Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIV

“You’re not thinking of making a monk out of a kzin, are you?” Nils asked her. “Even a kzin like Marmalade. The abbot is a kind old man, but I can’t see that he’d stand for it.”

“No,” said Leonie, “not a monk.”

It was reading the old classic Brideshead Revisited that gave her a clue to the solution. “Listen to this,” she told Nils: “Monasteries, it says here, often had a few odd hangers-on who don’t fit into either the monastic order or the world.”

“Yes, I know there are a couple like that at Circle Bay. Old men the Occupation drove crazy, most of them. Drunk half the time.”

“Why not Marmalade? He could be useful without having to take any vows or anything. I know he’s weak for a kzin, but he’s still stronger than any human except maybe a male Jinxian. And he speaks Wunderlander.”

“What could he do?

“Plenty. In the book, the man who can’t do anything else becomes a sort of under-porter. He could do odd jobs.”

Kzin intelligence is baffling to humans. They could solve problems brilliantly, and most of them, if put to it, could be quite inventive mechanically, but they had strange blind spots. It was because of those blind spots that the wars lasted long enough for humans to get the hyperdrive. Having a kzin about the place, especially a kzin as docile as Marmalade, might be quite useful, not to mention the fact that his mere presence would be an effective deterrent to human thieves or outlaws, of which post-war Wunderland had more than its share.

The abbot, when the suggestion was put to him, was happy enough to take him in, providing the government supplied him with kzin infantry rations and other upkeep and he left the monastery’s animals alone, except for herding them if necessary.

One of the monastery’s main efforts was to build human-kzin cooperation, and this looked like a good opportunity to advance it. The abbot, turning the matter over in his mind, foresaw generations of monks going out all over the planet, and beyond, remembering the kzin as a quaint, harmless character who had been part of their novice days. It was perhaps overly optimistic of him, but the abbot was by nature an optimist. Anyway, he was pleased to do a favor to the Rykermanns, two of the greatest heroes of the Resistance, and with a degree of official power. A hut was found for Marmalade and he settled down to an undemanding life: fetching and carrying, placing and changing flowers in the monastery chapel and the Abbot’s study, moving furniture and farming implements, and, when he had overcome his timidity over them, tending the infant Jotok in their breeding ponds. There were even a few lines about it in the news.

Nils Rykermann, as a member of the Legislature, held a weekly “surgery” to hear constituents’ problems. A few days after they had left Marmalade at the monastery, he had two unusual visitors.

There was nothing unusual about their being unusual. There were plenty of odd types on Wunderland, but these were something new to him: a human and a kzin, both old, small and withered-looking, the human with a long white beard, and a wise, kindly face, the kzin with white fur on his muzzle and about his ragged ears. Nils found himself warming to the old man. There was something intrinsically good projected even in the deep, thoughtful timbre of his voice. Otherwise, the white hair at least gave them a curiously similar look. Wunderland had had a long period under the Occupation when geriatric drugs had been available only to high-ranking collaborationists and Resistance leaders like Nils and Leonie, and it was plain that the old man had not been one who had qualified to receive them. They carried a bundle.

The human introduced himself as Pieter von Pelt; the kzin was nameless, and apparently spoke neither English nor the Angdeutsch-like Wunderlander.

They had, von Pelt explained, been prospecting in the Jotun Mountains and had come across a wrecked kzin ship, shot down in the war. The wreckage was much scattered and there was little worth keeping, but they had found the ship’s logbook and, intact, the elaborately sealed metal container of the Patriarch’s urine which every kzin capital ship carried. Like any packages the Rykermanns received, it was X-rayed and found to contain liquid, with a thick, solid top and bottom. It was sealed with an elaborate seal. Leonie pointed to a design on its side. She took it and examined it closely.

“Like Marmalade’s locket.”

“Ask him if he knows what it is?”

The old prospector and the old kzin spoke together in the slaves’ patois. The Rykermanns, who often had to deal with kzin who still considered monkeys’ attempts to use the Heroes’ Tongue a deathly insult, the surrender notwithstanding, could follow it, though there was no reason to betray the fact. It was, they gathered, the sigil of the captain of the ship, scion of an ancient aristocratic kzin family, which had been attracted to Wunderland from a distant planet by rumors of the easy pickings to be had there.

How did the old kzin know this?

He had been one of the ship’s officers and had escaped in a boat, carrying the jar with him, von Pelt explained. He had attached himself to one of the local magnates. He had buried the jar on landing and had retrieved it only lately.

The war had ended shortly afterwards. He had followed the progress of the peace negotiations from a distance, and though it had taken him some time to adjust to the idea of kzin and humans living together in peace, he had adjusted. They had met when prospecting and had joined up. Such alliances were becoming less uncommon and the human authorities welcomed them.

He was also able to throw a little light in the mystery of Marmalade’s origins. Among the Admiral’s kittens there had been a small, weak one which had seemed to exhibit the telepath syndrome. As soon as he could be weaned, admiral had had him isolated to protect him from the other kits. Telepaths in the family were not anything to be proud of, but too rare to be wasted. The ship’s own telepath had been ordered to begin work on him. He was to have been sent for more advanced training when the ship was jumped by a squadron of Dart -class fighters. When the ship’s gravity planers were failing, and it was falling towards the surface, most of the crew dead and the engines about to destabilize, he had been jettisoned in one of the ship’s boats. He could have come down anywhere. When Nils Rykermann told them about the kitten, the old human prospector was moved.

“Poor little chap,” he said. “After my…partner…told me what had happened to him in the battle, I wondered what his fate had been. I was never able to hate the kzin, you know. An old desert-rat like me, living in the back-blocks. I was fortunate, I know. They left me alone and I left them alone…I hardly even saw one until after the war, though I was able to help a few humans, and I’m glad of that…I’m glad he’s been looked after.”

“He’s quite appealing, in a way,” said Leonie. “I know fear makes some creatures into bullies, but he is quite gentle.”

The pair wished to present the precious jar to Vaemar-Riit. Of course, they had been put to considerable expense travelling from the Jotuns, and if anything could be done to recompense them for their outlays, this would be appreciated. Nils Rykermann promised to speak to Vaemar about the matter, and they left, taking the jar with them. The Rykermanns, who were glad of a chance to spend a day out of the city, flew to Vaemar-Riit’s palace the following day and told him the story.

“The seals are unbroken, you say,” he put to them. “Urrr…it would go well on the mantlepiece.” No one said as much, but there was an unspoken thought in all their minds that it would do something to reinforce the legitimacy of his position and help reduce the stigma of “collaborator,” which, among some kzin, he had never entirely lost. “And this…this Marmalade ?”