Dean Ing - The Man-Kzin Wars 02

Locklear swallowed hard the day he heard that long roll of synthetic thunder, recognizing it for what it was. He had told Loli about the Kzinti, and now he warned her that they might be near, and saw her coltish legs flash into the forest as he sent the scooter scudding close to the ground toward the heights where his lifeboat was hidden. He would need only one close look to identify a Kzin ship.

Dismounting near the lifeboat, peering past an outcrop and shivering because he was so near the cold force walls, he saw a foreshortened dot hovering near Newduvai's big lake. Winks of light streaked downward from it; he counted five shots before the ship ceased firing, and knew that its target had to be the big encampment of gentles.

“If only I had those beam cannons I took apart,” he growled, unconsciously taking the side of the Neanderthals as tendrils of smoke fingered the sky. But he had removed the weapon pylon mounts long before. He released a long-held breath as the ship dwindled to a dot in the sky, hunching his shoulders, wondering how he could have been so naive as to foreswear war altogether. Killing was a bitter draught, yet not half so bitter as dying.

The ship disappeared. Ten minutes later he saw it again, making the kind of circular sweep used for cartography, and this time it passed only a mile distant, and he gasped — for it was not a Kzin ship. The little cruiser escort bore Interworld Commission markings.

“The goddamn tabbies must have taken one of ours,” he muttered to himself, and cursed as he saw the ship break off its sweep. No question about it: they were hovering very near his cabin.

Locklear could not fight from the lifeboat, but at least he had plenty of spare magazines for his Kzin sidearm in the lifeboat's lockers. He crammed his pockets with spares, expecting to see smoke roiling from his homestead as he began to skulk his scooter low toward home. His little vehicle would not bulk large on radar. And the tabbies might not realize how soon it grew dark on Newduvai. Maybe he could even the odds a little by landing near enough to snipe by the light of his burning cabin. He sneaked the last two hundred meters afoot, already steeling himself for the sight of a burning cabin.

But the cabin was not burning. And the Kzinti were not pillaging because, he saw with utter disbelief, the armed crew surrounding his cabin was human. He had already stood erect when it occurred to him that humans had been known to defect in previous wars — and he was carrying a Kzin weapon. He placed the sidearm and spare magazines beneath a stone overhang. Then Locklear strode out of the forest rubber-legged, too weak with relief to be angry at the firing on the village.

The first man to see him was a rawboned, ruddy private with the height of a belter. He brought his assault rifle to bear on Locklear, then snapped it to port arms. Three others spun as the big belter shouted, “Gomulka! We've got one!”

A big fireplug of a man, wearing sergeant's stripes, whirled and moved away from a cabin window, motioning a smaller man beneath the other window to stay put. Striding toward the belter, he used the heavy bellow of command. “Parker; escort him in! Schmidt, watch the perimeter.”

The belter trotted toward Locklear while an athletic specimen with a yellow crew-cut moved out to watch the forest where Locklear had emerged. Locklear took the belter's free hand and shook it repeatedly. They walked to the cabin together, and the rest of the group relaxed visibly to see Locklear all but capering in his delight. Two other armed figures appeared from across the clearing, one with curves too lush to be male, and Locklear invited them all in with, “There are no Kzinti on this piece of the planet; welcome to Newduvai.”

Leaning, sitting, they all found their ease in Locklear's room, and their gazes were as curious as Locklear's own. He noted the varied shoulder patches: We Made It, jinx, Wunderland. The woman, wearing the bars of a lieutenant, was evidently a Flatlander like himself. Commander Curt Stockton wore a Canyon patch, standing wiry and erect beside the woman, with pale gray eyes that missed nothing.

“I was captured by a Kzin ship,” Locklear explained, “and marooned. But I suppose that's all in the records; I call the planet 'Zoo' because I think the Outsiders designed it with that in mind.”

“We had these co-ordinates, and something vague about prison compounds, from translations of Kzin records,” Stockton replied. “You must know a lot about this Zoo place by now.”

“A fair amount. Listen, I saw you firing on a village near the big lake an hour ago. You mustn't do it again, commander. Those people are real Earth Neanderthals, probably the only ones in the entire galaxy.”

The blocky sergeant, David Gomulka, slid his gaze to lock on Stockton's and shrugged big sloping shoulders. The woman, a close-cropped brunette whose cinched belt advertised her charms, gave Locklear a brilliant smile and sat down on his pallet. “I'm Grace Agostinho; Lieutenant, Manaus Intelligence Corps, Earth. Forgive our manners, Mr. Locklear, we've been in heavy fighting along the Rim and this isn't exactly what we expected to find.”

“Me neither,” Locklear smiled, then turned serious. “I hope you didn't destroy that village.”

“Sorry about that,” Stockton said. “We may have caused a few casualties when we opened fire on those huts. I ordered the firing stopped as soon as I saw they weren't Kzinti. But don't look so glum, Locklear; it's not as if they were human.”

“Damn right they are,” Locklear insisted. “As you'll soon find out, if we can get their trust again. I've even taught a few of'em some of our language. And that's not all. But hey, I'm dying of curiosity without any news from outside. Is the war over?”

Commander Stockton coughed lightly for attention and the others seemed as attentive as Locklear. “It looks good around the core worlds, but in the Rim sectors it's still anybody's war.” He jerked a thumb toward the two-hundred-ton craft, twice the length of a Kzin lifeboat, that rested on its repulser jacks at the edge of the clearing with its own small pinnacle clinging to its back. “The Anthony Wayne is the kind of cruiser escort they don't mind turning over to small combat teams like mine. The big brass gave us this mission after we captured some Kzinti files from a tabby dreadnought. Not as good as R & R back home, but we're glad of the break.” Stockton's grin was infectious.

“I haven't had time to set up a distillery,” Locklear said, “or I'd offer you drinks on the house.”

“A man could get parched here,” said a swarthy little private.

“Good idea, Gazho. You're detailed to get some medicinal brandy from the med stores,” said Stockton.

As the private hurried out, Locklear said, “You could probably let the rest of the crew out to stretch their legs, you know. Not much to guard against on Newduvai.”

“What you see is all there is,” said a compact private with high cheekbones and a Crashlander medic patch. Locklear had not heard him speak before. Softly accented, laconic; almost a scholar's diction. But that's what you might expect of a military medic.

Stockton's quick gaze riveted the man as if to say, “that's enough.” To Locklear he nodded. “Meet Soichiro Lee; an intern before the war. Has a tendency to act as if a combat team is a democratic outfit but,” his glance toward Lee was amused now, “he's a good sawbones. Anyhow, the Wayne can take care of herself. We've set her auto defenses for voice recognition when the hatch is closed, so don't go wandering closer than ten meters without one of us. And if one of those hairy apes throws a rock at her, she might just burn him for his troubles.”