by Paul Chafe
“Telepath was keeping something from me. He didn't want us to find First-Son. He didn't want us in the jungle at all.”
“And now he is dead. Where has your liver gone, Ftzaal? What was not wise was giving you the lead in hunting down First-Son. You have been gone half a season and gained nothing, and I have needed your expertise here. The kzintzag ask why we search the jungles if First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit is not alive.”
“Your puppet is not popular.”
“My puppet will soon become as irrelevant as his brother. We will waste no more time pursuing him. We are in midleap on the kz'eerkti and the war will require our full attention.” Kchula turned his own attention to the zianya. “Let us eat, and look to the future. What's past is past.”
There was a blur of motion and suddenly the Pierin with the knife was on the floor, blue circulatory fluid gushing from its split braincase. Ftzaal stood over it in a combat stance, w'tsai poised to strike again. Kchula blinked, not comprehending for a moment, then saw the blade in the creature's manipulator, oily toxin gleaming on its edge where the zianya's blood had been. The other slaves had shrunk back to the edges of the room, feverishly making gestures of submission to distance themselves from the treachery and its punishment. Betrayal! The kill rage flooded through Kchula and he screamed and leapt on the nearest Pierin, ripping open its abdominal segment with his hind claws. The others fled while he tore at the corpse.
By the time his anger was spent a sword of Ftz'yeer, summoned by Ftzaal, were on guard outside the Patriarch's quarters, beamrifles held ready. The room was a mess. The slaughtered zianya's blood bowl had been overturned by Kchula's leap and its blood seeped into the floor, mingling with the pungent blue Pierin circulatory fluid that was spattered everywhere along with gobbets of Pierin flesh. By the sauce bowl, Ftzaal sniffed carefully at a thin plastic pouch.
He looked up, undisturbed by Kchula's violent rage, and held the pouch up, pincered carefully between two claws. It was still dripping with the red tunuska sauce it had been concealed in. “P'chert toxin, kept sealed until the last minute to prevent the sniffers from picking it up. The slave had only to slice it open with the knife to coat the blade, and then strike.”
“I could have died.” Kchula was trembling, residual anger mixing with sudden fear at how close the assassination had come to succeeding.
Ftzaal twitched his whiskers. “Evidently you have someone's full attention, brother.”
“I want every Pierin in the Citadel executed. Now!”
“Shouldn't we wait until we can trace the roots of this plot?”
Kchula looked at his brother for a long moment. “Yes… yes we should.” His voice was calmer. “Who do you suspect?”
“It is a primary error to speculate in advance of the facts. Pierin is the homeworld of Cvail Pride. I imagine Chmee-Cvail is less than pleased about being ordered to support Tzor-Stkaa in a war he would rather lead himself.”
“I will spike his head at Patriarch's Gate!” Kchula's tail lashed angrily.
Ftzaal-Tzaatz held up a paw. “Slower, brother! Let us look before we leap. It may be Chmee-Cvail, it may not. We need evidence first, and I suspect it will point much closer to home. These are not our Pierin, or Cvail Pride's; they belonged to the Rrit, and their loyalty may remain there.”
“Scrral-Rrit! He wouldn't dare!” Kchula's hand went to the transponder medallion around his neck. “He wears my zzrou. His own life is forfeit if I die.”
“Patience. We'll see how tame your tame Patriarch really is.” Ftzaal keyed his com. “Ftz'yeer Leader!”
“Command me, sire.” The voice was not that of his old friend and companion on eight-squared adventures. That Ftz'yeer Leader had been trampled by tuskvor deep in the jungle, this new one promoted in his place. My brother doesn't realize the price I have paid for my loyalty. We flow through these roles in our life, and flow through our life until we die. It was a good rule to remember, but a hard one.
Ftzaal pushed the thought away. “Bring our ever noble Patriarch here. If he resists, compel him.”
“At once, sire.”
It wasn't long before Ftz'yeer Leader brought a half sword of Ftz'yeer into the room, pushing Meerz-Rrit's Second-Son in front of them. Scrral-Rrit was bleeding slightly from a talon wound on the side of his face, but otherwise uninjured. He had resisted, but not much.
Ftzaal picked up the sk'ceri knife and held it in front of the supposed Patriarch. “What do you know about this?”
“Nothing. Should I?” Scrral-Rrit was nervous and his fear stank in the room.
“We'll see.” Ftzaal went to where Kchula was standing, pushed the button on the zzrou transponder medallion and held it down. That should have sent p'chert toxin flooding from the zzrou teeth imbedded in Scrral-Rrit's back. In a heartbeat he would be writhing in agony, in a few breaths he'd be dead.
Scrral-Rrit stayed standing, his head now bowed. He knew he'd been caught. “Please…”
“Quiet, sthondat!” Ftzaal cuffed him to the floor and turned to Ftz'yeer Leader. “Take him and strip him. He has an electronic mimic to replicate the zzrou signal. Find it, destroy it, and then learn all he knows.”
Ftz'yeer Leader claw-raked. “The Hot Needle of Inquiry, sire?”
“Yes.” Ftzaal-Tzaatz spat the word.
Scrral-Rrit looked up from his prostrated position, deep terror suddenly in his eyes. “No! Not the Needle! Please! It wasn't me! It was Rrit-Conserver! It was his plan, his idea, I just…”
Ftzaal waved a paw and the Ftz'yeer dragged the piteous Patriarch out, still begging. He turned to Kchula. “A faster resolution than I'd hoped, and more simply solved than an invasion of Pierin.”
Kchula snarled deep in his throat. “Rrit-Conserver. I should have known.”
“He should have died, brother.”
“He may yet.” Kchula stormed out of the room, leaving Ftzaal to himself. Ftzaal watched him go, then went to the panoramic windows and looked to the northwest, where the jungle lay, horizons away. What secrets do you hold? I need to learn them. Kchula would not cooperate, but that was typical of his brother and also of small concern. Eventually events would prove him right, as they had with Rrit-Conserver; he was sure of that. The key was to be prepared when they did, as he had been with Rrit-Conserver. I might have let my brother die. Had he done that he would become Pride-Patriarch of Tzaatz Pride, and de facto Patriarch of all. An unworthy thought for a zar'ameer. Did Rrit-Conserver consider that in his planning? He must have, he was too deep a thinker to have done otherwise. Despite Kchula's threat, Ftzaal knew he would not kill Conserver; that window of opportunity was long shut. So what then is Rrit-Conserver's goal? He could not want Scrral-Rrit to rule in fact as well as name; the damage that would cause the Patriarchy… A pawful of Jotok arrived to start cleaning up the mess. Evidently the Pierin thought it wiser to keep a safe distance. They worked as quietly as they could, while Ftzaal ignored them and thought. Where could the czrav have vanished to so quickly? They ride tuskvor, could that be the key? He turned a paw over to contemplate his talons. I have some tracking to do.
He who thinks hardest fights easiest.
— Si-Rrit
“Rrit-Conserver!” Kchula-Tzaatz's enraged voice echoed up the narrow staircase. An instant later the door of Rrit-Conserver's austere room burst open.
Rrit-Conserver looked up from his trance-meditation posture. “Kchula-Tzaatz. I am disappointed to see you here. I'd hoped you'd be dead by now.”
Kchula snarled, fangs bared. “So you admit your complicity in Scrral-Rrit's plot.”
“Complicity is too strong a word.” Rrit-Conserver stood and turned slightly, subtly ready to receive an attack. “Second-Son himself saw the advantage of your death; he planned it eagerly. I merely told him how to deal with the threat of the zzrou.”
“You betrayed me.”
Rrit-Conserver waved a paw. “That would only be possible if I had sworn fealty to you. I am sworn to serve the Rrit.”
“You cannot tell m
e you think that cringing pretender deserves the Patriarchy more than I do.”
“What I think doesn't matter. I serve the Rrit, and the Patriarchy descends through the line of the Rrit. You forget that Scrral-Rrit is Patriarch, however much he is your puppet. You are the pretender, Kchula-Tzaatz, not he.”
“He's a disgrace to his line.”
Rrit-Conserver turned a paw over. “For as many generations as the Rrit have held the Patriarchy it has been the role of the Rrit-Conservers to shore up weak leaders. Read your histories. Scrral-Rrit is far from the worst Patriarch our empire has ever seen.”
“He used a slave to attack me. A slave!” Kchula slashed the air with his claws. “He has violated his honor, and mine!”
“I told him this plan was beneath his honor.” Conserver flicked his ears and twitched his tail, wry humor. “He needs stronger counsel in the future, if he has a future.” An ear went up in mock concern. “Perhaps you will leap and kill him now for the insult he's given you.”
Kchula snarled. He knows I need that sthondat. “And what of your own honor? What will Kzin-Conserver say when he hears of this?”
“As a Conserver I can only use violence in personal self-defense. The advice I give my Patriarch is something else entirely. I will take my sire's judgment with confidence.”
Even through his rage, Kchula could see how masterfully his adversary had played the game. He probably wasn't even displeased to see Scrral-Rrit punished. “Your death will take days, Conserver,” he hissed.
“Then it will take longer than your fall, once the Great Prides learn of it.”
And of course Conserver was immune. Kchula screamed in rage and frustration, but he didn't leap. The consequences in front of the Great Circle would be lethal if they discovered he'd violated the Conserver Traditions, and Rrit-Conserver was a deadly adversary in his own right. Instead he turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Ftzaal-Tzaatz was right. I should have killed him when I had the chance.
Rrit-Conserver stood for a long moment after he had gone, then got up and began collecting a few belongings. Scrral-Rrit had dishonored himself. It was time to go.
I have seen lands no man has ever seen.
— Gudridur Thorbjarnarsdottir, first Viking colonist in North America, circa tenth century
The jungle swayed past at a stately pace as Ayla Cherenkova watched from the tsvasztet travel platform strapped to the back of a huge tuskvor herd grandmother. She had seen the tuskvor in the wild, and seen the tuskvor riders on her combat displays in the battle at Ztrak Pride's den, but to ride one herself was something else again. To be a part of the huge herd migration was an experience she had trouble believing in even as she had it. They were ten meters off the ground on the back of a beast sixty meters from tusk tip to armored tail, one of a herd of a hundred or more. The tuskvor ambled along at maybe ten kilometers per hour, not fast but steady, and they never stopped to eat or sleep. They were covering distance like a wildfire, surging steadily eastward. Occasionally the herd expanded as more tuskvor pods joined them, appearing from between the spire trees to follow the ancient migratory track. The migration was its own self-contained world, the tsvasztet's cargo bins laden down with water, provisions and the entire wealth of Ztrak Pride. It had taken just hours to strip the den to bare stone. The czrav traveled light, and the Tzaatz would return to find their quarry vanished.
Pride life continued without interruption on the trek, and she recognized that this migration was as ancient to the czrav as it was to the tuskvor themselves. She shared the tsvasztet with Ferlitz-Telepath, V'rli and Pouncer, but they frequently had company. The great beasts could be steered, like ponderous ships on a powerful river. Their mazourk handlers would bring one alongside and the kzinti, cat agile, would leap from the journeypad of one tsvasztet to another to gossip, to trade, or just to change scenery. A missed jump would mean a ten-meter fall to a certain death, pounded into the ground by the relentless march of the tuskvor, but the kzinti leapt with casual indifference to the possibility, and they never missed their landings.
On the second day Kr-Pathfinder and Quicktail had joined them to swap stories of the battle. Quicktail had ears on his belt now, and a new respect from his elders, although he had yet to claim his name. The migration was a place-between, where the normal traditions were suspended, replaced with a whole new set of norms.
“How long is the journey?” Cherenkova asked.
Across the platform Pouncer fanned his ears up. It was a question he'd wondered about himself but hadn't raised.
Kr-Pathfinder stretched on his prrstet and rolled over to face her. “It depends on the tuskvor. Once around the Hunter's Moon, perhaps more.”
Ayla nodded. Once around the Hunter's Moon was a month, more or less. It would be a long time to spend on a tuskvor's back. At least she now understood the design philosophy behind the prrstet hammock/couches that were kzin-standard furnishing. They served to smooth out the constant jolting of the tuskvor's heavy gait.
A pack of grlor joined them on the second day and dogged their passage, hoping to pull down a straggler. There were seven or eight in the pack, enough to be dangerous, but the mazourk kept the big grandmothers on the outside of the herd and the predators couldn't get close enough to take any of the smaller animals. They tried though, making feint attacks in pairs or threes, their rumbling hunt-calls echoing over the steady, rhythmic thudding of the tuskvor's heavily padded feet. She saw a herd grandmother kill a grlor then. The predator had made a feint at one of the juveniles who'd wandered from the center of the herd, then shied away from its mother as she came to rescue her progeny. The distracted grlor didn't see the grandmother accelerating around the edge of the herd, and it didn't angle away fast enough. The grandmother swung her massive head and that was all it took. Her tusks stabbed the beast in the flank. It roared in pain and turned to snap at her, but stumbled. The grandmother plowed over it without stopping, leaving it crippled and thrashing in her wake, to be crushed lifeless by the oncoming herd.
Their own grandmother seemed inclined to charge as well, but Ferlitz-Telepath hauled on the mazourk harness lines and kept it moving with the main body of tuskvor. To Cherenkova's surprise the other predators in the pack ran to their fallen comrade, snapping and roaring with enough vehemence to discourage another grandmother that seemed about to charge them. As the scene disappeared behind her the grlor were nosing at the body. They understand death. They have more intelligence than I thought. She had been fooled by their reptilian appearance. The grlor didn't return until the next afternoon, and they were more circumspect. There were no more attacks.
They left the shade of jungle for the savannah on the fourth day and the grlor fell back. The kzinti put up tuskvor-skin canopies to keep the sun off the tsvasztet and spent most of the day napping. Ayla spent her time reading books on her beltcomp, titles she'd been meaning to read for years and never quite found time for. Wide-spreading grove trees dotted the sun-baked landscape on the higher ground, their shapes oddly unsettling to her Earth-raised sense of rightness. Here and there she could see other tuskvor herds moving in the same direction as theirs. The migration was picking up steam. Rivers appeared in their path, water rushing and splashing as they grew closer and the tuskvor ahead broached the current, then the tilt as their own beast came over the bank and the crystal water churned muddy far below to run as thick and dark as chocolate downstream. Far ahead on the horizon the distant line that marked the Long Range Mountains grew inexorably larger.
On the seventh day she began to get bored. The kzinti were content to nap the day away and tell stories in the cooler evenings. She would have liked to be able to move around, but there was no way she could leap from tuskvor to tuskvor as the kzinti did. Even with skilful maneuvering the tsvasztet never got closer than three meters. Her ancestors might have swung happily from tree to tree over similar distances, but Ayla Cherenkova, she decided, was going to make this entire journey on the same tuskvor she had started it on. She slep
t well that night, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic rocking of her mount, with Pouncer's haunch for her pillow. When she awoke the sun was high and warm, but the air was noticeably cooler and drier. They had climbed into the foothills in the darkness, and the Long Range was no longer a distant blur on the horizon. Now the peaks loomed like a jagged fortress wall, and another day would see them into the passes.
The herd had transformed itself too. More pods, hundreds more pods, had joined them in the darkness and the migration had become a vast, roiling river of flesh. The males had joined the herd too, more immense than the largest herd-grandmother, bulking out of the torrent here and there like living islands. Quicktail, who used her to practice his storytelling, told her that at the far end of the migration there would be mating, and the males would fight then for females. That would be a sight to see, from a distance. With the other pods came other prides of czrav, and the flow of visitors increased as pride leaders came to pay their respects to V'rli. She thought that Pouncer, deposed son of the Patriarch, might become a center of attention, but except for Czor-Dziit of Dziit Pride, who asked his story and listened while he told it, he seemed to draw no special interest.
While the sun was still low C'mell leapt over to teach Pouncer the art of mazourk, guiding the ponderous beasts with the heavy wooden harness bar connected to the network of reins that controlled them. The harness bar, Ayla learned, and in fact the whole travel platform, were built of aromatic myewl wood timbers. Evidently the leafy bush could grow to a tree as well, and it served to suppress the scent of predator enough to keep the tuskvor from attacking their riders.
“Can I try it?” Ayla asked after the lesson.
C'mell looked questioningly at V'rli, who growled her assent. And Cherenkova took the harness bar under the kzinrette's tutelage. The harness bar levered the harness lines. Pushing forward lowered them to pull the beast's head down and slow it, pulling back raised its head to speed it up, pull left to turn left and right to turn right. In theory it was simple; in practice, it was a lot more difficult. She was barely strong enough to haul the bar back and forth, and it took some understanding of the tuskvor's mood and personality to make it work. Even a kzin couldn't exert enough strength to force a tuskvor's head around against its will, but an even steady pressure would induce it to turn, and its body would eventually follow. Jerking the bar or trying to turn the tuskvor too far out of the tide of the migration would make the creature balk, and then it would pull back against the harness hard enough to slam the bar across its guideposts, and break an arm in the process if the mazourk weren't quick about getting out of the way. A balky tuskvor had to be calmed by gently pulling the harness one way and then the other, convincing it that the pressure it felt was perfectly normal. It took a lot of muscular effort and she began to wish she hadn't asked for the privilege.
