Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIV

Persoff considered, then said, “And after forty years the war may have been won already, and if we carry out our mission we may be starting another.” What a freemother. He carefully did not say that aloud.

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“The people here hold the trees we have to cut in very high regard, and they’ve given permission based on the idea that it’ll help win the war.”

“I’ll explain the situation to them, sir,” Kershner said.

“Thank you, but it’s not your duty.”

“Beg pardon, Captain, but it is my specialty. If I’m standing by, explaining the fine details as you refer them to me, it’ll look to them like you’re avoiding responsibility. I think it’d better if I explained before you said your piece.”

“Are you trying to let me off the hook, Kershner?”

The hypertech looked startled, then grinned. “Just this once, sir. It is your first time.”

Meier and Tokugawa both made strangled noises, while Persoff just rolled his eyes. “Are you off watch, Kershner?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Then go engage in optional activity,” Persoff said. “Consult McCabe if you’re not certain of the term. Dismissed.”

He brought his crew to the beach as the locals were assembling for whatever they had planned. Full dress uniform, no exceptions. Tokugawa was still in a float chair, but Meier was able to get his blues around his neck brace. The only grumbling anyone did was the sort that was used to complain about the weather, since everyone understood what these people had agreed to give up.

They thought they did, anyway.

Persoff took his senior officers to where most of the orders were coming from, and addressed the elders there. “Before we go on, there’s something I need you to know. Even if everything works right, we may not be able to strike against the kzinti. It took us decades longer than planned to get here, and the war may be over by now. We can’t find out until we get to a human world, because we won’t have the hyperwave. Mr. Kershner can explain the technical details if you wish.”

One very old man said, “Johnson. I can see a civilian vessel just carrying spares, but I would expect a fighting starship to be able to fabricate replacement parts for everything it used. Why can’t you fix the hyperwave?”

Kershner stepped forward. “Sir, it isn’t practical to put something of that complexity aboard a vessel. The parts we need are of mixed composition, and have to be made to standards of molecular precision.”

The Johnson-apparently The Johnson-nodded and said, “That’s to produce an effect that’s necessary for the thing to work.”

“Yes, sir,” Kershner said, looking surprised.

“What’s the effect?”

Kershner gave a faint sigh and began explaining hyperwave physics in baby talk, as if he were describing it to a journalist.

The old man stopped him after no more than fifteen seconds and said, “It sounds like you’re setting up a standing wave to maintain a constant peak pulse, because keeping the whole system at that power level will burn it out.”

Kershner stopped dead, blinked about nine times, and said, “Yes.”

“How big is it?”

Kershner held up his thumb and forefinger a little ways apart.

“The Blacker?” said The Johnson.

An old woman said, “Yes?”

“What’s the stuff for alloys in constant friction, very rare?”

“Rhenium?”

“That’s it, thanks-Why can’t you run the wave at full strength through a cubic foot or so of rhenium? There’s plenty of asteroids.”

What Persoff knew about this subject he had mostly learned from journalists’ work, but it must have been a good idea, because Kershner got all excited. “That could work! People still think of rhenium as too rare to be used for most things, but you’re right, there’s lots of asteroids! How did you think of it?”

“Captain Persoff described hyperdrive, and we spent yesterday discussing possible causes for the Blind Spot effect and working out implications. It seemed to us that in hyperspace, normal matter must be the local equivalent of a massless particle, which accounts for the standard speed.”

“That’s right! Captain, permission to-”

“Denied. It’ll wait until after we’ve attended the ceremony.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We don’t mind,” said The Johnson.

“Yes, we do,” said someone who must have been The Hale. “Captain Persoff, there’s been some discussion, and the general opinion is that the ship’s organics will have to be replaced. Since the trees have to be cut anyway, it’ll be best all around if they’re used for that. And we’d appreciate it if you could use everything from the first row there. Roots and all.”

“Thank you, that’ll help a lot.” They were taking it a lot better than he’d dared hope.

The Blacker stepped forward. In the moment before she spoke, Persoff had a chance to notice and realize a lot of things that he hadn’t fitted together before. To begin with, she was wearing something that actually looked sort of Polynesian: a necklace of long, sharp teeth. Old teeth. Kzinti teeth. He’d been assuming the Galaxias had merely fired, survived, and gotten thrown this way, but that had to be wrong: they knew what the kzinti called themselves, which meant they’d had prisoners, and they’d forced them to learn English, because they didn’t use kzin loan words. Near the Blacker there were other women, in hearing range but not close enough to interrupt, who were dressed in clinging outfits of orange fur, extremely worn in spots.

He was suddenly very glad he hadn’t been able to bring any Wunderkzin. Something had happened back then, and these people made damned sure they remembered it.

“Captain,” said The Blacker, “are you certain you wish to be part of this? It can be a strain even for us, and we grow up with it.”

“You’re helping us, and we couldn’t do without you. It seems to me we have to show our respect.”

“Then you do understand,” she said, and turned and led the other Blackers west, toward the trees.

Eden came to his side and said, “She jumps to conclusions sometimes. Do you have recording devices?”

“Yes, why?”

“Use them. You’ll see.” The Foote walked after the Blackers.

“Recorders on, everyone,” Persoff said.

At the trees, the procession halted, and all the adults moved to let the children through. The only grownups near the front were carrying babies. The Blacker waited until the Yorktown ’s officers were near, then said, “Pay attention. We can never do this again. People have come to take us home. You must say goodbye to your family.” She put her hand on the nearest tree.

“This is James Foote, who gave up everything he had to build the Galaxias . It was he who extended the field around the ship after the enemy boat rammed us, so that the drive would destroy its mothership and leave them dependent on us no matter if we won or lost. When he was dying he asked to be frozen, so that he could be buried on the planet he always hoped to reach. This was a tiny island then, but the Pilot crushed rock, buried James Foote, planted this tree over him, making the first true soil in the world, and brought rocks from other islands to protect it from the tide, and so we have done ever since when we bring our dead here.” As she moved to the next tree, all the children came up and touched the first, one by one. Last of all, mothers took their infants to the tree and guided a hand to touch it, so that each baby could be told later that this had been done.

Persoff was in something like clinical shock. This was their cemetery, and their museum.

And to beat the kzinti they were willing to cut it all down and grind it to pulp.