Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

The long pause was not promising, but then a new voice-that of the positively ancient board member Boroshinsky-broke in, heavy-accented and quavery: “You may ask your questions, gospodin Armbrust. It is the very least accommodation we can make in appreciation of your fine service.” The director may have grunted impatiently; Selena could not be sure.

“ Spasebo ,” Armbrust said into the dark with a slight, deferential nod. “My first question is: have you completed the radio array for establishing communications with Dr. Yang in Proxima?”

“We have,” Pyragy replied. “Although it will be some years before we know if she is still there to receive it. It seems the kzinti, if impatient, are also thorough hunters.”

“Indeed they are. With any luck, Dr. Yang has not attracted their attention. That was her plan.”

“And to the best of our knowledge, she has kept to it: we have had no signals from Proxima since the kzinti first attacked twenty-nine years ago.”

Armbrust’s shoulders seemed to relax. “My other question is about the behavioral component of her research plan: will it in fact be funded?”

“I do not know what you are referring to.” The director’s tone belied his words: he might as well have said, “I will not share that information with a troglodyte like yourself.”

Armbrust was undeterred. “I am referring to her suggestion that, if possible, a promising kit should be raised to adulthood not merely to observe the details of its speciate development and distinguish the influences of nature from those of nurture, but also to breed him as a possible liaison to his own people.”

The lights in the room snapped on; the director was on his feet, and very red. “How did you learn of this? Yang specifically stated in the appendix to her proposal that this part of it had been separately ciphered and kept apart from the rest.”

“I know. But I also spoke to her directly. And she made her intentions quite clear.”

Pyragy aimed a shaking finger down at Armbrust. “Yang’s suggestion is an optimistic delusion that ignores one obvious and decisive fact: a kzin raised by us would be rejected by those which are natural products of their own society. Given a reasonable chance, they would retroactively do to our subjects what their mothers were trying to do to them when you first took them from their nursery a few weeks ago.”

“So you have not funded Dr. Yang’s behavioral research initiative?”

“Oh, no: we most certainly have funded it. We have simply revised its objective.”

“How so?”

One of the other board members-Marquette, the toady-waved an age-gnarled finger in time with his pedantic drone: “It is our intent to show that the kzinti can be rescued, saved, from their own base nature.”

Selena Navarre almost spun around in her seat to stare. Really? Really? Could they possibly be serious? In their arrogance, they had decided to rehabilitate the kzinti? The Board could not be so blind, so stupid-could it?

“Professor Marquette speaks somewhat metaphorically,” Pyragy amended. “Let us say that we wish to explore the possibility that the kzinti need to be liberated from the eugenics programs that their one-time-masters-the Jotoki-apparently imposed upon them. And, having followed down that same path themselves, we must further explore what would happen if the modern kzinti were freed from their own hide-bound genetic tyranny.”

“Genetic tyranny?”

“Of course. Veiled references to the routine euthanization of intelligent females, and the cloned breeders you found are proof enough of that. Having the knowledge we now do, we can liberate the kzinti from their own self-perverted evolutionary growth, from the senseless violence in which they have immersed themselves. Even more deeply than we did. Until the ARM brought peace and order to our society.”

Good grief, thought Selena, he’s a true believer.

Armbrust muttered a guttural curse in some Wunderlander dialect and stared up at the director. “So you will correct the aberrations in the kzinti, the same way you did with humanity for the better part of three centuries? I’m tempted to dismiss it as impossible, but then again, you so pacified humanity that it took a near-genocidal wake-up call from the known universe’s apex predator to shake us out of that lotus-eater’s dream. But evidently even that hasn’t taught you that the universe is not inherently aligned with your cherished notions of nonaggression. So, now you’re going to try to make pacifists out of the kzinti? Good luck-and send the kzinti my regards and sincere commiseration.”

“They will no doubt appreciate such sympathetic wishes, coming from a warrior like yourself.” The director was smiling again. “Set a beast to catch a beast, I always say. And so we did, apparently. I thank you for bringing a set of beasts back to us, Captain. I am quite sure we can handle it from here, your own lofty cosmological warnings notwithstanding.”

Armbrust collected his papers and data chips, all the while glowering at the director. In the captain’s eyes, Selena saw a more profound, unconstrained variety of her own Belter sensibilities: the ARM had never managed to bring her people as completely under the yoke as they had the rest of the system, and particularly Earth. And now stalking from the room, mouth rigid, was the living evidence that the colonial ARM had been even less successful completing its pacification campaign in the Centauri system.

Which for some primal reason suffused Selena Navarre with a feeling of deep relief and reassurance. And then she understood why: we always had some real warriors left. But we still came awfully close to being utterly defenseless when it really counted…

“Dr. Navarre, tell me, what did you think of Captain Armbrust’s presentation?”

Selena nearly jumped: the director wasn’t wasting any time determining if the Wunderlander had any secret allies in his own camp. Particularly that part of the camp which was entrusted to assessing kzin behavior. In short, her camp. She schooled her features to bland compliance, and turned to look at him.

Pale blue eyes, so pale that it was momentarily difficult to discern where the white of the eye ended and the iris began, stared down at her, patient and cool. The mouth beneath them was smiling in benign receptivity. “Director Pyragy, the presentation was informative. It is unfortunate that the transmission of information became entangled with the expression of opinions, however.”

As she had hoped, Pyragy seemed very pleased by the response, construing it to fit the context he preferred. “It is refreshing to hear such sanity today,” Pyragy commented, casting a self-satisfied glance at Boroshinsky, who smiled faintly, eyes almost twinkling as he stared at Selena. His expression widened into an amused grin before he looked away, leaving her with the distinct impression that although he was quite old, there was nothing wrong with his ears or his mind. He had obviously understood that Selena had crafted her response so that Pyragy could construe it as he wished. Huh, leave it to a Muscovite to instantly perceive plausible deniability in action: Communism and the commissars have been gone for almost four centuries, but the Russians still remember the lessons. Besides, Selena was glad that Boroshinsky had seen through to her real reaction. As the Project Manager of the Biological Research Initiative, he would be a useful ally and could be trusted not to knuckle under if Pyragy brought his considerable weight of influence to bear.

Selena let her eyes slide over to the director himself, who was busy reviewing the agenda of the rest of their meeting. Shwe Pyragy was known for being utterly practical in his pursuit of greater institutional power: he was a career bureaucrat who had managed to get himself assigned to the Kzin Research Project simply as a matter of prestige. He did not have the credentials to be a primary researcher or even team manager, but he did have a nose for politics, a vast collection of owed favors, and a taste for high-profile assignments. This one certainly fit the bill, and might also be the last chance he had to prevent his career from a final, irremediable slide into back-office mediocrity and anonymity.