Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

After a time, Miffy broke the silence. “Do you think there has been brain damage? Perhaps the kzin understands but cannot frame a reply?”

Jenni considered. “I think not. There was not significant damage to the cranial region. His helmet did an excellent job of protecting it. Kzinti also have very interesting skulls. I believe the brain would be better protected from impact than our own in a similar circumstance…”

She was about to go into more detail but, Miffy raised a hand to forestall her.

“Do you have any idea how to make him talk?”

Jenni considered. “It’s possible that eventually we might synthesize a cocktail of drugs that would make him more persuadable, but that could take quite a while.”

“Quite a while, as in months?”

Jenni shook her head. “Oh, no! Nothing like that.”

The man started to smile, but the smile faded as Jenni finished her statement.

“Quite possibly years. You forget. He may be conscious, but he is hardly ‘well.’ We’d be searching for a drug that would make him persuadable without compromising his health, although after one such dosing his continued health might not be an issue.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I think it’s likely that you’d only get one attempt. The next time he had the opportunity, he’d probably do something like bite out his own tongue. I suspect the only reason he hasn’t tried to at this point is he can’t see an advantage to be gained.”

Miffy blinked, but he did not protest that this was unlikely. They both knew it was all too likely.

Jenni continued. “You’ve tried interrogation. That has gotten nowhere. He is our only kzinti prisoner, so you cannot put him in with another such prisoner and hope to learn something from their conversation. We have discussed the pros and cons of drugs. As I see it, there really is only one remaining option.”

“Letting you dissect him?”

Jenni let her horror show. “Please! Don’t even joke about that. There is a great deal I could learn from a fresh corpse, but nothing that would outweigh the greater loss of having a functioning metabolism to observe.”

She suspected that Miffy thought of the loss in his own terms. To him, the kzin was most useful as a source of information, not of scientific knowledge. She felt glad that, unlike the kzinti, humanity did not routinely employ telepaths. Miffy might not like the disdain for him he would find in her thoughts.

Of course, humans haven’t found the means to create telepaths as we suspect the kzinti can. Our psi talents are wild. I suspect most human telepaths would take care not to let those like Miffy know of their ability.

Does Miffy realize that, unlike him, I do not think of “loss” in terms of the information we might force from this prisoner, but of life? Has Miffy forgotten that I am a medical doctor as well as a researcher? Has he forgotten that some of us still believe that rational answers can be found for any problem?

“I’m sorry, Dr. Anixter,” Miffy apologized. “My comment about dissection was in bad taste, especially given your extensive labors to keep the prisoner alive. Do you have any suggestions as to what we should do next?”

“We could continue in our efforts to let the prisoner regain his health,” Jenni suggested. “There is only so far we can go with him strapped to a bed. Despite electrical stimulation, he will have suffered muscle atrophy. Also, we are feeding him intravenously. After a while, his digestive system will cease to function. With a human patient, I could recondition it, but I have no idea whether similar techniques would work with a kzin.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Miffy asked.

“For one, kzinti are carnivores. Among earthly carnivores a prolonged fast can have devastating consequences. If the domestic house cat, for example, undergoes a prolonged fast, eventually the liver shuts down. Other organs rapidly follow. For now, we’re getting nutrients into the prisoner, but he is also burning his own body fat. When that is gone, those nutrients alone may not be sufficient.”

“That doesn’t sound promising. What do you suggest?”

“We continue in our rehabilitation efforts. The prisoner must be permitted out of bed. I suspect exercise is more crucial to kzinti than it is to us, both for physical and mental well-being. With exercise will come appetite.”

“It’s risky,” Miffy said, his tone considering rather than dismissive. “What’s to keep him from committing suicide?”

“He understands Interworld,” Jenni said. “I suggest we explain matters to him. Do kzinti have a saying equivalent to ‘Where there is life, there is hope?’”

“I have no idea,” Miffy said, “but I can think of a few sayings that might get through.”

He considered options for long enough that Jenni was actually beginning to drowse in her chair.

“Very well,” Miffy said. “We’ll give your approach a try. In the condition the kzin is in, you say we can’t risk drugs-even if we knew which ones would work. Right now he won’t last long off life-support and that rather limits other options. We might as well try the carrot and keep the stick in reserve.”

“Not the carrot!” Jenni exclaimed. “Never the carrot. Rather we must try the flash-heated steak.”

With consciousness, the opportunity to think, to meditate, had returned. This was not at all pleasant. Hour upon hour, the kzin considered whether he might have managed to somehow get himself free, if once he was captured he might have done something to end this dishonorable state.

Eventually, he decided he could not have done so. That settled, next he considered what to do. He was tightly strapped down. The straps were padded and not unnecessarily uncomfortable, but they were also quite unbreakable. Perhaps if he had not been injured…but he doubted if he could have broken the straps even then.

For a time after he came conscious, the kzin had managed to fool the humans into believing he was not quite alert. During those days, he had learned a few useful things, including that he was the only captive and that wherever he was being held was within human-held space.

This period of listening inactivity ended when Dr. Anixter stated quite clearly-and the kzin wondered if the statement had been for his own benefit-that she was certain he was shamming. That ended the usefulness of such a charade for, thereafter, nothing of any significance had been said within his hearing.

When at long last the kzin had shown himself conscious, a male human who called himself Otto Bismarck had come to speak to him. Unlike Dr. Anixter, who struck the kzin as rather soft, even for a human, Otto Bismarck was all corded steel cables. Despite his muscles, Otto Bismarck did not act like a warrior, yet the kzin thought he knew precisely what this human was. The Heroes’ Tongue did not have a single term for such a position, but humans used one simple word: spy.

Despite his skinny frame and lack of weapons, this Otto Bismarck was dangerous, a warrior whose weapons were information rather than claws, edged weapons, or fire arms. Many kzinti would have scorned the human’s profession, but the captive could not. His own professional field was too close for him to dismiss spy craft without dismissing himself.

Shortly before the disastrous voyage that had ended with his capture, the captive had been selected to train as an Alien Technologies officer-specifically as a Human Technologies officer. If he was fortunate and showed himself willing and capable, he would eventually be instructed in the lore of various captive races, even that of the long-vanished Slavers whose technologies were occasionally found and once understood had dramatic impact upon those lucky enough to discover them.