“Actually, we came here quite intentionally-” Hilda began.
“Zat so, li’l ’madchen? Sorry to disappoint, but there’s still nichts here fer du.”
Smith stepped forward. “You’re here. We came for you.”
The Sumpfrunner looked Smith up and down. “Und whad’ud you want mit me, officer? Yeh, I can smell it: you got goverstink comin’ outta ever’ one of yore pores. Police? No, military.”
Smith nodded. “That’s right.”
“Well, you come to de wrong place, hauptman: you comin’ fifty years too late, and one army too short. You turned your back on us; now we turnin’ our backs on you.”
“I didn’t turn my back on anyone. I’ve been in cold sleep for fifty years. And I’m here to fight the kzinti.”
The Sumpfrunner’s sideways glance might have been sympathetic or merely pitying. “Then you got a lotta catchin’ up to do, hauptman. But you won’t do it wandering in here; thayz all out there. Kzinti don’t like the Sumpfrinne very much.”
“Maybe not. But they’re coming.”
“Then lettum come.” Other Sumpfrunners emerged from similar hiding spots. All were armed; some were carrying much-refurbished or homemade bolt-action rifles that would have inflicted a case of bore envy upon any self-respecting twentieth-century elephant gun.
“Those are mighty big rifles,” Mads said appreciatively.
“Theyz gut fer killin’ ratcats,” the ’Runner answered with a narrow smile. Hilda, seeing the teeth, wished he had settled for a close-lipped grin.
“Bet they are,” Mads nodded. “But they won’t be enough.”
“We got lossa bullets,” the other offered.
“I’m sure you do, but they still won’t be enough.”
For the first time, the ’Runner’s easy, dismissive confidence faded. “How many you think are comin’, drylander?” He looked from Smith to Mads and then back to Smith.
“As many as they can bring. At least a battalion. Maybe two. Maybe more.”
The ’Runner stared at Smith. “Scheisse. And what got them so riled up to come pouring in here?” He followed Mads’ quick glance at Smith. “Oh, so we have you to dank for their visit.”
Smith shrugged, nodded.
“And just what did you do to them? Take one of their ears and laugh in their faces?”
“Actually, yes.”
The ’Runners looked simultaneously aghast and envious. “What? How?”
Smith told them. Hilda could see the factual knowledge of the event and the birth of a legend growing in their eyes at the same time.
When Smith finished, the spokesperson of the Sumpfrunners whistled, the sound made three-toned by the plentiful gaps in his teeth. But then he shook his head. “Schlaffin’ through fifty jahr muss’ve made you eager to join all yore dead friends from back then. And so now you run here to hide.” He spat again, but this time it was fast and angry. “So nice of you to think of us-now.”
“We thought of you fifty years ago.”
Again, the ’Runner squinted, suspicious, but Hilda saw that he was also intrigued. “Whaddyu mean, that you thought of us fifty jahr ago?”
Smith squatted down, and Hilda admired the posture change: without sending any message too overtly, it signaled that this was to be the beginning of a story, told in a casual fashion. He’s good, thought Hilda, maybe too good, the way he manages to slowly draw more and more people into whatever ultimate scheme he’s hatching.
“So,” Smith began, “fifty years ago, when it was pretty clear the ratcats were going to overrun Wunderland, there were some folks in the ARM and UNSN who were thinking ahead to how humanity was going to come back and kick their furry butts off our home.”
A few smiles sprung up around the group; Hilda folded her arms, thought: and once again, Smith gets the measure of his audience and begins to work them. He could’ve made a small fortune peddling snake oil…
“There were a lot of ideas tossed around. Most did not survive close eye-balling by the experts, but a handful did. And most of those were going to take time: time spent watching the kzinti, learning about them, their habits, their biochemistry, their society. You all hunt, right?”
The slick, unwashed heads all nodded in unison.
“Well, how well could you hunt an animal if you didn’t know its habits, where it liked to sleep, to feed, to rut, to run?”
Now the same heads shook from side to side. “Might as well stay home and stay hongry,” drawled one of Smith’s audience; a few snickers followed it.
“Exactly. And that’s what the war-planners realized: that they’d be damn fools trying to put any plans into motion until they knew more about the species they were hunting. And when it comes to kzinti, we’ve got to have the advantage in smarts, because they’ve got it all over us in speed and strength.”
Somber, even grim nods followed Smith’s assertion, as well as one solemn, “Ja, stimmt.”
“So, fifty years ago, the war planners put long-range projects in motion. And they put a bunch of people like me down for the longest nap in human history, without even telling us what the plans were. That information, along with whatever tools and weapons we’d need, were added to our cryo-capsules years later. That way-”
“That way, if the ratcats found you before the plans were ready, they couldn’t learn anything about what was in store for them.” The ’Runner who’d completed Smith’s sentence was quick-eyed, clean-shaven, and lean.
Smith nodded his agreement and appreciation. “Exactly: just like he said. So when I woke up early last week, I had no idea of what I was supposed to do. But there was a briefing packet with me: hardcopy only, which was lucky, since my capsule’s electronics had been fried. In that, I learned that I was to land in any one of four locations that the experts said would be the best place to try out a brand new weapon, which is in that box right there.” He pointed at the safe-case that Hilda was carrying: all eyes turned toward her. She resisted-barely-the impulse to sheepishly wave at them all.
“What is it?” shouted one of the ’Runners.
“He can’t say, not yet,” countered the quick-eyed lean one.
“I ain’t fighting for people-outsiders! — fifty years dead and a weapon no one will tell me about,” a third rebutted.
“Stille!” shouted their gap-toothed spokesman, who looked back to Smith. “You tell a mighty schon story, hauptman,” he said quietly, “but maybe that’s all it is: a story.” He and Smith watched each other: neither blinked. “I don’t see, and I haven’t heard, anything that proves that your experts chose four locations or that the Susser Tal was one of them.”
Smith nodded, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a slim strip of plasticoding. He read from it: “42.68.2113 by 89.61.4532; do you know where those planetary coordinates are?”
The spokesman sat up as if someone had jabbed a spear into his back. After a long moment, he said, rather formally, “Yes. I know the location of those coordinates.” His followers looked stunned, first at him, then at each other, murmuring as they did. Hilda couldn’t tell if it was his sudden loss of local accent, or knowledge about the global coordinate system that had surprised them most.
Smith was nodding. “Then here’s what you do. Go to those exact coordinates, which, unless I am very much mistaken, are about a day’s march further east. Then dig. You’ll probably need to go down at least a meter or maybe a little more, given the fact that this valley is like one big compost heap. You’ll find a box. In the box, you’ll find a plasticoding strip like this one and there will be a single word on it. Don’t tell anyone else what the word is; just come to me. I’ll tell you the word on the strip.”