Choice of the Cat

by E. E. Knight

  "Thank you for the game. I haven't been beaten in years."

  Valentine and Ahn-Kha went to the door. As they opened it, the Big Man spoke again. "David, a bit of advice: Practice the tried and true. You'll win more often. The intuitive player can be brilliant. Once in a while even beat the best. But most of the time, you'll lose."

  The Cat nodded. The Big Man returned to his board. Valentine left a crack in the door and looked back through it. The Big Man wrinkled his brow in thought, then pushed his golden pawn forward.

  "So much for explosives," Valentine said when they were in the street again.

  Ahn-Kha looked at the sky. "There's one other place we could try. It's only a few blocks away."

  "A different trading house?"

  "None of the others deal in anything but hunting rifles."

  "Then what?"

  "The General's building where Khay-Hefle now rules. It lies behind the walls that imprison my people."

  From what might have been a corner office within the skeleton of a high-rise, Valentine looked across central Omaha at the ghetto of the Golden Ones.

  Flat on his stomach, he leisurely surveyed the quarter of the city's ruins allocated to them. Behind the old library, now the residence of their usurping chief and his Twisted Cross shield, were the twin buildings Valentine knew to be home to the dank farms of heartroot of which Ahn-Kha rhapsodized and home to Omaha's captive Golden Ones. Ahn-Kha said the lower floors and stairways of the buildings were sound, though the walls and windows had been blasted out by the overpressure of nuclear explosions. Many Golden Ones lived on the structurally intact floors in a warren of partitions and rebuilt rooms, complete with a gravity plumbing system that Ahn-Kha claimed to be the wonder of Omaha.

  The Twisted Cross added on some changes. Piles of rubble topped with cemented-in broken glass formed walls all around the Golden Ones' quarter. Their new Principal Elder insisted on this measure for the safety of his people. Ahn-Kha maintained that the wall did a better job of keeping Golden Ones in than their enemies out, a belief supported by the slapped-together wooden guard towers that stood both inside and outside the wall.

  Valentine guessed the whole area to be well over a square mile, in what was once downtown Omaha. As Ahn-Kha described, there had been a thriving population of Grogs controlling the heart of the city, but even in their reduced space behind the walls, the ghetto appeared far from crowded.

  "I don't see many of your people. A few working in the gardens, some more clearing that field of rubble to the northwest."

  "Every day a train comes through the rail-gate in the south. My clan is great builders; your Twisted Cross need them in the old base south of the city. Those who wish to eat adequately get on the train. They serve soup and bread for those who work. They even keep some of my people in pens on his base."

  "Hostage taking. The General likes the tried-and-true as much as the Big Man."

  "Once the Golden One who traded profitably, or spun the best poem-chant, or threw the sook most accurately at sport was considered a Great One. Now it is the back that moves the most dirt."

  "Have you been back inside since all this happened?"

  "Yes, brief trips. It is dangerous. But I have met many times with those who sneak out for trade and to hunt. My people are good engineers; they open a new hole as soon as another is blocked. It is a dangerous business, especially at night. The Hooded Ones of the Twisted Cross see through walls, sometimes under the ground."

  "Seeing isn't the right word. An energy that a sentient being creates, called an aura, is something they sense."

  The Grog nodded. "I heard of this, but I thought it was a tale to frighten us. The General's men roam outside the walls at night. During the day, my people are under the eyes of the guards in the towers. Some are men, some are Gray Ones, some are Khay-Hefle's lickspittles."

  Valentine, his eyes still to the binoculars, broke into a smile. "You are well read, Ahn-Kha. I don't think I've ever heard the word lickspittle spoken in my life."

  "I grew to love your language, my David. It has little logic or music to it, but there are some fine phrases."

  "Agreed. My engineer-sergeant, when I served in the labor regiment, he had some fine phrases. No logic or music in them, either, but he got his point across."

  Ahn-Kha laughed. "Foremen are the same everywhere."

  "You said you had a plan for getting us inside. What do you have in mind?"

  "We cannot go over the wall. There are many obstacles, traps, and noisemakers. During the day we would be seen; at night, the Hooded Ones could sense us. That leaves only two other ways in. The first seems less risky on the face of it, but involves a good deal of luck. I know of two tunnels in, but my information is months old. As I said, they do find die tunnels. We may get below ground only to learn it is bricked up. Or it may appear clear, but have explosives placed all around to kill us and close the tunnel at the same time.

  "The second way requires more daring. Both the rail gate and the city gate are guarded by humans, diose in the lowest ranks of the Twisted Cross. To them, every Golden One looks alike. There is only rarely a Golden One on sentry duty; more often it is Gray Ones. I could march in as one of Khay-Hefle's lickspittles—as you like this word so much— with you under guard. We might get as far as the Clan Hall. There, however, Khay-Hefle's bodyguards do stand sentry duty, and they would recognize me."

  "How big is his bodyguard?" Valentine asked.

  "There are twelve or fifteen. Three always attend to him, standing outside his door day and night. Another stands at the Hall Doors, and those off-duty gather inside the Hall or near it. They are well armed, for they fear my people whom they have betrayed."

  "The Great Hall has the weapons of the Twisted Cross?"

  "Yes, the armory is there, under the supervision of this General's men. I understand they also have a small post on the other side of the river. They have done much work on the old base south of town. This General recruits artisans and technicians from many places. He covets more than just Omaha."

  Valentine nodded. "That's what I'm afraid of. From what you said, he means to destroy the lands I come from. He could succeed, given what I've seen. Southern Command is only just hanging on as is."

  You 're just one man, he told himself. Get back to the Ozarks with what you have.

  One man can't wreck the factory, but he can drop a wrench in the works, another, more confidant part of him answered. Southern Command wouldn't get an expedition organized until next spring, if at all, and by then it could be too late.

  Valentine had done some brazen things in his life, but walking up to a guard post with a well-spoken blood enemy holding a gun to his spine was the crowning act of audacity in his career. He dragged his feet down the cleared road through the rubble of what was once a wide thoroughfare with his hands over his head.

  At first he asked Ahn-Kha to move him along with the submachine gun. "No, my David," the Golden One disagreed, "it would be noticed. The lowliest gate warden holds himself superior to my people, and would take your weapon without thinking twice."

  So they hid the PPD and Valentine's pack in the rubble of the building they used to observe the Golden One zone. Ahn-Kha carried Valentine's sword, parang, and pistol in what had been Valentine's pack. The would-be prisoner's only weapons were his fighting claws.

  Evening shadows began to settle across the city while a Twisted Cross noncom watched them approach with an interested air. He carried himself with the impatience of one who expects to be promoted to better duty. Valentine's ears picked up their conversation. "One of our valiant allies caught himself a real prize," the corporal with the silvered swastikas on the sleeves of his gray overalls commented.

  "Wish they'd bring in a woman for a change, Corp," the private in an urban camouflage version of the same overall commented.

  "Wish for a promotion, then. The officers get the mistresses, the sergeants get the whores, and the rest get the shaft."

  "Ain't it the truth,
Corp."

  As the pair drew up to the zigzag of barbed-wire fencing blocking the gate in the daytime, the corporal stepped into the sun. "That's far enough," he said, assault rifle cradled in his elbow. One of his eyes was set higher in his face than the other. As if to balance it, he kept the opposite corner of his mouth turned down. "What's this, soldier?"

  "Da-Khest, Railroad Security, sir!" Ahn-Kha barked. "I caught this man just this side of the old interstate, on the south line. He was armed, sir!"

  The corporal turned back to the sentry. "Railroad Security," he said, sotto voce. "Three meals a day to sleep under a bridge." He turned back to the Grog. "Good work, Detest. We like to see results for a change. Usually we get stories from your people about bandits dragging their dead away. Let's see that gun."

  Ahn-Kha pulled out Valentine's revolver and handed it over. "It was empty, sir."

  The corporal examined the weapon. He spun the cylinder. "I'm not surprised. Private Wilde, you have any use for a .357?"

  "No, sir. I know Ackermann is looking for a spare nine-millimeter."

  "Who wants a wheelgun anyway?" another sentry put in.

  Wilde nodded. "Those Troopers are the only ones who carry that hardware. Dumb goat ropers."

  "It's too scratched up," the corporal commented, spinning the cylinder and working the double action. "Be worth something if it were chrome, or at least stainless. This blued steel looks like hell after a few years."

  Valentine spoke up. "There's been a mistake, sir. I'm just a courier, but I have friends on both sides of the river. Both sides, sir. It would be worth something to the Big Man in the Old Market if I got back to him."

  The low eye squinted on the corporal. "Listen, mook, I'm not some hungry Trooper or a Marshal on the take. I'm chiseled out of stainless steel. Bullshit slides off me."

  You're also so busy being superior, you're not asking the right questions, Valentine thought.

  "This isn't worth the sweat I'm working up in this heat," the corporal decided. "De-test, this man's in pretty good shape. Running packs of contraband builds the muscles. He'll find them useful at the Cave. Throw him in the hold for now; he'll go out on tomorrow's train."

  The corporal returned to the little shed and made a note on a clipboard. The sentry moved aside half the wire barricade, and Valentine led Ahn-Kha home.

  "Think about it, sir," Valentine called over his shoulder. "Get in touch with the Big Man. Tell him Blackie's in the cuffs, he'll be grateful. And generous."

  "He'll do what he always does," the corporal laughed. "He'll claim he's an honest businessman and say he's never heard of you."

  Exactly what I'm counting on, Valentine thought.

  Ahn-Kha marched Valentine into the Golden Ones' ghetto and turned up a little lane that led up the hill to the library.

  "About one more hour until the work train returns," Ahn-Kha whispered. "It will be dark then, and the Hooded Ones will be out to watch it unload. They always watch whenever great numbers of my people are together. We hide until then, my David."

  They passed a row of houses built out of old cinder blocks and scrap metal. But these were no makeshift hovels—the Golden Ones worked with rubble like some artists did with broken glass, creating mosaics and patterns out of broken paving bricks and twisted structural steel.

  Older Grogs—their fur had turned to gray white— lounged in front on wooden chaises, chatting in their rumbling tongue.

  "In this door, quick!" Ahn-Kha said, and Valentine complied. He pulled the curtain aside, and they entered the rude home.

  A white-haired Grog looked up from his evening meal. He blinked his eyes twice, and suddenly his ears shot up.

  They spoke for several minutes in their native tongue, and the older one finally limped outside. Valentine watched out of the corner of the window, observing ghetto life from inside.

  "He is an old friend of my parents," Ahn-Kha explained. "He goes now to tell the others to pretend they saw nothing; then he shall pay a call on another friend at the Clan Hall. Ahh, here, my David, taste this."

  Ahn-Kha broke a tubular growth in half. It had a hole running down the center, as if it had grown around a spit. Valentine tasted it and found it pleasant, a little like pumpkin with the texture of half-cooked pasta. "We used to dip it in honey, but there's no honey to be had these days." Ahn-Kha opened up a locker and began searching through folded clothes, and he found a simple blue version of the robe-kimonos the Golden Ones preferred to wear.

  "Not bad," Valentine said, taking another bite. "Tastes kind of like spoon bread. I'd like to try it with molasses. What is it?"

  "Did I not tell you? This is heartroot, the staple of my people. From nothing but dead growth, night soil, mud, and time we get this. It grows year-round as long as the water does not freeze, although much more slowly in winter." He changed his torn and dirty old robe for the blue one he selected. They passed the time talking about the former library and the probable location of the armory within.

  They waited until darkness and left at the banshee wail of the train whistle pulling into the ghetto. Valentine carried his revolver and sword, the former now loaded and in a holster at his hip, the latter strapped across his back under the black trench coat, with the hilt projecting out the loose collar behind his head. Ahn-Kha still bore the fifty caliber, the gun carried midbarrel in his right hand. The Grog had Valentine's parang tucked inside the fresh robe.

  They traversed the common ground in the center of the ghetto, part cultivated garden and part parkland. Some sheep lay in the shade by a lily pad-filled pond.

  Ahn-Kha stood very erect. "This way, my David."

  The Grog took him to a little clearing bordered by another Grog shantytown. Valentine saw, and smelled, a latrine in the center of the field. Ahn-Kha halted and, using his rifle as a staff, gazed out onto the meadow.

  "This is where they buried my people," Ahn-Kha said, slowly and quietly. "When Khay-Hefle took over, they dumped the bodies in a pit here. My parents were among the dead, along with the Principal Elder, and many of my people who fought back. Along with those who just got caught in the battle."

  Ahn-Kha took off his mitten slippers and dug his long toes into the earth.

  "My wife and sons are buried here. I wished them to go with the One in Ten to Canada, but she refused to leave her family. Two thousand of my people rest beneath this soil. They say if you are very silent, you can hear weeping.

  "At first, after the custom of you humans, my people planted flowers here, I am told. Then one day, after the walls had risen, this General who accepts only submission or death came on an inspection. He saw the many beautiful flowers and ordered them pulled up. In their place he dug pit-toilets, and ordered all to use them. The first, of course, was Khay-Hefle, who always seems to find new insults to put upon those who had been his people. At one time they would march the workers all the way from the train station to here at the end of the day. Golden One workers are not considered fit to use human toilets at the Cave this General is building. They must go to the river bushes or wait until they return here."

  "I'm ... sorry," Valentine said, choking on the second word. It was inadequate. "Never said you were married."

  "I play tricks on myself. When I do not speak of it or think of it, the pain lessens for a time. She was very beautiful, both in the looking and in the knowing. You own my apologies, I am speaking in English but my private voice speaks in the Golden Tongue. Let me try again. She was very beautiful to look at and to know."

  "I'm sure she was," Valentine said, and meant it, although he did not have the first clue as to how a Grog measured physical beauty.

  "My David, I am glad we could come here. I have only seen this place from afar. But we must hurry—we have business on the hill."

  They moved among the wooded parkland up the hill to the old library. From below, it loomed like a temple built to the specifications of a fortress. Valentine sensed a Reaper somewhere within. A coyote or feral dog crossed their path ahead, head an
d tail both held close to the ground. A few Golden One couples could be seen here and there among the trees, the smaller females walking just behind the males, touching the backs of their partners.

  "Let's wait a moment, please," he asked Ahn-Kha. The Grog knelt and followed Valentine's gaze to the building.

  Valentine quieted his mind. He felt his body relax. The Reaper came into focus. It was below ground.

  "Are you all right, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked.

  "Yes, now I am. One of your Hooded Ones is in there."

  "You smell it?"

  Valentine didn't have time to explain. "Something like that.

  "You said you had a plan for getting in," Valentine reminded him, looking at the stoutly barred and shuttered windows around the first floor of the building.

  "My father's old friend knows one of my people on Khay-Hefle's staff. She hates the new Principal and gives news to my people when she can. She has arranged to unlock the shutters on one of the windows on the second floor after the guard checks it. It is very dangerous for her; it means she must remain in the building all night. The windows on the second floor are not barred, for the climb is thought impossible."

  "Then how are we going to get up there?"

  The Grog pointed at a flagpole in front of a long low building, just to the right of the Great Hall.

  "We shall use that."

  Valentine looked up at the flag of the Twisted Cross hanging limp in the night sky.

  "Don't tell me that's the barrack for the Twisted Cross soldiers."

  "Yes, it is."

  "That's quite a risk." Valentine checked the view of the guard at the Great Hall. Khay-Helfle's soldier wore padded leather at his shoulders, shins, and forearms, and a helmet cut to accommodate the flexible pointed ears. He could not see the barrack.

  "There is no sentry in front of the barrack."

  "No, the Twisted Cross close up tight in the evening."

  They avoided the Golden One sentry standing outside the main doors of the ex-library, now the Golden One Great Hall, and moved around the side of the building. Valentine took a long look and listen. Satisfied, he slapped Ahn-Kha on the arm, and they dashed across the cracked cement sidewalk. The Grog made so much noise running, Valentine found himself wishing in vain for the absent Duvalier. Was she on her way back to the Free Territory? Waiting at the rendezvous, cursing him every hour on the hour?