Dean Ing - The Man-Kzin Wars 02

“In the belly of the whale… Still working in your office.” And trying not to think about what we're doing. Or willl be doing in a minute, if you're sober enough . “That's a pretty impressive system you have there.”

“Yeah. And I'm taking a hell of a chance letting you two use it.”

“So are we.”

“So are we all. Honorable men, all, all honorable men. And women. Honorable.”

“Hari—”

“That's Herr Yarthkin to you, Lieutenant.”

“If you let me explain—”

“Explain what?”

“Hari, the rendezvous time was fixed, and you didn't make it! We had to boost, there were hundreds of lives riding on it.”

“Oh, no, Lieutenant Raines. The ships had to boost, and we had to keep the kzin off your backs as long as we could. Not every pilot had to go with them.”

“Angers was dying, radiation sickness, puking her guts out. Flambard's nerve had gone, Finagle's sake, Hari, I was the best they had, and—” she stopped, looking at his face, slumped. “Long ago, long ago.”

Not so long for you as for me , he thought. Her face was the same, not even noticeably aged. What was different, where did the memory lie? Unformed , he thought. She looks… younger than I remember. Not as much behind the eyes .

“Long ago, kid. How'd you get here?”

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

“Probably I wouldn't. That raid—”

She nodded. “That raid. The whole reason for that raid was to get us here.”

“For God's sake, why?”

“I can't tell you.”

“It's part of the price, sweetheart.”

“Literally, I can't,” Ingrid said. “Post-hypnotic. Reinforced with— the psychists have some new tricks. Hari, I would literally die before I told you, or anyone else.”

“Even if they're taking you apart?”

She nodded.

Harold thought about that for a moment and shuddered. “OK. It was a long time ago, and maybe— maybe you saw things I didn't see. You always were bigger on romantic causes than the rest of us.” He stood.

She got to her feet and stood expectantly. “Where?”

“There's a bedroom upstairs.”

She nodded. “I've— I've thought about this a lot.”

“Not as much as I have. You haven't had as long.”

She laughed. “That's right.”

“So now I'm old—”

“No. Not old, Hari. Not old. Which way? The stairs over there?”

“Just a minute, kid. So. Assuming it works, whatever you and the Belter have planned, what afterward?”

“Once that's done it doesn't matter.”

“Sure it does.”

“Well, we brought a ship with us. Nice boat, the best the UN's making these days. Markham's keeping her for us, and then we'll do the guerrilla circuit afterwards.”

“Markham? Ulf Reichstein -Markham?” An old enmity sharpened his tone, one less personal. “A legitimate bastard of a long line of bastards, who does his best to out-bastard them all. He'd cut your throat for six rounds of pistol ammunition, if he needed them.”

“Didn't strike me as a bandit.”

“Worse. True Believer… and you can whistle in the wind for that ship.” She smiled. “That ship, you might say she has a mind of her own. Really; we've got a hold on it.”

Then you'll be off to the Swarm , Yarthkin thought. Playing dodgem with the ratcats, you and that Jonah. Flirting with danger and living proud . There was a taste of bile at the back of his mouth. Remembering the long slow years of defeat, strength crumbling away as one after another of them despaired; until nothing was left but the fanatics and the outlaws, a nuisance to the enemy and a deadly danger to their own people. What was the honor in going on with the killing when it had all turned pointless and rancid? No more than in taking the amnesty and picking up the pieces of life. But not for you. You and Jonah, you'll win or go out in a blaze of glory. No dirty alliances and dirtier compromises and decisions with no good choices. The two of you have stolen my life .

“Get out,” he said. “Get the hell out.”

“No.” She took his hand and led him toward the stairs.

“They've accepted our bid, Captain.”

Jonah nodded stiffly. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Not that I'm surprised.”

“No, sir.”

Back in Sol System a thousand hackers had labored to produce advanced software they thought might be salable on Wunderland. Most of it had been too advanced; they'd predicted a higher state of the art than Wunderland had retained, and the stuff wouldn't work on the ancient hardware. Even so, there was plenty that did work. It had only taken fifty days to make Jan Hardman and Lucy van den Berg moderately big names in the Datamonger's Guild. The computer records showed them as old timers, with a scattering of previous individual sales. They told everyone on the net that they owed their big success to teaming up.

Teaming up. A damned tough fifty days … Jonah looked unashamedly at Ingrid. “I admit you've improved Herr Yarthkin's disposition one whole hell of a lot, but do you have to look so tanj happy?”

“Capt— Jonah, I am happy.”

“Yeah.”

“I— Jonah, I'm sorry if it hurts you.”

“Yeah. All right, Lieutenant. We've got work to do.”

“These are the same monkeys as before.” The guards spoke in the Hero's Tongue. “The computer says they have access.”

The kzin tapped a large button on the console, and the door lifted.

Jonah and Ingrid cringed and waited. The kzin sniffed, then led the way outside. Another kzin warrior followed, and two more fell in on either side. The routine had been the same the other two times they had been there.

This will be different . Maybe . Jonah pushed the thoughts away. Kzin weren't really telepathic but they could sense excitement and smell fear. Of course the fear's natural. They probably like that scent .

Sunlight was failing behind evening clouds, and the air held a dank chill and the wild odors of storm swept grassland. The two humans crossed the landing field between forms a third again their height, living walls of orange-red fur; claws slid out in unconscious reflex on the stocks of their heavy beam rifles.

Jonah kept his eyes carefully down. It would be an unbearable irony if they were killed by reflex, victims of some overzealous kzin spooked by the upsurge in guerrilla activity. The attack of the Yamamoto had created the chaos that let them into Wunderland, but that same chaos just might kill them.

Doors slid aside, and they descended into chill corridors like a dreadnought's, surfaces laced with armored data conduits and the superconducting coil-complexes of field generators.

One of the kzin followed. “This way,” he said, prodding Jonah's shoulder with the muzzle of his weapon. The light down here was reddish, frequencies adjusted to the alien's convenience; the air was drier, colder than humans would have wished. And everything was too big , grips and stairs and doors adapted to a thick-bodied, short-legged race with the bulk of terrestrial gorillas.

They went through a chamber filled with computer consoles. This was as far as they'd been allowed the last two times. “Honored Governor Chuut-Riit is pleased with your work,” the kzin officer said.

“We are honored,” Ingrid said.

“This way.” The kzin led them through another door. They stepped into an outsized transfer booth, were instantly elsewhere. Gravity increased to the kzin homeworld standard, sagging their knees, and they stepped through into another checkzone. The desire to gawk around was intolerable, but the gingery smell of kzin was enough to restrain them as they walked through a thick sliding door. The transfer booth was inside an armored box, and he recognized the snouts of heavy remote-waldoed weapons up along the edges of the roof. Outside was another control room, a dozen kzin operators lying recumbent on spaceship-style swiveling couches before semicircular consoles. Their helmets were not the featureless wraparounds humans would have used; these had thin crystal facepieces, adjustable audio pickups and cutouts for the ears. Not as efficient, but probably a psychological necessity. Kzin have keener senses than man, but are more vulnerable to claustrophobia, any sort of confinement that cuts off the flow of scent, sound, light.