Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

The kzin considered what he would do when Dr. Anixter unstrapped his arm. Perhaps he could make amends for being weak enough to eat the hot meat.

“My people have a saying,” Dr. Anixter said as she rose from her chair and moved to unfasten the straps that held the Kzin’s right arm. “‘Where there is life, there is hope.’ I don’t know if you have a similar saying. In any case, I think you should see the logic of this one. Someone who could break his hands attempting to hold up a bulkhead is not immune to the value of being alive.”

She paused with her fingers on the strap. “However, although I would like to believe you are capable of listening to an appeal to reason, I must warn you that precautions have been taken to assure that you do not exploit this opportunity. You will not be killed or punished, but you will be prevented from acting in any fashion counter to what is suitable for your continued healing. Do you understand?”

The kzin resisted either nodding in the human fashion-a mannerism quite addictive-or twitching his ears in the kzinti equivalent of the gesture. His heart was beating very quickly, his breath coming fast and short in excitement. Doubtless the humans could read this on their monitors, but could they interpret it? He doubted it. The obvious interpretation would be that he was excited, overstimulated by the proximity of the doctor and the fact that she was apparently about to release him without the presence of guards.

No. They could not know.

Those swift and dexterous human fingers-weirdly clawless though they were-moved to undo catches. He felt the strap loosening, sliding down. Heard the fastener click against the hard material of the floor.

Quickly, Dr. Anixter stepped back out of reach.

“Why don’t you try flexing your elbow?” she suggested.

He did, but not in the fashion she might have expected. Although his arm was stiff and weak, he moved with what for a human in similar condition would have been incredible speed. Claws extended, he went for his own throat.

Swift as he was, his weakness betrayed him. He was too slow, the grip of his formerly broken fingers surprisingly flaccid.

Dr. Anixter pointed a finger at him. Too late, the kzin saw that a tranquilizer gun had been attached directly to her hand. Shaking her head ruefully, she shot him.

“I was so hoping you’d choose to listen to reason.”

A few days later, Dr. Anixter once again dismissed her assistant-this time the eager young male called Theophilus-and pulled a chair next to the bed in which the kzin was strapped.

“Now, we’re going to have a nice talk again. I’m going to assume that not only do you remember what I said about your receiving physical therapy, but that you also remember what I said about the conditions under which you would receive that therapy.”

When the kzin did not respond, Dr. Anixter sighed deeply and her ever-present smile faded.

“I know you understand me, but if you prefer one-sided conversations, very well. I suppose you think of your silence as resistance, but I think the need goes deeper. Refusal to speak is the only freedom you have…”

The prisoner nearly unfurled his ears in astonishment. This human thought so very strangely, yet there was something of truth in what she said. Did that also mean there was truth in that odd idea that life and hope were inseparable?

He had thought the idea an outgrowth of the human’s strange creed of pacifism, for every kzin knew that life was only of value when it was spent for glory, honor, and, possibly, advancement.

Despite himself, he found he was listening-not merely hearing-for the first time.

At that moment, a siren went off. So did all but the emergency lighting and power to the medical monitors. Dr. Anixter’s smile returned and she began to speak very quickly, her voice hushed.

“We should have a moment’s privacy. You doubtless think your only value to us is a source of information, but we’ve already learned a great deal. Miffy-I mean Otto-is becoming impatient. I have heard rumors that kzinti consider torture dishonorable-although I’ve heard other stories, about humans being eaten piece by piece while kept alive, that make me wonder. Whatever your interpretation, many humans don’t view torture of an enemy as wrong. If you work with me, we may be able to save you from that, but…”

The lights came back up. The door to the corridor slid open, bringing the shrieking sound of the siren closer. Two men in battle armor, holding guns, came rushing in.

“Dr. Anixter, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. What is that racket?”

“Something went…”

The soldier stopped. Looked at the kzin. Obviously decided not to speak in front of him.

“Ask Otto Bismarck.”

“You may report to him that I’m fine and so is my patient,” she replied. “The lights dimmed, but the kzin is no longer dependent on life support. Thanks to Otto Bismarck’s forethought, his restraints are quite primitive, nothing that could be affected by a power outage.”

“Will you leave now?”

She rose, nodding. “I think so. I think trying to begin physical therapy after this break in routine would be impractical. I could tranq him again, but repeated doses in a short time would defeat the purpose of making him stronger.”

Without another glance at the kzin, she departed. She did not return that day nor the next, giving the patient a great deal of time to think over his options.

Jenni knew she’d been taking a risk when she’d altered the station’s power systems, but she’d had to do something to permit her to say a few words to the kzin without Miffy hearing. She thought she’d been quite clever in how she’d worked it. Futzing one of Miffy’s own bugs so that not only would power be cut, but any bugs with independent power sources would also be messed up had been very neat. And how could Miffy complain without admitting how extensively this facility was bugged?

She sighed contentedly. The funny thing about Miffy was that although he had hired her for her intellect, he actually thought of her as rather stupid. She supposed this was because he had bought into the stereotype of the absent-minded professor, maybe because he worked with specialists of various types who really didn’t know much beyond their own field.

However, Dr. Jennifer Anixter, M.D., Ph.D. (this last so many times over that all the B.A.s and M.A.s had been discarded as superfluous), was a generalist. How could she be otherwise when she was studying something that-until the advent of the kzinti-even she had not known existed?

Savoring her minor triumph over the snoopers, Jenni walked back to her lab. If her kzinti patient persisted in attempting to commit suicide, she supposed she’d have no choice but to let him. The other option was to hand him over to Miffy for torture. She couldn’t do that. The reason wasn’t just that she felt such an act would be a violation of her Hippocratic oath to do no harm. Quite simply, she didn’t like Miffy.

There was a lust for dominance in the man from Intelligence that stank. True, the kzinti had beaten humans in battle over and over again. The kzinti had destroyed or looted human ships, making slaves or food animals of those humans they captured. She understood that humanity needed an edge or they were going to end up just another slave race. But what Miffy wanted was something more than an edge, something more than victory. He wanted to get one up on the Patriarchy personally. If he got the opportunity, he’d do something just to show himself as better than her patient.

She didn’t know what she’d do about the problem of Miffy in the long term. First her kzin had to be gotten healthy. The rest must come later.

The next time his arm was unbound, the kzin didn’t take a swipe at Jenni or, more importantly, at himself. Dutifully, he exercised the muscles, then permitted the arm to be restrapped, and exercised the other arm. There were more exercises for the legs.