metuant.
(Let them hate so long as they fear.)
—Emperor Caligula
Oorwinnig came out of hyperspace and dropped. She was last in formation, screened by half a dozen cruisers and twice that number of destroyers. Most of her escort were UNF ships. Earth and Wunderland didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but war was something they could agree on, at least since Secretary Ravalla had taken office. It was about time the Flatlanders understood the reality of the kzinti. Captain Cornelius Voortman allowed himself a grim smile.
“Navigation, set course for target, full thrust.” He bit the words off, keeping the exultation out of his voice.
This was the mission he’d lived his life to lead. Far below the star Alpha Mensae glowed yellow-orange. Invisible still was Alpha Mensae II, a planet thrice the size of Mars, with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere thick enough to breathe. It was a dry world, just a third of its surface covered in shallow seas, and it supported a biosphere consisting largely of jellyfish, algae and lichen. The kzinti had maintained an advanced base there since before humans learned to fly, launching secret raids in the war that ultimately enslaved the Pierin at Zeta Reticuli.
No longer a secret, and not much longer a base. Oorwinnig would see to that.
“Course locked in,” reported the navigation officer, and the starfield spun and the deck seemed to shift as the cabin gravity compensated for the full push of Oorwinnig’s massive polarizers. Voortman sat back in his command chair and relaxed. The kzinti had forces in system, but nothing that could deal with his ship. It was unlikely any of the ratcats would even get through the cruiser screen. In a way that was too bad.
“All secure, Captain?” Admiral Mysolin’s face appeared in the viscom, his UN gray uniform immaculately pressed. Voortman checked the battleplot, saw the battleship Atlantic had come out of hyperspace beside him.
“Yes sir. Forty-five hours to attack position, standard.” It was galling to take orders from a Flatlander, but Voortman kept his demeanor carefully professional. There was a larger enemy to think about, and Earth had put more ships into the fleet than Wunderland had.
Mysolin nodded curtly. “Good. Keep me informed.” His image vanished and Voortman scowled. The Flatlanders had nothing like Oorwinnig and, despite being the flagship, Atlantic’s role was nothing more than close defense of Oorwinnig. It was important to remember that. When the time came, the central weapon was Wunderland’s.
The scouts and destroyers were twelve hours ahead of Oorwinnig, just enough time for the kzinti to have detected their arrival, and for the light units to have assessed their first responses and transmitted the data for the main fleet to pick up on arrival. They were going to have to fight their way in. Hours-long speed-of-light lag would characterize the initial stages of the battle; computerized targeting and countermeasures too fast for merely human reflexes would characterize the endgame. Voortman looked out the transpax at the glowing arch of the Milky Way, four hundred billion stars in a hundred-thousand-light-year disk, spinning on a timescale of millions of years and remotely indifferent to a handful of organic lifeforms struggling over the pitiful two thousand systems contained in the tiny volume of the minor Orion arm that humanity liked to call Known Space. Once the Thrintun Slavers had held an empire that encompassed all that vastness, or so the academics claimed. One day their Tnuctipun slaves had r
evolted, and the Slaver war had wiped out every sentient being alive in the galaxy at that time. How long does it take for a species to occupy the whole galaxy? What else might we meet out there? Both unanswerable questions. He was certain of one thing. Whatever species next occupied the entire galactic volume, it was not going to be kzinti.
The first watch passed uneventfully, though the scout reports said the kzinti were boosting every ship they had to intercept. He carefully monitored the battle board as Mysolin ordered his screening units on counter-intercept missions. Occasionally terse combat reports came in, and they lost a ship in the first encounter, the destroyer Gloire, rammed by a scoutship that happened to be close enough to match her infall orbit and fast enough to get past her defensive weapons. Damn ratcats never surrender. Extermination was not an answer, it was the answer. Nothing else will stop them. Anyone who thought differently hadn’t seen them fight.
At watch end he handed off the bridge to Kirsch, his able first officer, and went to sleep in his dayroom. Stockpiling sleep was a commander’s first duty, because when the battle was joined he might not rest for days. There was always the temptation to stay awake, to watch the battle developing, but the earliest possible kzinti intercept was eighteen hours away. To stay awake now would mean being exhausted at the critical moment, and he couldn’t afford that. A good commander trains his subordinates well enough to trust them. Kirsch could handle the ship, and would wake him if anything unexpected happened.
