by Larry Niven
Locklear’s nose had brushed the matting. The noise was faint, but Scarface was on his feet and at the doorway, rifle in hand, in two seconds. Locklear’s nose itched, and he pinched his nostrils painfully. It seemed that the damned tabby was never completely off-guard, made edgy as a wtsai by his failure to contact his crew. Locklear felt a sneeze coming, sank down on his heels, rubbed furiously at his nose. When he stood up again, Scarface stood a pace outside, demanding a response with his comm set while Kit stood at the doorway. Locklear scratched carefully at the mat, willing Kit alone to hear it. No such luck.
Scarface began to pace back and forth outside, and Locklear scratched louder. Kit’s ear-umbrellas flicked, lifted. Another scratch. She turned, and saw him move the matting. Her mouth opened slightly. She’s going to warn him, Locklear thought wildly.
“Perhaps we could stroll down the ravine, milord,” she said easily, taking a few steps outside.
Locklear saw the big kzin commander pass the doorway once, twice, muttering furiously about indecision. He caught the words, “. . . Return to the lifeboat with you now if I have not heard from them very soon,” and knew that he could never regain an advantage if that happened. He paced his advance past the matting to coincide with Scarface’s movements, easing the beam rifle into plain sight on the floor, now with his head and shoulders out above the dusty floor, now his waist, now his—his—his sneeze came without warning.
Scarface leaped for the entrance, snatching his sidearm as he came into view, and Locklear gave himself up then even though he was aiming the heavy beam rifle from a prone position, an empty threat. But a bushy tail flashed between the warrior’s ankles, and his next bound sent him skidding forward on his face, the sidearm still in his hand but pointed away from Locklear.
And the muzzle of Locklear’s beam rifle poked so near the commander’s nose that he could only focus on it cross-eyed. Locklear said it almost pleasantly: “Could even a monkey miss such a target?”
“Perhaps,” Scarface said, and swallowed hard. “But I think that rifle is exhausted.”
“The one your nervous brickshitting navigator used? It probably was,” said Locklear, brazening it out, adding the necessary lie with, “I broiled him with this one, which doesn’t have that cute little light glowing, does it? Now then: skate that little shooter of yours across the floor. Your crew is all bugbait, Scarface, and the only thing between you and kitty heaven is my good humor.”
Much louder than need be, unless he was counting on Kit’s help: “Have you no end of insults? Have you no sense of honor? Let us settle this as equals.” Kit stood at the doorway now.
“The sidearm, Grraf-Commander. Or meet your ancestors. Your crew tried to kill me—and monkey see, monkey do.”
The sidearm clattered across the rough floor mat. Locklear chose to avoid further insult; the last thing he needed was a loss of self-control from the big kzin. “Hands behind your back. Kit, get the strongest cord we have and bind him; the feet, then the hands. And stay to one side. If I have to pull this trigger, you don’t want to get splattered.”
Minutes later, holding the sidearm and sitting at the table, Locklear studied the prisoner who sat, legs before him, back against the doorway, and explained the facts of Kzersatz life while Kit cleaned his wounds. She murmured that his cheek scar would someday be t’rralap as he explained the options. “So you see, you have nothing to lose by giving your honorable parole, because I trust your honor. You have everything to lose by refusing, because you’ll wind up as barbecue.”
“Men do not eat captives,” Scarface said. “You speak of honor and yet you lie.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t eat you. But they would. There are two kzinrret here who, if you’ll recall, hate everything you stand for.”
Scarface looked glumly at Kit. “Can this be true?”
She replied, “Can it be true that modern kzinrret have been bred into cattle?”
“Both can be true,” he conceded. “But monk—men are devious, false, conniving little brutes. How can a kzinrret of your intelligence approve of them?”
“Rockear has defeated your entire force—with a little help,” she said. “I am content to pledge my honor to a male of his resourcefulness, especially when he does not abuse his leadership. I only wish he were of our race,” she added wistfully.
Scarface: “My parole would depend on your absolute truthfulness, Rockear.”
A pause from Locklear, and a nod. “You’ve got it as of now, but no backing out if you get some surprises later.”
“One question, then, before I give my word: are all my crew truly casualties?”
“Deader than this beam rifle,” Locklear said, grinning, holding its muzzle upward, squeezing its trigger.
Later, after pledging his parole, Scarface observed reasonably that there was a world of difference between an insufficient charge and no charge. The roof thatching burned slowly at first; slowly enough that they managed to remove everything worth keeping. But at last the whole place burned merrily enough. To Locklear’s surprise, it was Scarface who mentioned safe removal of the zzrou, and pulled it loose easily after a few deft manipulations of the transmitter.
Kit seemed amused as they ate al fresco, a hundred meters from the embers of their manor. “It is a tradition in the ancient culture that a major change of household leadership requires burning of the old manor,” she explained with a smile of her ears.
Locklear, still uneasy with the big kzin warrior so near and now without his bonds, surreptitiously felt of the sidearm in his belt and asked, “Am I not still the leader?”
“Yes,” she said. “But what kind of leader would deny happiness to his followers?” Her lowered glance toward Scarface could hardly be misunderstood.
The ear umbrellas of the big male turned a deeper hue. “I do not wish to dishonor another warrior, Locklear, but—if I am to remain your captive here as you say, um, such females may be impossibly over-stimulating.”
“Not to me,” Locklear said. “No offense, Kit; I’m half in love with you myself. In fact, I think the best thing for my own sanity would be to seek, uh, females of my own kind.”
“You intended to take us back to the manworlds, I take it,” said Scarface with some smugness.
“After a bit more research here, yes. The hell with wars anyhow. There’s a lot about this planet you don’t know about yet. Fascinating!”
“You will never get back in a lifeboat,” said Scarface, “and the cruiser is now only a memory.”
“You didn’t!”
“I assuredly did, Locklear. My first act when you released my bonds was to send the self-destruct signal.”
Locklear put his head between his hands. “Why didn’t we hear the lifeboat go up?”
“Because I did not think to set it for destruct. It is not exactly a major asset.”
“For me it damned well is,” Locklear growled, then went on. “Look here: I won’t release Kit from any pair-bonding to me unless you promise not to sabotage me in any way. And I further promise not to try turning you over to some military bunch, because I’m the, uh, mayor of this frigging planet and I can declare peace on it if I want to. Honor bound, honest injun, whatever the hell that means, and all the rigamarole that goes with it. Goddammit, I could have blown your head off.”
“But you did not know that.”
“With the sidearm, then! Don’t ch’r—don’t fiddle me around. Put your honor on the line, mister, and put your big paw against mine if you mean it.”
After a long look at Kit, the big kzin commander reached out a hand, palm vertical, and Locklear met it with his own. “You are not the man we left here,” said the vanquished kzin, eyeing Locklear without malice. “Brown and tough as dried meat—and older, I would say.”
“Getting hunted by armed kzinti tends to age a feller,” Locklear chuckled. “I’m glad we found peace with honor.”
“Was any commander,” the commander asked no one in particular, “ever faced with so many conflicts of honor?
”
“You’ll resolve them,” Locklear predicted. “Think about it: I’m about to make you the head captive of a brand new region that has two newborn babes in it, two intelligent kzinrret at least, and over an eight-squared other kzinti who have been in stasis for longer than you can believe. Wake ‘em, or don’t, it’s up to you, just don’t interfere with me because I expect to be here part of the time, and somewhere else at other times. Kit, show him how to use the airboat. If you two can’t figure out how to use the stuff in this Outsider zoo, I miss my—”
“Outsiders?” Scarface did not seem to like the sound of that.
“That’s just my guess,” Locklear shrugged. “Maybe they have hidden sensors that tell ‘em what happens on the planet Zoo. Maybe they don’t care. What I care about, is exploring the other compounds on Zoo, one especially. I may not find any of my kind on Newduvai, and if I do they might have foreheads a half-inch high, but it bears looking into. For that I need the lifeboat. Any reason why it wouldn’t take me to another compound on Zoo?”
“No reason.” After a moment of rumination, Scarface put on his best negotiation face again. “If I teach you to be an expert pilot, would you let me disable the hyperwave comm set?”
Locklear thought hard for a similar time. “Yes, if you swear to leave its local functions intact. Look, fella, we may want to talk to one another with it.”
“Agreed, then,” said the kzin commander.
That night, Locklear slept poorly. He lay awake for a time, wondering if Newduvai had its own specimen cave, and whether he could find it if one existed. The fact was that Kzersatz simply lacked the kind of company he had in mind. Not even the right kind of cathouse, he groused silently. He was not enormously heartened by the prospect of wooing a Neanderthal nymphet, either. Well, that was what field research was for. Please, God, at least a few Cro-Magnons! Patience, Locklear, and earplugs, because he could not find sleep for long.
It was not merely that he was alone, for the embers near his pallet kept him as toasty as kzinrret fur. No, it was the infernal yowling of those cats somewhere below in the ravine.
