Selena shook her head. “I don’t understand. What changes?”
Hap sat. “When was the first attempted invasion of Earth?”
“2383.”
“Correct. I came on the third fleet. A fourth was destroyed just four years ago. And the reason you defeated that one was not due to innovation, certainly not so much as was the case with your earlier victories.” He looked straight at her, almost searching for something in her face. “You humans have changed, before my very eyes. I didn’t realize it until I started thinking about what I had experienced as a cub, how the world had felt then, in comparison to now. It did not just seem to be a gentler, safer place: it was a gentler, safer place. Back then, all the sharp edges were padded: there was still a strong reflex against violence, even against displeasing people. Including me.
“But the wars have changed you. The young of your species do not have the same gentled reflexes of your generation. They are more direct and decisive, and understand that some matters cannot be settled with conversation and ever more conversation. Sometimes, a blade or a battle cruiser is required. In short, you are warriors now. Or, I should say, ‘once again.’”
“So, does this mean that you respect us more now? That you feel we are worthy?”
“No. Well, yes, but your worthiness is not the reason I have decided to cooperate.”
“Then what is?”
“Four fleets attacked you without success, and that was during an epoch when you had forgotten the skills of war making. Now, your current generation is bred to it: I no longer see panic or dismay in the faces around me, or on the news, when a battle is imminent.” He sighed. “You may be running out of new tricks, but the dragons’ teeth your generation sowed have sprouted into myrmidons. So I wonder: how dangerous are you going to be when all the living generations of man know war, remember nothing but war, and are deeply schooled in its arts?”
Selena stared at him. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Hap nodded. “I know. But I have. A great deal.”
2419 BCE: Subject age-twenty-three years
Accented by its hallmark conglomeration of soaring spires and low-sweeping pavilions, the Shanghai Spaceport was a jarring mixture of extreme order and absolute chaos. All its personnel were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, with extraordinary competence, but usually without any greater sense of how their task fit into the greater whole. Not that this was unique to Shanghai: that kind of downstream cluelessness was pretty much endemic the world over. But here, each worker’s superficial gloss of perfectly composed competence often fooled the first-time traveler there into thinking that it would be more orderly than the other great spaceports of the globe. No such luck, thought Selena, as she accepted that her outbound flight would be delayed yet another hour.
Which meant that she would have to sit and brood over Hap’s departure far longer than she wished. That brooding would touch upon other, related losses: the loss of Dieter, the loss of Boroshinsky, the loss of her own youth and idealism. Hap had, during his later training, become something of a fan of old human fiction, and now employed a wildly anachronistic phrase to restart the flagging conversation: “Penny for your thoughts?”
“I was thinking about how strange it will be not to have you here. End of an era. That kind of thing.” Her tone was not as airy as she had hoped.
“Well, if my escorts do not show up soon, we might not have to part at all.”
Selena drew in her breath, then expelled it before explaining. “Your escorts are not coming.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because you are free, Hap. Fully and absolutely free. No escorts, no oversight, no observers, no ‘cultural facilitators.’ You are on your own. Entirely.”
Hap’s jaw hung slack, and Selena hoped he did not make that a habit: all those teeth were a pretty disturbing sight. He recovered his facial composure about the same moment he regained his sardonic perspective on human promises: “Yes, free to be your ambassador to the kzinti, wherever that assignment should happen to take me.”
“Well, you’re right-and you’re wrong.”
“You mean, I could simply be a minor liaison, or an informer, for you?”
“No. I mean that you don’t have to represent us at alclass="underline" you can declare loyalty to the kzinti, if you want. And if they’ll have you. We’re leaving that matter of conscience in your capable hands.” She smiled down at his immense paws.
“But why-why would you do this?” Hap stammered out.
“Because it is the right thing to do. And because you spoke the truth years ago when you observed that, all too often, we humans are without strakh. Well, this is our way of trying to make up for some of those lapses in honor.”
Hap blinked, then nodded. “This is a high honor you do me, holding yourself to a standard of behavior you did not promise. And to a mortal foe of your race, no less.”
“Perhaps. But I hope you will reflect upon what it really means to have this freedom conferred upon you.”
“Is it not motivated by your sense of honor?”
“Actually, no: this time, the motivation was kindness and justice.”
“I suspect my kind would call that weakness and foolishness.”
“Perhaps. But we would not do this for all kzinti. In your case, however, it is the only right thing to do. And I hope it will provide an illustration of one of the strengths of human society, in contrast to kzin society. For the kzinti, honor is the essential ingredient for cultural preservation: high oaths, and their rigid enforcement, are necessary if your state is to survive.” She shrugged. “But we humans-we are not creatures governed so completely, so essentially, by oaths.”
His ears expanded like the cowls of a cobra; it signaled a sharp, sudden realization: “And now I see why: you cannot be governed by oaths alone. Because you are not creatures of absolute values. We kzinti, our course is set as the course of an arrow: we seek and pursue objectives without question or regret, and without interminable reflection upon the ethics of our actions. Why should we? What we eat, how we breed, why we are kzin: these are not matters of debate or uncertainty. Our nature is direct, monofocal, and undiluted. We pursue excellence in those skills that help us attain those goals, and find little of interest in others. Anything else is, at best, a distraction from the quest to become a Hero: to conquer, to acquire a Name, a mate, offspring-and always, accrue greater strakh.”
He pointed, smiling and understanding. “But you humans are not built this way. If we kzinti are a precisely aimed arrow in flight, you are ripples upon the surface of running water: moving outward, and in so many directions at once. To kzinti who have not grown up in your midst as I have, I suppose it must look like a pointless squandering of energy. It is the diffusion of the self, of potency, and superficially appears to be a kind of dilettantism toward the entire business of life itself. I, too, had often suspected that was what your restlessness signified: a simple inability to focus on what really matters.
“But now I see the difference. It is in your nature to be this way, as much as it is in ours to be monodirectional and focused. And in both cases, our natures reflect, and are suited to, how we survived, and flourished, at the dawn of our respective sapience.
“We were carnivores, hunters. We identified prey and pursued it, relentlessly and without deviation. But you were omnivores: sustenance was to be found in many places, requiring many skills to acquire it from diverse sources. So you became versatile. You used tools sooner and better than we did. Given how long it took for us to get to space in our much longer history, we kzinti should have seen this difference in you, in your space-faring history, and realized its significance sooner. But we did not, because while we are superior at keeping our oaths, we are your inferiors when it comes to facing the truth.”