by Paul Chafe
Still, I can do more. She turned away from the den mouth as the sun sank below the horizon and the warm wind began to cool. I can bring the future forward. The hunt-cloth cover that camouflaged its opening fell into place behind her and she made her way to the deeper level where Pouncer kept his command post.
He was there by himself, working on a screen, planning the future of the campaign. He drove himself harder than anyone. During the day he trained the warriors, and at night he trained their leaders, and after they had all gone to sleep he planned strategy and organized the next attack. He insisted on leading every raid he could. The strain was not showing on him yet, but privately Ayla wondered if he had the reserves necessary to keep up the pace for what was destined to be a long, hard fight.
He looked up as she came in. She didn’t hesitate. “Pouncer. I want to be on the next raid.”
He blinked. “Cherenkova-Captain, you have already heard my reasoning on that issue.”
“I have more reasons you should let me.”
Pouncer fanned his ears up. “I will listen.”
“You are attacking the Tzaatz now, doing damage. Have you a plan to finalize the victory?”
“It is too early yet to consider victory. We must first show the kzintzag that we can fight effectively.”
“No, it is never too early to start planning how you’re going to win. I can help you with that.”
“I rely on your strategic skills, Cherenkova-Captain. It is your physical prowess that gives me pause. You are too vulnerable, and too valuable to risk.”
“I have killed kzinti in combat.”
“Strength and reflex are not factors in space combat.”
“I have killed them in person, side by side with your uncle at the Citadel.”
“With energy weapons.”
“The weapons issue is beside the point. I am a trained strategist, but I can apply my strategy better if I lead while I do it.”
“Hrrr.” Pouncer turned a paw over, considering. “What would you do with your strategic thinking, if I gave you free rein?”
“I would establish a forward base in the Long Range and from there I would launch raids against Tzaatz positions down the eastern plains.”
“That is a long journey from here, much longer than the direct route to the Plain of Stgrat. What will you accomplish there?”
“They’ll be forced to respond to us. The terrain in the mountains is tremendously difficult. They will have to commit more forces to the area in an attempt to flush us out. The Citadel is the center of power on Kzinhome, and we will turn their attention away from it. Also, by moving the center of our attacks to a different area we will prevent them from isolating our exact location, and we’ll appear to be increasing our strength to the Lesser Prides and the kzintzag. Weather conditions are difficult in the Long Range, which favors us too. We remain vulnerable to space reconnaissance.”
“We know the orbital parameters of the fortresses. So long as we move with the tuskvor they cannot track us.”
“They’ll learn that trick and we will follow the fate of Mrrsel Pride.” Ayla leaned forward. “Give me a small force, let me show what I can do with it.”
“An independent force. It is a clever idea, whoever leads it. What else do you suggest?”
“We need to form an alliance with other Great Prides, somehow.”
Pouncer rippled his ears. “You are losing your reason. If I had access to a ship you would already be on your homeworld.”
“It’s vital. Eventually we have to take the Citadel. Kchula-Tzaatz respects the rules of skalazaal now because we are little more than a thorn in his side, but when we launch the final attack he’s going to be faced with the loss of everything. Do you trust his honor not to use energy weapons then, even space weapons?”
“Hrrr.” Pouncer turned a paw over. “You are correct.”
“We must have the Great Prides watching, and in a position to intervene if necessary. If they have ships in orbit, Kchula will be constrained.”
“There are Great Prides who will side with me, perhaps.” Pouncer thought back to the time he had put in memorizing the Pride Leaders, their strengths and weaknesses, their alliances and interests. Tzaatz Pride had its rivals, Churrt Pride for one. Now that information is becoming useful. “How will we achieve this, with no ship and no access to a spaceport?”
“It will take time, but it can be done. We need to plan to send an emissary to any Great Pride you think will lend its support.”
“Perhaps only to one, if its Pride-Patriarch has enough influence. He will be able to bring others with him.”
“You have one in mind?”
“Zraa-Churrt, of Churrt Pride. But who to send as emissary?”
“You yourself would be the best choice.”
“I cannot leave, you know that. It cannot be a czrav either, Zraa-Churrt may take that as an insult.”
“Or a kz’zeerkti, for the same reason.” Cherenkova smiled sardonically. Now I’m planning to get a kzin off-world before I go myself. I’ve committed myself to Pouncer’s victory. “Vsar-Chiuu perhaps?”
“Perhaps, but he is old. I will think on this awhile.”
“Send a message to Kzin-Conserver too. Declare skalazaal formally through him. We can’t give the Tzaatz any room to break the rules.”
Pouncer cocked an ear and regarded her curiously. “You have learned a lot about my world, Cherenkova-Captain.”
“It is my job to know my enemy. I have learned all I can about the Tzaatz from this distance. Let me lead warriors and I will learn more.”
Pouncer considered, then. “No. You are too important to risk.”
She shook her head, frustrated. “I’m no more important than any other warrior here.”
“You forget I am still sworn to your safety.”
“You have saved my life many times now. I discharge you from your obligation.”
“The only thing that will absolve me of my responsibility is your safe departure from my world.”
“And I believe that the best thing I can do to ensure my own safety is to ensure your swift victory against the Tzaatz.”
“Cherenkova-Captain, I respect your skills, I am lucky to have you as an ally, and proud to have you as a friend, but I cannot allow it. You are kz’zeerkti, not kzinti. No kzin will follow you as leader, however wise your strategies.”
“Send V’rli with me. They will follow her, and she is smart enough to listen to what I have to say, and to improve on it.”
“V’rli is honored mother, she cannot leave her pride.”
“You are Patriarch now, in all but name. She will go if you tell her to.”
For a second Pouncer’s lips curled up to show his teeth. “I will claim no Patriarchy but the one I was born to.” There was a hard edge in his snarl.
“Then let me fight with you for what is yours. Let me be zar’ameer.”
Pouncer’s ears flared up. “You are not my brother. You are not even kzinti.”
“Your brother has betrayed you, but you are right, I am not kzinti. I alone on this planet can have not the slightest hope of becoming Patriarch. I alone will never covet your position, not even for an instant. My only goal is to leave your world to go back to my own, and I can only achieve it when you are Patriarch. We have a perfect alignment of interests, and no conflicts at all. Not even C’mell can claim that.”
“C’mell.” Pouncer wrinkled his nose. “Another recalcitrant female. She should be back in the jungle with Mrrsel Pride.”
“She chooses to be by your side.”
“She is heavy with my kits. She takes too much on herself.”
“She is free to choose her own path. Some things even the Patriarch cannot command.”
Pouncer looked up at her sharply. Those are Guardmaster’s words, when I desired to overreach myself. Is he speaking through her? Cherenkova met his gaze with her own, giving no sign she knew the deeper significance of what she said. “Hrrrr.” He turned a paw over. “You are
persistent, Cherenkova-Captain. I am not surprised your species wins wars.”
“Here’s your chance to use that talent for your advantage. You’re needed here now, to prepare the forces that will gather, to make sure the tuskvor are armored, that variable swords are produced, to train warriors to the combat forms. You can’t go on every raid, and Tzaatz attention needs to be diverted away from our preparations. Let me be your sword.”
“A kz’zeerkti zar’ameer.” Pouncer rippled his ears. “If nothing else it will stand out in the Pride Ballad. You win, Cherenkova-Captain. I will give you a force, one large enough to make an impact. I’ll expect to see you win with it.”
“I won’t disappoint you.” She claw-raked, as tradition demanded, and left. I came to him unconvinced my own idea would work. I’m leaving inspired to ensure its success. He is a natural leader, and he’ll make a good Patriarch. Whether that was good for humanity was another question. She found herself surprisingly unconcerned with the answer to that question.
Pouncer meant what he said about a force big enough to make an impact. A Hunter’s Moon later she rode out on a tsvasztet atop a huge herd-grandmother at the front of a column of two dozen tuskvor and over two hundred kzinti warriors, well provisioned and equipped to operate independently. As the den receded into the distance and the high forest gave way to the open grasslands, she felt the familiar, half welcome tension that she always felt at the start of an operation. There was the awareness that lives depended on her, as well as military success. There was always the potential for failure. Blood would be shed before she was done, perhaps including her own. It was a sobering thought, but she felt alive. She was no longer a hanger-on, no longer the outsider. She was a war leader at the head of her warriors, taking them into battle, and it didn’t matter that those who followed her had once been her sworn enemies.
Her force was hand-picked, almost entirely kzinretti from Ztrak, Dziit and Fvaar Prides, all combat experienced, all volunteers. She had trained them with Pouncer’s assistance and within the limits of time available and taken only the best. The very best she had made into her personal guard, a reluctant bow to the reality of her physical vulnerability when faced with kzinti in hand-to-hand combat. Her bodyguard were all from Mrrsel Pride, away on a hunt when the Tzaatz struck. All had lost kits in the attack, and all were sworn to blood vengeance. K’lakri, the kzinrette who led them, became her chief lieutenant. Cherenkova herself carried a beamrifle, her single privilege as an alien.
There were Tzaatz fliers from time to time, and she knew that higher up the cameras on the orbital fortresses searched for them day and night, but the tuskvor skin canopies over their tsvasztet would defeat all but the closest inspections. She had computed the orbital periods of the fortresses on her beltcomp, to ensure that everyone was under cover when they flew over, and the Tzaatz knew too little about the rhythms of Kzinhome’s seasons to know the significance of tuskvor moving south at this time of year. The beasts themselves knew better, and they were balky. Their migration urge had passed, but they wanted to be in the jungle fattening up for the next one, and they needed constant urging from their mazourk to stay on course. The mazourk will tire quickly, we need to rotate them. That’s something that we haven’t yet addressed. There were many things they hadn’t addressed, an impromptu war could be fought no other way. Victory would go to the side which was the least disorganized, the least misled about the other’s intentions. So far she was on the right side, but the Tzaatz had resources that the czrav didn’t. The balance could tip at any moment.
It was a twelve-day ride to her chosen base area, through a pass in the jagged peaks where the Mooncatchers met the Long Range and into the foothills at the edge of the Plain of Stgrat on the other side. It took another three days to find a den that was well hidden from both air and ground, and defendable with the limited force they possessed. The prevailing winds were from behind them, and she realized that the Plain of Stgrat should have been in the rain shadow of the mountains, while the desert should have been rainforest, at least close to the mountains. It was a minor mystery, until K’lakri explained the use of charge suppressors for climate modification. The chain of suppressors prevented water vapor from nucleating into clouds and raindrops as the winds were forced to rise and cool against the mountain chain. Instead the moisture had to rise higher before it could condense, forming the almost permanent cloud deck that trailed from the mountains out over the plain of Stgrat. The extension of the cloud-forming cycle allowed the vital moisture to slip over the mountains to nourish the plain beyond them at the expense of the windward desert. And it protects me from orbiting eyes.
On a reconnaissance with her elite guard on the fourth day she found a suppressor site high on a nameless peak. It was solar powered, its fibercrete mountings so old and worn they looked like natural stone. Cherenkova didn’t approach too closely. Presumably the charge suppressor was focused wide, without enough beam power to disintegrate something so solid as herself, but she didn’t want to learn the hard way that that presumption was wrong. From their vantage point they could see the wide sweep of the desert to the north, and the fertile green plains to the south. She had a sudden realization, the reason the tuskvor migrated through the desert. The kzinti have been doing this for thousands of years, weather engineering on a vast scale. They have turned the climatic patterns of this whole region upside down. The tuskvor once migrated through jungle and plain all the way from one side of the continent to the other. Now the plains are desert and the jungle reduced to high forest. This project has been going on so long the tuskvor have evolved to cycle through desert for half their lives. She looked at K’lakri with new respect. They have been civilized since before humanity tamed fire.
It was not the first time she had come to that understanding since she arrived on Kzinhome, it would probably not be the last. After a time they moved off to continue learning the ground around their new location. Academic interest could come later. For now she had a war to wage.
Who shares my vengeance today shares my blood, and who shares my blood is my brother.
—Hri-Rrit at the Black Tower
“Zree-Rrit?” Kchula-Tzaatz looked down through the orbital fortress’s command bay windows at the majestic curvature of Kzinhome. “Who is this Zree-Rrit?”
Ftzaal-Tzaatz’s attention didn’t waver from the sword battle drill he was practicing. “I told you before, brother, that a Rrit leads these attacks. I believe it to be First-Son.”
“You saw a striped pelt in the dark, seasons ago. This signifies nothing.”
“The Rrit markings are distinctive, and I have studied First-Son. It was him. Vsar-Chiuu said the Rrit had returned.”
“Vsar-Chiuu. We should have made an example of him.”
“That would have alienated the Lesser Prides even faster.” Ftzaal executed a perfect side-front-side parry combination in slow time, his eyes locked on his reflection overlaid in the command bay window as though it were an opponent.
Kchula growled. “I will not disbelieve you, Ftzaal. Still it signifies nothing. Whoever it is must be destroyed.”
“Of course, but there is a deeper game here. This messenger from Kzin-Conserver that skalazaal has been declared. This constrains us.”
Kchula ignored the point. “Skalazaal already exists, if this is indeed the Rrit. We are no more constrained than before.”
“It exists by no less than three traditions, through inheritance from his father, by his own scream-and-leap, by formal declaration. Why declare it again by Conserver-law?” Ftzaal paused, concentrating on the transition from guard-stance to attack-stance before continuing. “It is so that we know the Rrit has survived, because we could deny the other traditions by avoiding the knowledge of his survival. And more importantly so Kzin-Conserver knows, and the rest of the Great Prides.”
“Kzin-Conserver.” Kchula spat. “What need has he of this knowledge?” Kchula looked out at the fortress docking bay where a badly damaged Hunt-class battleship was bei
ng stripped to its frame. Patriarch’s Talon had been the pride of the Rrit fleet until he had taken the Patriarchy and the fleet had scattered to the stars to raid the commerce of Tzaatz allies. Stkaa Pride had laid a trap and caught the battleship, and managed to cripple her. Now she was back where she had started, this time as a war prize. Two heavy cruisers floated nearby, each severely battle-scarred and in desperate need of heavy maintenance. They would wait while the stripped hulk took priority. Kchula growled to himself. Patriarch’s Talon, you will be my sword of vengeance.
“Zree-Rrit needs him to know.” Ftzaal pivoted and executed a complex reverse block. “His forces are light, he has no space power. We could destroy him overnight if we were not bound by the traditions. I have been ruthless in my search, brother.” Ftzaal completed a thrust, block, thrust combination that ended with him reversed one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. His eyes met Kchula’s. “I have come down on the jungle and the high forest like the Fanged God’s fist.” His voice was harsh, snarling the words. “And yet he has eluded me, save when he chooses to attack. And he is attacking now, not fleeing, not cowering in the jungle. Now he chooses to formally declare his presence, constraining us and challenging at the same time. His strakh with the Northern Lesser Prides grows, and ours falls.” Ftzaal whirled, his slicewire whistling through the air. “This new declaration shows that he is looking to the time when he will rally the Great Prides against us. He is a danger that needs to be ended. Now.”
