by Larry Niven
Besides, I am hungry and mad to see the sky, to smell fresh air again. If he was to be reborn into this new world, let his fangs and tongue take seizin of it.
"I will emerge," he said to the kzin. It stood apathetic, eyes dull; he ordered the machine to jolt its pleasure centers and relax forebrain restriction, and awareness returned to the big golden eyes. "Where are we?"
"Near . . . hrreeawho, how did we come here so fast? Where is . . . we are near Neu Friborg, I think. We are there, I think."
It lifted the module to the dirt and sank exhausted to the ground. Fluid began to cycle out of Durvash's lungs, and he wrapped his lips against the pain.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Something was biting his tail.
Spots groaned and tried to open his eyes, but they were gummed together. The biting stopped, and water fell across his face. He heard shouting. Feebly, he scrubbed at his eyes with a wrist, and blinked back to wakefulness. An advokat slinked in the middle distance, huge jaws working, matted pelt stinking of carrion.
Jonah-human was looking down at him, from a safe distance, canteen in hand. Matted blood covered one side of his face, and fresh blood glistened on clumsy bandages around his neck and one arm. They glanced aside from each other's eyes, and the human stepped forward and sank down by the kzin's side.
"Got to stop the bleeding," he rasped. "Here, drink."
Spots lapped water from his cupped palm, and then seized the canteen to guzzle with his thin lips wrapped awkwardly around the spout. He coughed and felt tearing pain in his chest; water spurted out of his mouth. Looking down, he could see the bright gleam of steel among the tangled red mass of his flank.
"It is not as bad as it looks," he wheezed, after taking a careful deep breath. "See, the steel must have turned aside and snapped on the ribs—thanks to your cutter bar, which weakened it. My lungs are not pierced, nor my intestines." He licked at his nostrils and sniffed again. "I would smell that."
"Could be stuff inside hanging on by a thread," Jonah said worriedly.
"I will survive while you pursue the oath-breaker," Spots said grimly. Then the voice broke into a howl of woe.
"Not until we get you to help. This would happen while Hans and Tyra are away with the medkit . . . that'll be the closest place. You can lean on one of the mules, I can catch them. I think."
My sibling attacked him dishonorably, yet he will forego revenge to save my life, Spots thought. I am ashamed.
"First," he said aloud, "you'll have to get this out of me."
Jonah blanched as he looked down at the knifeblade. The stub of it moved with every breath.
* * *
"We really should get under way," Tyra urged, with a sigh.
"Yep. Figure we should."
Hans smiled beatifically, and leaned back in the hammock. His was strung between two orange trees, and a few blossoms had fallen across his grizzled face. He brushed them aside and took another sip of the drink in his hollowed-out pineapple. There was rum in it, and cherries and cream and a few other things—passionfruit, for example—and it helped to make the warmth quite tolerable. So did the tinkling stream which flowed down the narrow valley under the overhanging cliff, and the shade of the palm trees. Hans Shwartz had been a grown man when the kzinti came; he was into his second century now, and even with good medical care your bones appreciated the warmth after so much hard work. The air buzzed with bees, scented with flowers.
"Thank you, sweetling," he said, as a girl handed him a platter of fried chicken; it had fresh bread on the side, and a little woven bowl of hot sauce for dipping. The girl smiled at him, teeth and green eyes and blond hair all bright against her tanned skin. Someone who looked like her twin sister was cutting open a watermelon for them. Not far away in a paddock grazed six horses, three for him and three for Tyra, and they had been turning down gifts of pigs and sheep and household tools for a solid day now.
"These are sweet people," Tyra said, as the girl handed her a plate as well.
"No argument," Hans said, gesturing with a drumstick. The batter on it was cornmeal, delicately spiced; he bit into the hot fragrant meat with appreciation. "They need some help, though. Someone to guide them through the next few years, getting back into contact with things. Otherwise they'll be taken advantage of."
"True enough," Tyra said, more somberly. "I was surprised at you, the way you diagnosed those children and managed the treatment." Her young eyes were guileless, but shrewd. "What did you do before the conquest, Freeman Shwartz?"
"This and that, this and that," Hans said, repelling her curiosity with mild firmness. The youngsters were all up and about, although they would need further therapy. Unfortunately, that would cost; it would be some time before Wunderland could afford planetary health insurance again.
"And we should get going; I'm worried about Jona—about Freeman Matthieson, alone with those kzin."
Hans suppressed a smile. His tolerant amusement turned to concern as the headman of the village dashed up, sweating, his eyes wide.
"Your friend," he gasped out. "Your young friend—and one of the accursed ratcats—they are here. They are hurt!"
Hans tossed his plate and drink aside, yelling for his medkit as he landed running down the pathway. Tyra was ahead of him, her long slim legs flashing through the borrowed sarong.
* * *
"Finagle, there is a heaven after all," Jonah murmured.
The cool cloth sponged at his face and neck as he looked up through matted lashes at Tyra's face. Sheer relief made him limp for long moments, his head lolling in her lap. A man could get used to this, he thought.
Then: "Spots!"
"He's all right," Tyra said. "In better shape than you, actually. The locals were a bit leery of having him in the village, but they put up a shelter for him and Hans has been working on him."
"Speak of der teufel," Hans said, ducking through the doorway of bamboo sections on string. "Aren't you sitting pretty, young feller," he added. Tyra blushed slightly and set Jonah's head back on the pillow.
"Your furry friend is fine, as far as I can tell," the old man went on. "Growling and muttering about that brother of his."
"Who nearly killed both of us," Jonah said grimly.
He felt at the side of his face; the swellings were gone, and his fingers slid over the slickness of spray-skin. From the slightly distant feel from within, he was on painblockers, but not too heavily.
"He would have killed me, if Spots hadn't jumped him." Jonah shook his head. "I'm surprised. Usually, if a kzin swears a formal oath, they'll follow it come core-collapse or memory dump; look at the way Spots stood up for me. I can see Bigs challenging me, but to try and kill me in my sleep—"
"Temptation can do funny things to a mind, human or non," Hans said shrewdly. "Seem to remember one feller who wouldn't believe there was a fuzzball under a rock, on account of temptation."
Jonah flushed, conscious of Tyra's curiosity "When will I be ready to ride?" he said.
"Not for a week at least," Tyra said firmly.
Hans tugged at his whiskers. "Funny you should ask; Spots said the same thing, more or less." His button blue eyes appraised the younger man. "Neither of you was infected." Wunderland bacteria were not much of a threat to humans; the native biochemistry lacked some elements essential to Terrestrial life, and vice versa. "He's healing real fast, seems to be natural for him. You're dehydrated, and those cuts shouldn't be put under much strain, sprayskin or no. Say three days, minimum."
"One," Jonah said grimly. He held up a hand at Tyra, stopping her before the words left her lips. "It's not just what we—Montferrat—could do with the knowledge. It's what that tnuctipun could do, once it's out of its bottle. I think we badly underestimated it. I believe it's controlling Bigs, somehow. Control, hypnosis. Maybe what the Thrintun do for all I know. That thing is a deadly danger every instant it's free, never mind what the government or the ARM would do with it. I think it would be better if the ARM does get it. Maybe they can dis
pose of it."
Hans nodded. "Can't say as I like it, but you're talking sense," he said.
Slowly, reluctantly, Tyra nodded too. "I might have expected boldness like that from you," she murmured.
"Tanj. It's common sense."
"Which is not common."
* * *
Bigs shook his head again, trying to clear the stuffed-wool feeling. It refused to go away, even though he was thinking more clearly again. More calmly, at least. The mule-beast brayed in his ear, then shied violently when he threatened its nose with outstretched claws.
Stupid beast, he thought with a snarl, then exerted all his strength to haul it down again and hold it back; they were both very thirsty, but he could not let it run to the little watercourse ahead. It does not even have enough brains to obey through fear. The ruined manor-house was half a kilometer ahead, and Neu Friborg beyond that. He would rest for the day in the ruins, and help Durvash when he emerged from the autodoc. Then he would pass the town in the dark and walk down the trail to Munchen until he could buy a ride on a vehicle.
"And abandon this stinking, stupid mule-beast," he muttered to himself.
With grim patience he led it down the steep clay bank to the slow-moving creek and moved upstream, throwing himself down to lap. It was the ground-scent that alerted him, since the wind was in his face. That and the clatter of pebbles as feet walked the bank behind him. He was up and turning in a flash, but his feet and hands were further away than they should have been, and he shook his head fretfully again. Spots. I smell Spots. Stand by me, brother. Bare is a back without brother to guard it. Spots was dead, he remembered, and forced his fur to bottle out.
Four humans, all armed but scruffy and hungry-looking, their ribs standing out. The leader-beast a taller one with heavy facial pelt and the remains of a swollen belly. Bigs grinned and waited.
"Hey, what's a ratcat doing here outback?" the leader asked. The voice had a haunting familiarity, except that the stuffing in his head got in the way.
"Nice mule," one of the others said, examining the beast. It snapped at him, and he slapped its nose down with an experienced hand. "Hey, good saddle too."
Bigs snarled. "Away from my possessions, monkeys," he said, backing toward the animal and retreating slightly to keep all the humans in his field of vision. They were ambling forward, not seeming to spread out deliberately but edging around behind him all the same. His head swiveled.
"Hey, that's not polite!" the big manbeast said, grinning insolently. "You shouldn't call us monkeys no more, on account of we kick your hairy asses."
Bigs felt fury build within him and his tail stiffen, then inexplicably drain away. I must dominate them, he told himself.
"We just poor bush-country men. You got any money? That's a fine strakkaker you got, and a nice beamer. Maybe I recognize the beamer—maybe we had one like it a while ago, before my luck got bad?" The leader's face convulsed. "Maybe Ed Gruederman should boot some head, hey?"
"Get back!" Bigs said. The monkeys continued their slinking, sidling advance.
His hand blurred to the strakkaker, and he pivoted to spray the monkey nearest Durvash, he would turn and cut them all down. The weapon clicked and crackled—there was sand in the muzzle! He crouched to leap, but something very cold flashed across the small of his back. Something huge, like his father's hand, slapped him across the left side of his head, and he was falling. Falling for a very long time. Then he was lying, and he hurt very much, but his head seemed clear.
"Forgive me, brother," he whispered. Soft hands reached down out of time to lift and hold him, and a tongue washed his ears. A voice crooned wordlessly. He closed his eyes, and welcomed the long fall into night.
* * *
"Hey, Ed—look at that!"
Ed Gruederman glanced over to where a rifle muzzle prodded the huge wound on the dead kzin's head, right where his left ear would have been. Silvery threads were lifting out of the blood and grey matter, almost invisibly thin, twisting and questing in the light. He slid his cleaned machete back into the sheath behind his right hip and walked over to the mule.
"Get back from that, you scheisskopf," he called to the man by their victim. Stupid ratcat, not to think we had a sniper ready. "That's some kzin shit, it may be catching, you know, like a fungus."
The bandit jumped back and leveled his rifle, firing an entire cassette into the dead carnivore. When it clicked empty the torso had been cut in half, but the tendrils still waved slowly.
"Watch it, fool, we're close to town—you want them to hear us and call the mounted police?" Then: "Yazus Kristus!"
They all crowded around, until he beat them back with his hat. "Gold," he said reverentially, lifting one of the plastic sacks from that side of the packsaddle.
They all recognized it, of course. Nobody could be in their line of work in the Jotuns and not recognize gold dust; for one thing, nothing else was that heavy for its size. They counted the bags, running their hands over them until their leader lashed the tarpaulin back.
"Ten, fifteen thousand krona," one muttered. "Oh, the verguuz and bitches I can buy with this."
"Buy with your share, if Ed Gruederman can keep your shitty head on your sisterfucking shoulders that long," their leader replied. "Back! There's an assessor's office in Neu Friborg. We'll stop there and get krona and sell the mule, and then head for Munchen or Arhus-on-Donau, the Jotuns is no place for an honest man these days—too many police. Look at them, letting ratcats wander around attacking humans."
That brought grins and laughter. "What's this, boss?" one asked, lifting the smooth featureless egg that balanced the mule's load.
It shifted in his arms, and he dropped it with a cry of surprise. That turned to horror as it split open, and a spindly-limbed creature rose shakily from the twin halves; it was spider thin, blue-black and rubbery with three crimson eyes and a mouthful of teeth edged like a saw.
"Scheisse!" the bandit screamed. The mobile lips moved, perhaps in the beginning of wait.
The motion never had time to complete itself. A dozen rounds tore the little creature to shreds, until Gruederman shouted the bandits into sense—they were in more danger from each other's weapons than from whatever-it-was. Even then three of them hacked it into unrecognizable bits with their machetes. Their fear turned to terror as the twin halves of the egg began to glow and collapse on themselves.
"We get out of here," Gruederman said. "The advokats will take care of the bodies." There were always a pack of them around a human settlement, waiting for garbage to scavenge, impossible to exterminate. "Come on. Money is waiting."
* * *
"Not more than an hour or so," Jonah said, with an odd sense of anticlimax. And yes, he thought. Sadness. The mangled remains of the tnuctipun were pathetically fragile in the bright light of Alpha Centauri. To come so far so long, for this. There Ain't No Justice.
Tyra shied a stone at a lurking advokat that lingered, torn between greed and cowardice. It yelped and ran back a few paces; tears streaked her face.
"Come look at this!" Hans said sharply. He reached down with a stick and turned the dead kzin's head to one side. Not much of the soft tissue was left after the advokat pack, but for some reason they had avoided the shattered bone.
Spots began a snarl of anger, then stopped as he saw what was revealed. The others stood beside him, watching the silver tendrils move in their slow weaving. Hands probed with the stick; several of the threads lashed towards it and clung for a moment. A button-sized piece of the same material was embedded in the shattered remains of Bigs's inner ear.
"Stand back," Spots said, unslinging his beamer.
None of the others quarreled with that; they crowded back with the gaping outbackers as the kzin stood on the edge of the creekbank and fanned a low-set beam across the bodies until nothing was left but calcinated ash. The tendrils of the device in his brother's brain shriveled in the heat, and the central button exploded with a small fumf of released pressure. Spots kept up the f
ire until the wet clay was baked to stoneware, then threw the exhausted weapon aside.
"That . . . thing explains a good deal," Jonah said; Tyra nodded, reached out a hand and then withdrew it.
"I am owed a debt of vengeance by a race three billion years dead," Spots said, in a voice that might have been of equal age. "How shall I requite it?"
"There's a debt of vengeance only about three hours old," Hans said sharply. "Those tracks are heading for Neu Friborg."
"Let's do it then," Jonah said grimly. "Let's go."
* * *
"Hey, it's a good mule," Ed Gruederman said. "But we don't need it any more—we had good luck up in the mountains."
His men were on their best behavior; grinning like idiots with their hats clasped to their chests, and keeping their mouths silent the way he had told them. Gruederman felt a swelling of pride at their discipline; he'd had to boot plenty of head to get them so well-behaved. A big crowd had gathered around the mule with the unbalanced load as the four of them led it into town. Well, nothing ever happened in little arse-pimple outback towns like this, even if it did have a weekly run down to the lowlands. Fine well-set men like themselves were an event. He caught the eye of a young woman, scowling when she looked away.
"This the assessor's office?" he said. It should be, the best building in the town and the only one of prewar rockmelt construction.
"Ja."
A young girl of ten or so had slid under the mule, examining the girth and then running a hand down the neck. She seemed interested in the bar-code brand; not many of those out in the hills, he guessed. Then she ran up the stairs into the building.
"How long did you say you'd been up in the Jotuns?" a man said, his tone friendly.
