“Take him into my hut. I’ll see what I can do.”
Inside the structure of animal bone and rawhide was an impressive array of chirping diagnostic equipment and a blinking new autodoc. “You’ve got a field hospital here,” said the father, sniffing the antiseptic chemicals in the hut.
“You’d be surprised how many kzinti injure themselves on the hunt or in duels in these backwoods.” Healer examined the kit sprawled out on the pallet. “Well, perhaps it would no longer surprise you. Please wait outside.”
Healer connected the juvenile to the doc and immediately administered a strong painkiller. The kit’s writhings ceased. He sighed through clenched teeth in instant relief. The kit was missing a U-shaped chunk of flesh under his right arm. Luckily, the bite hadn’t penetrated through the boney mesh of the kzinti skeleton. Healer sprayed synthetic skin, cultured from the adolescent’s own DNA, onto the bloody hole. “You’re going to be fine. It was a small alliog.” He wrapped the kit’s torso in a tight bandage.
“It didn’t feel like a small alliog.”
“Why did you leave Shrawl’ta? Your father held an important position there.”
“Everyone is saying a kzinti warship has entered our system. My father had always dreamed of living free in the Raoneer country. He said now was his chance before the Patriarchy exterminated us all for breeding like vermin.”
A kzinti warship? Surely, thought Healer, we would all be dead by now. This thriving amethyst planet would be reduced to a dusty disc of debris, but being Maintainer-of-Communications, this kit’s father would be privy to the truth of such information.
He adjusted the flow of anesthesia and sedated the kit. He called for the waiting kzintosh to return to the hut. The former Maintainer-of-Communications entered and made appreciative prostration. “Is the stupid kit going to survive?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you and the Maned God!” He prostrated himself a little lower. “Please, Healer-of-Hunters, take my daughter into your harem. We are of praiseworthy stock, sired of Shadow.”
Healer had instinctively breathed in the young, attractive kzinrett as she approached his hut, but her pheromones carried the uncomfortable tinge of the incestuous.
“Thank you, brave Hunter, that is a most generous offer, but I do not wish to complicate my life in these uncertain times.” He scratched his scruffy neck, hoping the excuse and change of subject were not too obvious. “If what I’ve heard is true, this small hut will be swollen with the bodies of wounded Raoneers.”
The kzintosh rose quickly. “You know of the ship?”
“Your son purred about it while under the influence of the autodoc. Is it true, a warship?”
“Yes, it’s true. Ceezarr himself met with the human Triumvirate about the matter. According to their analysis, and ours, the ship is unresponsive, probably wrecked.”
“That is somewhat of a relief.”
“Yes, still the threat was enough for me to reevaluate my life.”
“Indeed.” Healer was no longer listening to the other kzintosh. He pawed at the possibilities this ship presented. Were there survivors? Perhaps frozen in coldsleep caskets, unaware that their ship had been attacked? He grabbed his wristcomp and moved toward the flap in the tent. “You can sit with your son until he wakes. I am going on a hunt.”
Healer-of-Hunters dashed through the wispy purple reeds as though in hot pursuit of quick and cunning prey. “Get me Daneel Guthlac,” he hissed into his wristcomp and kept running until he had reached the gravcar he’d tucked away beneath blood-colored brush.
The image of a human male with a mane of sandy, wavy hair, a close-trimmed beard and strong jaw line winked over Healer’s wrist.
Harp, Angel’s Tome
Dan lay on the floor of his lab calibrating the compact gravity motor of his car for the eighth time. Its hum was so perfectly pitched that it purred like newborn kit. He had reached the limits of what he could squeeze out of this ancient kzin-derived technology and he was becoming bored with it.
His wristcomp pinged and he pushed himself from under the triangular gravcar. The grainy hologram of a kzin with black markings lost in dark orange, almost chocolate, fur, beamed out of his wristcomp. Its piercing amber eyes scrutinized him for a long second.
It took just as long for Dan to place this savage-looking face. “My God, I haven’t heard from you in ages! Where the tanj have you been?”
“I’m out in the Raoneer wilderness, hunting and providing medical care for other kzinti out here.”
“All that academic excellence back at the crèche and you’ve gone bushcat!” Dan couldn’t suppress a smile.
“I need your help. I’ve just got word that a kzinti warship was sighted in our neighborhood. Can you verify that claim?”
“Yeah, there are media rumors circulating that a scout ship was detected in our system. Anyone with any sense knows that’s got to be false because our planet is not a cinder.”
“Agreed.”
Dan could hear his old friend panting like a thirsty dog. “But something’s got the A.T. Triumvirate all in a huff.”
“Word from Ceezarr’s mansion says the ship is incapacitated.”
“Is this why you called me?”
“I want to pounce on it, but I’m going to need your help. I need all the information the Triumvirate has on the ship and I need an engineer once I get to it.”
“Whoa, I’d love to get my hands on a modern warship with technology one hundred years ahead of anything we’ve got in this miserable marooned colony, but the risks seem a bit too high. I’d hate to be the guy that points the Patriarchy to our doorstep.”
“I believe the risk is acceptable. I plan to fly the barge my father has set up as a useless museum piece and tow the derelict back here. Will you join me?”
“Come on, I haven’t see you in years. I don’t even know what you’re called now! And you drop this on my lap all of a sudden?”
“My provisional name is Healer-of-Hunters. I don’t have any other friends. You’re an engineer and you have poor judgment. I figured you’d leap at the chance to sink your blunt little nails into state-of-the-art technology.”
“Nice to meet you, Healer-of-Hunters. What do bushcats care about advanced technology?”
“Absolutely nothing. You can have the ship and open it up like a fresh kill.”
“So why are you so interested in this ship?”
“Do not worry about that.”
“Dishonesty comes across as stiff and unnatural on kzinti. You lack the neurological architecture to shamelessly lie.”
“I’m sorry. I was informed you worked at Harp University’s engineering department, not in neural science.” Healer’s ears rippled at his own joke and Dan imagined his tail whipping around. “Besides, I’m not lying. I’m withholding information.”
“Sarcasm? Humans are ruining a proud and unflappable species!”
“Will you help me? If not, I’ll do it alone, but the odds of success will be greatly reduced.”
“I don’t know, you’re not exactly convincing me to give up my cushy life as a researcher to go on a potentially world-devastating endeavor.”
“Remember back when we were kits and you used your monkey wiles to talk me into eating Mrs. Davis’ pug. I didn’t question you, I simply attacked. I need you to attack.”
“I remember your dad tore you up when she showed up at his mansion blubbering. Was it really worth it?”
He absently licked his lips. “Oh yes, that plump little dog was utterly delicious.”
“Alright, who am I to argue with a million years of kzinti killer instinct?”
“Can you get an audience with the Triumvirate?”
“With a name like Guthlac? I’ll be sipping tea with them by noon.”
“How much time do you need to get the information and get to Shrawl’ta?”
“Give me four hours.”
“That fast?”
“I have a very fast car.”
The bushcat abruptly cut off the transmission.