“Yes, but what for? Smith, you said that your plans for success included survival. But we’re trapped here. There’s no way out of this valley except through the kzinti. Which is to say, there’s no way out of this valley.”
“There are the passes up through the Grosse Felsbank.”
“Yeah, an exit where we have to walk two abreast, with a horde of angry kzinti on our tails. That’s not a retreat. That’s volunteering ourselves to be the victims of a box-canyon slaughter.”
Smith shrugged. “I’m not sure it would turn out that way. But tell me, why do you think the kzinti are unable to adapt to the ambushes you’ve been setting up?”
“Damned if I know, and damned if I care.” She lurched across the rickety card table that Smith used as a desk. “Listen: this can’t go on. We need you out there. At least so we can stop the rumors that the ’Runners are starting to whisper back and forth. Rumors about how you don’t really have a master plan, how we’re all going to die in a last stand, because word has it you’re building an oversized pillbox at a chokepoint in the eastern half of the valley.”
“I promised them we’d escape, and I mean it: we’re building that pillbox with a big escape tunnel that will-”
“Screw escape tunnels! Escape to where, Smith? Have you lost your mind? Wait: is that the secret weapon inside the box? That it has the power to make a human leader so insane that even the kzinti can’t predict the tactical idiocies he’s going to think up?”
“You could not be more wrong,” he said. And then he smiled. “Or more right.”
“Quatsch! Enough with the mysteries: when are you going to use this verdammten secret weapon? When are we going to start seeing some results?”
Smith paused, and Hilda had the strange sensation that he was trying to decide which of her two questions he should answer. “You’ll see the effects in time.”
“In time for what? In time to save us? In time for any of us to survive? Or in just enough time to witness our pyrrhic victory as the last of us to keel over from exhaustion, or heat, or wounds?”
Smith smiled. “Long before that. Hell, if that were to happen, then I’d screw up my other objective.”
She reared back. “What? Another objective? What the hell is this one? Global domination? Mastery of the universe?”
Smith suddenly looked serious as he came around the table. His eyes lowered for a moment: she thought he was going to sneak a glance at the map, but instead his gaze came up, directly into hers. “No. My other objective is to make sure you get out of here alive.”
Wha-? She swallowed; her facetious rejoinder was hoarse, weak: “Yeah, right after you’ve seen to your own-”
“No. You come first.”
“But what about-?”
“No. No ‘buts.’ This has top priority. Commander’s discretion.”
Hilda wasn’t sure if she grabbed him or he grabbed her. She only knew, as they kissed long and hard:
Damn it, I do stink more than he does…
Freay’ysh-Administrator stared at the map. We’re gaining only three kilometers a day and they are still getting in among us, occasionally in our rear. And we almost never catch them. He pounded the field table with his fist: the frame-metal legs screeched as they bent under the blow; they did not spring back. And now I’ve ruined this piss-for-steel table. He batted it aside, charts and datachips spraying in a wide sweep against the south side of his hab-shelter.
Staring at the mess, he noticed shadows protruding through the open flap hole: “Enter,” he growled.
Zhveeaor-Captain and a young Hero, one he had not seen before, entered. Both waited upon his gesture to approach, which he signed gruffly. They entered, leaned forward, touched noses quickly, lightly, stepped back. The administrator looked at the young kzin again: he could not have been six months beyond the Hunt that elevated him into the ranks of the Heroes of the Race. He faced Zhveeaor-Captain. “And where is your usual adjutant?”
Zhveeaor-Captain’s shoulders sagged for the first time in the years he had known him. “He was slain by the humans this morning, Freay’ysh-Administrator.”
The administrator calmly reached out for the table, intending to right it, but instead, snapped off one of its steel legs and started bending it. “Unfortunate.”
The other two kzinti looked at each other, then Zhveeaor-Captain stood a bit straighter. “You asked for a report, Freay’ysh-Administrator.”
“I did.” The steel leg was now horseshoe shaped.
“The new tactic of inflicting maximum casualties upon the humans instead of taking more ground has proven ineffective, also. Our new, reinforced hunter-killer sweeps are inflicting few-and mostly unconfirmed-enemy KIAs.”
“So you believe we are not finding all the bodies of those that we kill.”
“It is probable, Freay’ysh-Administrator.”
“I must have answers, information, Zhveeaor-Captain, to know if this strategy should be continued.”
The new adjutant spoke, voice buzzing with throaty anxiety. “Freay’ysh-Administrator, perhaps I can be of assistance in this matter.”
“You?” The chair leg was now a hoop. “How?”
“I have studied the hum-the leaf-eaters’ history, Freay’ysh-Administrator. One of their great pre-unification powers faced a problem akin to ours.”
“A leaf-eater solution is not a kzin solution.”
“Not normally, perhaps, but their problem was identicaclass="underline" determining how many leaf-eaters were actually killed in a battle when it was not possible to find all the bodies.”
“Hmmm.” Freay’ysh-Administrator’s hands were still upon the tortured table leg. “And what was their solution?”
“They used ratios, Freay’ysh-Administrator.”
“Ratios?” His hands flexed; the steel squealed faintly.
“Yes, Freay’ysh-Administrator: ratios. The method was devised by the power’s senior war leader at the time.”
“And what was this war leader’s Name, for I assume he had a Name as well as a title?”
The young adjutant lifted his chin in the throat-exposing gesture of deference. “He did, Freay’ysh-Administrator. As best we can tell, he was known as McNamara-SecDef.” The adjutant’s tone became distracted: “He apparently had many titles over the course of his life, some of which are now only preserved as the shorthand address-forms which the humans…” Zhveeaor-Captain jabbed a warning elbow into his adjutant’s ribs. The young kzin’s voice terminated with the suddenness of a machine being switched off.
Freay’ysh-Administrator’s hands absently worked the steel hoop more tightly upon itself. “And before sharing this battle-wisdom, McNamara-SecDef had himself led armies in many wars?”
“No, not exactly.” Seeing the administrator’s look, the adjutant added hastily, “But, in his youth, he planned bombing missions.”
“Hmm. Hardly deeds worthy of earning a Name.” The chair leg now resembled a pretzel. “Tell me, Adjutant, what were these magical numbers that made this leaf-eater so canny a war leader?”
“His numbers indicate that one can determine the total enemy dead without actually counting their bodies.”
The administrator felt scorn vie with dark curiosity. “I do not understand. How can one know the number of relevant objects without counting them?”
“By estimate, Freay’ysh-Administrator. If our tactics and doctrine remain constant, we can arrive at a ratio of how much firepower we expend per human killed by studying the enemy casualty count in those battles where we know that none of the leaf-eaters have escaped. Thus, in less-controlled engagements, even if we find only one human body, then we may infer how many more we have killed, based on the control data. Once the system is perfected, arguably you only need to count the number of shots you have fired to determine how many of the enemy you have kil-”