Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

Doubt and balconies rushed by as he flew up the nineteen-plus kilometers along the north precipice. He looked across the wide gap to the south cliff and saw shining white structures and rugged, indigenous amarillo moss running up and down its face like gold and silver veins in the rock. He grasped that, one way or another, he would never see this world again.

What did he hope to accomplish? All he had was an insystem shuttle, which was absolutely no match for the might of the Devourer of Monkeys . Where could he take his parody of a pride that would be safe? Another thought struck him: despite her betrayal, Varsha had kept her promise, no police had even attempted to get in his way.

He slowed near the lip of the massive ravine just enough to dip into the airlock tunnel that led to the pressurized portion of the spaceport. Once at the garage, he skidded the truck to a stop. Something was wrong. He sensed no mind (or too few) in this usually busy area of spaceport. Canyon Police must have evacuated this entire zone. He tore the cargo hold’s door open and hastily pulled the females out, absorbing their fear and disorientation.

“Hurry!”

The group ran, huddled in a tight knot of flame-colored fur, down the airtight tarmac toward the waiting shuttle. Bobcat was all too aware that a second shuttle, from the bowels of Devourer , had just touched down nearby. His mind was so completely focused on the coming Heroes, that the sight of Canyon law enforcement officers surrounding, no, dismantling his ship nearly floored him. The Canyonites looked like cobalt-uniformed social insects carrying away components of his ship in single file.

His keen sense of smell and even keener telepathy discerned the presence of five fully-armed kzinti warriors before he even saw them pouring out of a passage that led back to their ship parked on the surface. His phantom tail lashed furiously. He was trapped.

“You will die, Nameless Traitor!” shouted Remover-of-Obstacles of the Devourer ’s elite boarding squad. The black-swathed, orange warrior dwarfed the injured telepath.

“I have a Name!” Bobcat bared his teeth and dug in his hind claws, preparing to die fighting single-handedly and finally meet the Fanged God.

Hold your breath, a human voice rang in his mind and compelled his lungs to lock up. The Heroes were upon them. Everything blurred. He choked. His females were suffocating. He heard the distinct clank of a metal container hitting asphalt and then a blast of smoke filled the spaceport’s pressurized terminal.

Don’t breathe; just run to me . Varsha’s spectral voice controlled Bobcat and his harem like holopuppets. They ran, lungs yearning for air, muscles burning for oxygen. After an eternity, they cleared the haze and reached the undercover agent waiting by an old ARM ship. She finally allowed them to suck in air.

“You look like cinnamon-sprinkled shit,” she said without a hint of jest.

“Trap?” he managed to gasp, ignoring the wicked monkey’s verbal feces.

“No. I need you to link with me. Do that bridge thing you kzinti telepaths do,” she said, helping Tirran and her kit.

“ Nwarrkaa Kishri Zaaarll? ” he coughed. “How do you know of the Double Bridge of Demons?” Was she trying to help him? These monkeys lied too easily.

“We had a kzinti telepath as a consultant during the wars. Do you think you’re the first to defect?”

“No, of course not.” In fact, he bet his life on it. “That is a permanent mental structure. We would be inextricably bound forever!”

“Does it have to be lasting and demonic? How about a telepathic pontoon bridge?” She sent him an image of a temporary military bridge. “Quickly now! You didn’t give me the hour you promised and I need to explain the situation. Anything less than the speed of thought would be dangerously slow.”

They both opened up to each other, much more so than the small bond they had shared back in the restaurant. Their minds bled together, but they took great care not to lose themselves in the experience. “They were listening to us at the restaurant! They were prepared,” Bobcat said with the speed of a neuron firing.

“Of course they were listening to us. That’s why I made it a point to refuse you out loud. I didn’t want them to know you had ARM help.”

“I thought you had abandoned us!”

“Sorry, I didn’t think you were going to leap into the whorehouse and kill everyone!”

“I’m a kzintosh. What else did you expect?” Bobcat looked back and saw Devourer ’s Heroes writhing and purring on the tarmac like lunatics, frantically licking and scratching the pavement. “What did you do to them, some kind of nerve agent?”

Varsha laughed. “Nah, we tossed a Catnip Canister at them, made of a powerful strain of genetically engineered zheerekti plant. Canyon Police has been experimenting with non-lethal violence deterrents to break up the regular death-duels that spontaneously erupt.”

She led them up the gangplank and into a chaotic ARM ship. Canyon medics gently ushered his nervous females toward the coldsleep caskets. “This is the I Love Lucy . I had our techs cannibalize your shuttle and moved over a kzinti autodoc and autokitchen. They’re in the process of installing your command console to this ship so you can pilot it.”

Bobcat looked around at the blue-garbed officers working with haste on the small ship and was entirely unimpressed. “Thank you,” he said politely, sinking into the command chair. Fussy medics descended upon him, hooking tubes and cables from the autodoc to his long-abused body. The acute pain of the wound dulled.

Varsha instantly felt his dismay and added, “Trust me, this is all part of my cunning monkey plan. There is another ship exactly like this one primed to take off in minutes. These old ships are hardened against invasive kzinti scans. Yearrl-Captain won’t know which one to pounce on and he won’t act within Canyon space, anyway. They’ll respect the Covenant of 2505.”

Bobcat noticed his orange female being put under the freezer. “Bring me the kit!” he howled at the medics while trying to get up from the chair, but pain and pushy doctors held him down. “When I tell him of our fight for freedom, I want to say he sat right here on the bridge!” A tall, reluctant female medic handed him the tiny ebon kitten. Bobcat thought with great shock that this was the first time he’d ever held a kit.

“That only gives me a fifty-fifty chance. Those aren’t wonderful odds.”

Varsha rapidly checked the tech’s work. These local kids are good, she thought and turned back to Bobcat, “Can’t you telepathically nudge Yearrl-Captain toward the Sun Wukong , like I did with you during the gas attack?”

“I cannot. Will you help?”

“Hmmm, that complicates things a bit, but I’ll think of something.”

“I can guide you through his mind, but I cannot deposit any thoughts.”

“Anyway, I should mention that we’re not going to give you an incredibly expensive hyperdrive ship. ARM isn’t a charity and no amount of telepathic manipulation on my part will change that. The faster-than-light section of the ship will separate from the crew subdivision once it has reached its destination and return to its point of origin, leaving you to navigate the system with a fusion drive alone.”

“Despite my many considerable talents, piloting in hyperspace is not one of them.”

“I thought of that. The I Love Lucy is a coldsleep troop transfer ship; you just punch in the target location, go to sleep, and it wakes you up when you get there. Are you going to tell me where you’re going? I’ve been trying to pick it from your brain since the restaurant and all I’m getting is a vague idea that alludes to something like the Promised Land .”