Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

“That’s barbaric.”

Bobcat caught the waves of nausea and denial rippling through the agent, and he decided that her smooth and supple youth wasn’t a product of boosterspice. His ears twitched like the pectoral fins of a Fafnir flying fish.

“You think kzinti are the only barbarians in known space? Do not fool yourself, Agent Khan. We’ve had four glorious wars and you’ve won every one of them. We are currently sitting at the bottom of a planetwide scar etched by one of your claws of mass destruction. I believe the veneer of civility has long been cast off. You have soundly beaten us, and as consolation, you offer us whorehouses and fast-food restaurants.”

Varsha knew he was right. The wars had changed humanity, just as much as they had changed kzinti. Now, each species met somewhere in the muddy middle. She composed herself rather quickly and said, almost in the Menacing Tense, “Did you invite me here to mess with me? To gloat?”

“No, Agent Khan. I need your assistance.” The kzin was covered in blood, and a bloated, banded cadaver lay bare on the floor.

“My assistance? What makes you think I’m not going to arrest you right now for espionage? Remember, I was tracking you before all this tanj prostitution affair came up. I know you’ve been selling information to the Patriarchy.”

“I am just a simple tool. Would you arrest the listening device or the listener? If you help me, I can open up further and reveal the full extent of my spying on at least three worlds, as well as some colorful sabotage and an assassination.” He let a trickle of information pass between them and her large, lilac eyes widened into saucers. “If you play your cards right and use your clever little monkey tricks to help me, you might even arrest Yearrl-Captain himself.”

“Why now? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I’m a strung-out old telepath on his last hunt and I’ve just had something of an epiphany. I know now that what I’ve done is wrong.”

The dribble of thought continued between them, and she knew he was lying about his guilt. He was quite proud, in fact. It was the closest this drug-addled kzin had come to feeling like a true warrior, but some kind of revelation had shaken him recently. Varsha caught a flash of a small, sickly kitten, black as night with aquamarine eyes, and three trapped and desolate kzinretti.

“What do you want of me?”

“Transport. I need you to pull some ARM strings and get me a ship so I can get off this fractured rock.”

“Where will you go? Fafnir? Wunderland?”

“No, those are regular scratching posts along Devourer ’s prowl. Yearrl-Captain will have ample connections and resources to hunt me down.”

“Then where the tanj else can a sthondat -juice junkie and his freemother females hide in the universe?”

The predatory speed with which Bobcat slammed Varsha against the blood-splashed wall made her heart stop. “That will be the last time you refer to my harem in such a disrespectful manner. We did not choose our horrid circumstances.” The words came out hot with the stench of the fresh kill on his breath.

“I’m sorry. I really am.” Varsha immediately regretted her remark, not because she could feel the prickling of reaperlike claws pressed against her jugular, but because she had touched the kzinretti’s awesome heartache through the tiny telepathic feed.

Bobcat released her. “Will you assist me? All I have is one hour. By then, Yearrl-Captain expects me to be onboard the Devourer with the kit. When I don’t show up, he’ll immediately send Heroes down to fetch me.”

Varsha realized that that infinitesimal filament of thought running from this creature’s soul to hers had given her a taste of its bleak perspective and that of the females and even the poor shade of a kitten. She understood that, like it or not, she was becoming invested, which is precisely why she severed the connection. “I’m sorry. I guarantee you that we will investigate this prostitution ring, but I cannot under any circumstances help a spy escape. All I can give you is the assurance that I will not impede you in any way.”

Varsha turned and left the gory feeding stall before Bobcat could even process her rebuff. She thought she caught a glimpse of his lips peeling back exposing rows of deadly, ivory-colored teeth, a black hole where a three-inch canine should’ve been.

Rage erupted from Bobcat in the form of an explosive roar as Varsha Khan exited the restaurant. The female monkey had outright betrayed him. He had been so sure she would help. He had felt her pity, her genuine concern. After all these years, how little he understood these honorless kz’eerkt ! He pounded the wash button in the stall and let the boiling water cleanse the blood and fury off of him.

Bobcat hastily made his way back to the bordello. He didn’t stop to appreciate the dazzling human civilization scrambling up the crag. He had no plan and he was entirely alone. He had two doses of the psychoactive steroid left and he needed to conserve at least one of them. He stopped suddenly at the foyer of the so-called temple and urinated on a faux stone column. The immature warriors mulling about the lobby caught a whiff of Bobcat’s musky kairomone challenge and hurriedly left, not wanting to shame their families by being embroiled in an embarrassing situation.

He ran toward the chamber holding the sentient kzinretti.

“Did you think that monkeys bold enough to work with warcats don’t hoot and holler at each other whenever there’s danger? I got a call the second your server at Serengeti overheard you murmuring to that cop.” That kchee kz’eerkt , Larsson, blocked his path, brandishing an impressive fifty-year-old gun.

Bobcat slowed a bit, but only a bit. He slashed with a laser-sharp claw across the pimp’s belly, and his stinking innards spilled to the carpet with an audible slosh. Bobcat jumped over the spasming body and stormed the room. The kzinretti were gone. He sniffed the air and caught their distinct spice not far off. He launched himself out of the cheap harem chamber.

Bobcat found them toward the back of the building as four of Larsson’s gorilla goons were trying to wrestle them out to the alley and into a waiting airtruck. He charged. One of the wretched apes lifted a beam pistol and shot a straight red lance of light through his shoulder. Pure, blazing agony dropped Bobcat onto the filthy alley floor. The females instinctively, viciously took note and mauled their captors with such contempt that Bobcat caught sobering pangs of it despite not being on the drug. He picked himself up, screamed and leapt onto the gun-monkey, ripping out his throat (and a better part of his shoulder), exposing clean white vertebrae.

“Yara, Xast, go back and get the simple kzinrett and her black kit!” he spat in their native tongue. They hesitated for an instant, not wanting to reenter their prison, but a fast moment later, they sprang back inside. “Raxa, prepare the cargo compartment of the truck for our escape.”

Bobcat took the hypodermic from its case and plunged it into his arm. The familiar rush of extrasensory force exploded from his brain. He tracked and gulped down the necessary knowledge to fly the human vehicle from a shredded and dying human. He also knew that Larsson had already reported his treachery to Yearrl-Captain. He had less than an hour.

The two intelligent kzinretti came out escorting the dazed mother, Tirran, and her little bundle of mewling dark matter. Without question, the group jumped into the airtruck and shut the door. Bobcat shoved himself into the cramped driver’s seat as electric pain spread from the burnt hole in his shoulder across his body. He blocked it, like he’d blocked other people’s pain, and released the brake. The airtruck rocketed out of the alley and over the bottom of the artificial canyon. He flew the tight vehicle made for small primates with reckless abandon, nearly hitting a penthouse terrace as he raced to the spaceport.