“‘Drank the Kool-Aid’?”
“It’s an old reference to sheeplike behavior that got people killed back in the twentieth century. It was a group phenomenon not unlike the one we observe in lemmings, except that we humans leap to our deaths following ideologies, not instincts. Everyone goes over the cliff because they’re too busy staring at and complimenting the emperor on his new clothes.”
“I asked for pellucidity, not insolence.”
“You got the truth as best I know how to say it. And since you didn’t seem willing or able to get my earlier hints about how our own social conditioning blinded us to the real challenges that we’d experience working with the kzinti-”
“Silence. I will not be schooled by you, Dr. Navarre.”
“Fine-but then you’d better find someone who you are willing to be schooled by, because your present policies are going to ruin our relationship with the test subject.”
“How? By compelling him to initially restrict his murderous appetites to rodents?”
“No: by retarding his development, by withering away those essential parts of him that don’t fit into the pacifistic procrustean bed that you’ve constructed not merely for him, but for all of humanity.” When Selena was finished, she realized that her voice had become sharp and that she was panting with suppressed rage.
Pyragy’s smile was small, but very smug. “I regret that I will have to report this outburst to our overseers, Dr. Navarre.”
Boroshinsky’s voice had risen even before the Director had finished: “Yes, Director, do. And add to your report that the entirety of the biology group supports Dr. Navarre’s findings and handling of this matter.”
Pyragy considered the back wall over steepled fingers. “Well, in light of your unanimity of opinion, I suppose a report might be precipitous. I shall therefore desist-”
“Too late,” Boroshinsky snapped. He tapped his wristcomp. “I’ve just sent a message to Admiral Coelho-Chase and Associate Executive Chair Dennehy that independent assessments from all the project’s group leaders are forthcoming.”
If looks could kill, Pyragy’s would have slain Boroshinsky on the spot. “That,” he almost whispered, “was very ill-advised.”
Boroshinsky shrugged. “Then fire me.” He smiled, sent a sideways wink at Selena. “But I suppose we’d all need to report that too, wouldn’t we?”
Selena had never had an impulse to kiss a man so old that his lips had a perpetual quaver in them.
But she did now.
2402 BCE: Subject age-six years
Down in the scrub-covered defile that wove its way into the preserve’s boundary ridgeline, there was a burst of dust. It told them that Hap had brought down the mule deer at last. Had he not exhausted himself earlier chasing a particularly nimble springbok, the current pursuit would have been much shorter.
“He’s a pretty impressive hunter,” Dieter commented, looking away. “But then again, they all are.”
Selena did not know what to say, and if Boroshinsky did, he didn’t offer it. But they all knew what Dieter meant, and they were all thinking the same thing: Dr. Yang’s reports-now distributed to all the members of the research project, as well as select military personnel-made repeated, ghastly mention of the kzin habit of hunting humans on Wunderland. It wasn’t done at random, and it wasn’t done in a cavalier fashion, but the fact remained: traitors, rebels, criminals, malcontents, and incompetents were not punished or incarcerated on Wunderland. They were the foxes in the horrible hunts whereby kzin officers amused themselves, and the higher ranking ones trained their young males. It was all too easy to stare at the settling puff of dust down in the ravine and imagine that it was not a mule deer thrashing beneath Hap’s teeth and claws, but a human.
“It’s necessary,” Selena blurted, reaching to turn off the camera on the hoverbots which followed Hap. The three more distant bots-which completed the irregular, changing tetrahedral pattern around him-mercifully did not provide the gory details of the kill. “Without these instincts and these capabilities, any genuine kzin would reject him.”
Dieter nodded. “They still might.”
Boroshinsky looked sideways at the Wunderlander. “Why do you say this, Captain?”
“Just Dieter, please. Hunting is just the opening ante for being accepted as a Hero. If he is to have any standing among them-if he is to be a liaison who is respected, rather than scorned-he will need to know how to fight. Not hunt: fight.”
The air suddenly felt colder to Selena; she rubbed her arms vigorously.
Boroshinsky looked puzzled by Dieter’s assertion. “Shto? Maybe they have some form of martial art?”
Dieter shrugged. “Maybe; we don’t have any intel on that. Most of their combat moves seem to be a direct inheritance from inborn instinct. I suspect they spar, to hone those moves and improve their reaction time. But there’s no evidence that they have a special discipline for personal combat.” Dieter looked at the almost-vanished dust smudge. “Can’t say they seem to need one, either.”
“No,” said Selena. “They don’t. And he doesn’t. What he needs is competition.”
Dieter looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She sighed. “Hap has been asking questions about new additions to the preserve.”
Boroshinsky looked at her closely. “You mean like water buffalo? Rhinos? Maybe elephants?” He laughed.
Selena did not. “Yes. And more.”
Boroshinsky’s eyes widened. “What kind of more?”
Selena looked away. “Lions. Tigers. Bears. Oh my.”
Dieter nodded. “Now I know why he was asking me about the new breakthroughs in archeogenetics.”
Boroshinsky reared back. “Bozhemoie! No! Even if you get clearance for it, some of those creatures are too dangerous. Even for him.”
Dieter kept looking at the defile. “Too dangerous for him now, yes. Later? I wonder.”
Selena stared at the man who was in and out of her life, along with whispers about the special detachment that he was assigned to: it had no address, no known permanent base, no official name. He got a month Earthside every year. Usually. So she knew him, or at least she thought so. “Well, this is new. A week ago you were worried about us bringing in the caribou. Now you’re okay with him taking on raptors?”
Dieter’s lip twitched. “They don’t have a gene code on raptors. No dinosaurs other than the pieces they can pull from current reptiles.”
“Okay; a cave bear, then. Those they’ve got.”
Boroshinsky stared narrowly at her. “And how do you know that?”
“Same way you do, Mikhail. Insatiable curiosity coupled with inappropriate use of my clearance rating.”
Which made the older man laugh thinly. “Okay. You win.”
Selena kept staring at Dieter. “Well? What made you change your mind?”
Dieter nodded off in the direction of the ravine. “Him.”
“Hap?”
“Yes. He spoke to me today.”
“He spoke to you? After all this time?”
Dieter nodded. “Yes. It was nice. But very strange.”
“I’ll bet,” Selena concurred.
Boroshinsky frowned. “I know I’m not supposed to know anything about this, but I do. I know he stopped talking to you about a year ago. Why?”
Dieter turned to face him. “Because I told him about what I did on the kzin ship. How I snatched him. How I killed his mother.”
Boroshinsky stared at Selena. “And you-and the director-approved that?”
Dieter looked off in the distance. “I didn’t ask permission. No time, anyway. He’d mostly figured it out on his own, asked me questions that put me in a position where I’d have to lie, avoid the topic, or tell him the truth. So I chose the truth. And he ran off.”