Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

Later, Jenni drew blood from the kzin and gave it to Ida with detailed instructions as to what she needed to look for. She asked Theophilus to do an analysis of hair, urine, and fecal samples.

Then she went and took the kzin for a walk.

“I have arranged some privacy for us,” she said. “Anyone monitoring us will hear me questioning you about your recent lack of appetite and the like. Innocent conversation.”

The kzin flickered his ears in a manner that was-Jenni now suspected-an expression roughly equivalent to a human raising her eyebrows. That is, indicating surprise and perhaps a small element of doubt and incredulity.

People with fur on their faces must employ other visual clues, she thought. I suspect there are a host of olfactory ones that I’m missing.

She swallowed a sigh of regret. There was so much more to learn, but the time for study had ended.

“You must take that kzinti ship and flee,” she said. A flaring of nostrils and flattening of ears caused her to amend her words. “Or if ‘flee’ is too cowardly a term for you, then say ‘escape.’ Whatever term you choose, I will help you.”

The kzin’s ears flattened, his hackles rose, but although his body spoke of tension, his words indicated a high measure of trust. For the first time, he did not speak in the abbreviated, staccato version of Interworld he had used to this point for communication with humans.

“Why?” asked the kzin. “Not why must I escape, but why will you help me? Strange as you are, I have never fancied you a traitor to your people.”

Jenni smiled her gentle smile. “No. I also do not think of myself as a traitor. Rather, during these long months over which I have cared for you, I have had much time for reflection about humans, about kzinti, about those other aliens of which I have been told, although I am not likely ever to have an opportunity to study them. I have come to certain conclusions.”

The kzin gave a brief, human-style nod of encouragement, and Jenni went on.

“There are humans-Miffy among them-who believe that in order to defeat the kzinti, we humans must become more kzinti than the kzinti themselves. We must become more ruthless than our worst imaginings of you and your culture: more brutal, more bloodthirsty.

“Miffy and his type would say that long ago, humanity took a wrong turn when it slowly embraced a creed of pacifism. They forget how close humanity was as a species to destroying not only ourselves, but our native biosphere. I suspect many of Miffy’s sort have not been cleared to learn about the horrors included in the historical record of that time, not only about wars, but about industrial accidents that occurred because humans channeled their aggressive natures towards achieving their goals, rather than trying to see the larger impact of such actions.

“Yet, even though I personally disagree that pacifism was a wrong choice if humanity was to survive without destroying itself, there is some truth in what Miffy and those like him believe. We humans learned how not to destroy ourselves, but this was achieved at the price of creating a false history, a history full of outright lies and clever omissions.

“When, with our meeting with the kzinti, the need to fight came again to the human race, we were shocked to discover how very easy killing was, how quickly we adapted the technologies of peace and prosperity to those of war and destruction. Then, too, rumors came to some ears that our Golden Age had in itself been a lie, created not by our own cultural and spiritual evolution, but seeded and enforced from without.”

The kzin bent his whiskers forward in interest, but Jenni went on without further explanation. She did not know how much the kzinti had learned about Brennan and the Protectors. Not knowing this, she did not think it was her place to spread that particular bit of information.

“So, is our pacifistic nature a lie and the warlike true?” She smiled, deliberately barring her teeth and touching first the front incisors, then the side canines. “We have two types of teeth: those designed for the eating of plants, those for the eating of flesh. No one rejects their teeth, yet we keep rejecting one or the other side of our natures: the hunter or the gatherer. One must be right, the other wrong. The truth is less easy to accept. We are both warlike and peaceful, hunters and planters, ruthless and nurturing.

“If I let those such as Miffy have their way, then I am denying what is most real. That is why I am going to help you. Not because I am a traitor, but precisely because I am not.”

“I have but one sort of teeth,” the kzin growled.

“Do you?” Jennie said. “But your claws retract. Think on that. Now, here is what we must do…”

They laid their plans with great care, not only that day, for if the physical therapy session extended too long, suspicions would be raised.

Happily, the kzin’s nature was impatient rather than otherwise. Had he possessed a human’s cautious desire to plan, to cover any and all contingencies, Jenni feared she might need confide in him his new value to Miffy.

Bioweapons had not been a real possibility to this point in the conflict between humans and kzinti because too little had been known about the kzinti’s biology. A great deal can be learned from genetic scans, but in the end, a test subject is needed.

Jenni knew that her patient thought his value would end when every bit of information had been extracted from him. She suspected he thought that he would then be killed. She did not think he had any idea that more likely Miffy would keep him alive so that various infections could be tested upon him.

Jenni herself would refuse to participate in such tests. She thought that Theophilus would also refuse. Ida and Roscoe, though, were of a different sort. Roscoe was Miffy with a background in medicine, rather than in espionage. Like Miffy, Roscoe enjoyed power and domination. She knew he had found it difficult to work as her subordinate.

Ida was a more complex person. A great number of her family members had been on a ship when the kzinti had taken it. Moreover, she knew without a doubt that many of them were dead. Ships with holes like that in their hulls didn’t usually preserve the passengers. It was hardly any comfort for her to imagine them enslaved.

Moreover, Jenni did not trust herself to become an accomplice at one remove. Could she really refuse to try to keep the kzin alive if he was infected with something deadly and painful? Could she keep from trying to create a cure, even if she knew that cure might be used to blackmail the Patriarchy into a surrender?

Her only choice was to get the kzin away before he could be so used. It would be a small victory, but if one only thought of winning a war, not individual battles, then there could be no hope for victory.

So while the kzin made certain the scout ship was capable of flight, she did her best to learn what she could to facilitate the escape itself.

There were many small details, but she was quite good at details. As she gathered codes and set trails, she was aware that Roscoe was cooking up a horrible brew in a lab she wasn’t supposed to know about, that experts were coming to take a closer look at the drive of the scout ship, that time was, in fact, running out.

Had it not been for his long captivity and the practice he had acquired in suppressing his immediate response to behaviors to which most Heroes would have reacted with fang and claw, the kzin did not think he could have kept from giving away his intent during the days that led up to the planned escape.

It was not only his own tension he must suppress-although he thought that if Roscoe came and drew any more of his blood he would have the man’s ears and accept the consequences. No. He must also hide his awareness of increased tensions among the humans themselves.