Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIV

“Relax, Schro, I know you feel vulnerable, surrounded by endless blue, your sharp sense of smell blunted by the salt in the air-”

“I’m not scared!”

“I know you are,” Dan kneaded the plush fur on his son’s shoulder. He could feel his fear like whiplashes across his mind. “Lying about it only makes you careless. I’m telling you it’s okay. Recognize that you’re out of your element, understand that you’re only a small morsel of food in this new ecosystem, and be on guard. You have a more powerful sense that surpasses the merely visual and olfactory. Use your ziirgrah . Sweep the waves with it. Be vigilant.”

The kitten dug his claws into the catamaran hull and focused his empathic awareness on the tall and languid waves. Dan did the same, adding to the kit’s range and sharing his perception. It felt like psychic sonar. He was vaguely aware that Chief Programmer-Fraaf’kur-watched them suspiciously from the helm. Dan ignored this and paid attention to his son.

Schro slowly crawled to the bow of the boat, careful not to lose his purchase on the undulating deck. “There’s something out there, father; fish and longnecks and something else, something I’ve sensed before but different. It’s stalking an elderly longneck, keeping to the deeper, colder waters.”

“Fraaf’kur, take us further out in that direction,” Dan shouted, pointing to where his son had indicated. He, too, had caught a mental glimpse of the monster waiting in the depths and, for the first time, doubted his plan with the massive gravbelt would actually work.

“Daneel, the only way to kill this thing is to penetrate its head with chugra . Its back is heavily armored with scales, and hitting it in a flipper will only enrage it. The chugra launcher is kept in the storage compartment in the other hull.” The old dock cat adjusted the sail and hurled his ship toward the hiding beast, the fire of the hunt burning within him.

“This isn’t my kill, it’s Schro’s! Kit, go get the harpoon.”

“How will I kill it?” The juvenile hesitated, but, runt or no, he was a full-blooded kzin and the hunt was beginning to possess him.

“Stun it with your ziirgrah -confuse it-yours is more powerful than most kzinti. Then, when it’s dazed, fire the harpoon into its skull.”

“More powerful? How do you know? Are you sure I can stun something as cunning as a ketosaurus on the hunt?”

“Yes, I can feel your ability through our link,” Dan lied. “You could potentially rival even the founder of Sheathclaws, the rogue telepath Shadow, himself.”

Encouraged, Schro bounded across the trampoline that connected the twin hulls and found the heavy harpoon gun. It was longer than the length of his entire body. Kzin kittens were incredibly strong by human-child standards, but Schro wrestled awkwardly with the immense weapon, and the constant shift of the floor beneath him didn’t help.

“Careful with that! If you drop it into the sea, I’ll toss you in after it!” roared Fraaf’kur.

Dan shot him a livid, protective glare, but the kzin only flapped his ears contemptuously, his mane thrashing in the frosty wind. Dan turned away from the mangy captain and met his son, fighting every fiber in his being to help him carry the heavy gun. “We’re getting closer to it, can you feel it?”

“Yes, and it knows we’re coming. It’s not afraid of us, but it’s really annoyed we’re spooking the longnecks.”

“Very good. You said it felt familiar yet different, how so?”

“I don’t know…its mind feels like the alliogs that roam the steppes of Raoneer, only less jumpy, more confident and patient, like it could kill anything.”

“Good. I’m glad you picked up on that. The ketosaurus is a therapsid-like creature, distantly related to the alliog. It grew massive when it returned to life in the sea.”

“No more lessons! I want to see it.”

Dan laughed at that, but then the water turned black below the Nautical Devastation and the ship’s name suddenly felt like a hollow threat. “Hold on, son!” A row of dark green scales, longer than their boat, sawed through the water then disappeared into the blue.

“Everyone, dig in with your claws!” Fraaf’kur growled as he pressed close to the deck. “The only way to get at it is to let it chomp down on the boat and then spear it between the eyes! Are you ready?”

“What?” Schro clutched the harpoon gun tightly. It was all he could do not to wet himself.

“Can the ship take a hit like that?”

“This is a kzin craft, monkey! The Nautical Devastation is built for war!”

A gigantic flipper rose into the air and slapped the water with such thunderous force that the catamaran rocked and spun like so much flotsam in the sea. To his credit, Schro tried to aim his harpoon at the creature, but Dan grabbed him and hunkered down close to the bucking bow. “We can do this, kit! This is why we’re here,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “But we have to do it right.”

With one paw, Fraaf’kur got control of the flapping sail while desperately working the tiller with the other, and, after a long, queasy while, the Nautical Devastation straightened out. Just ahead, a range of olive-colored scutes rose from the water like a sudden rock formation; two of the outcroppings were large, yellow eyes and two were flaring nostrils, each an eruption of mist. Dan and Schro both knew that the ketosaurus now perceived them as a slow and stupid longneck.

“It looks like a crocodile-humpback-whale hybrid,” Dan said, and instantly regretted not having better researched their prey-now their predator-before leaving Shrawl’ta.

Schro got up and tried to target the leviathan again.

Then a voice, like that of the Maned God himself, boomed within Dan’s skull. Daneel Guthlac, you are a strange and interesting creature.

Schro stopped and looked down at him, astonished, “The sea monster can talk! It’s telepathic!”

“You heard that?” For a moment, and despite the clarity of the words-no, not words, but complete thoughts forming in his mind like ice crystals-Dan wondered if he imagined it.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Fraaf’kur snarled from his post. “These beasts are not telepathic! I’ve waged war on them before; they’re worthy and dangerous opponents, but that is all.”

Confused-terrified-Dan scanned the ketosaurus with his weak telepathy. He knew the cetaceans of Earth were intelligent, but this…the creature was unremarkable. The warrior was right; there was nothing there except simple, primal urges.

I am both attracted and repulsed by you. I don’t know how to proceed, the great voice proclaimed-or was it a second, distinct voice? — and the monster slid its gargantuan bulk beneath the waves.

There was an obvious disconnect between the dumb marine animal and the alien intellect speaking through and around them. “Schro, quickly link with me and sweep the area with your ziirgrah ! I don’t think that was the ketosaurus.”

“A full-blown kzin telepath?” the Hero screamed, traumatic memories of the murderous telepath aboard his old spacecraft seizing him.

“Steady yourself, Fraaf’kur. That didn’t feel like a kzin mind or a human one.”

All of a sudden, the monster crashed into the catamaran with an explosive breach that launched the whole rig meters into the air. Without claws to maintain his hold, Dan was thrown off the boat. The acute agony of hitting the freezing Kcheemic Ocean was like going for a spacewalk in your underwear. Incandescent white blinded him. He was dying; he knew, he had almost died once before when the drug-crazed telepath aboard the Righteous Manslaughter had viciously mangled his mind. Hell, psychologically- spiritually -he had died. It was a miracle he had hung on long enough to fire a single laser beam and fry the telepath’s deadly, preternatural brain.