Varsha Khan entered the restaurant and the metallic tang of blood and wet extraterrestrial fur hit her like a slap. She breathed through her mouth and surveyed the room. A smaller kzintosh with russet, black-spotted fur and large erect ears like the junk sails on ancient Chinese boats waved her over. Varsha approached cautiously. He had ruffs of longer hair on his cheeks ending in two points on either side of his chin. She also noticed he was more ragged than most kzintoshi, like a shabby old alley cat.
“You opened up on purpose. Is this some kind of trap?”
“Not at all, Agent Khan. We’re both talented telepaths and I’m pressed for time. Allow me to get right to the point. Right here on Canyon, sentient kzinretti are being held as sex slaves.”
“That’s absurd,” but as she spoke, a faint, guarded mental transmission passed from Bobcat to Varsha and she knew it was true.
A young man with a gaunt face and sunken eyes led a small striped horse into the stall and quickly left. “Ah, so this is a zebra,” Bobcat licked his muzzle with a broad pink tongue and proceeded to chaw down on its neck with bone-crushing force. The pitiful animal hee-hawed in terrible pain. Varsha dodged kicking hoofs, then the beast went still.
She suppressed a sudden surge of terror and revulsion and said, “I don’t think that’s an actual zebra, probably a genetically modified donkey.”
Bobcat didn’t look up as he lacerated a large chunk of dripping scarlet meat and threw it back whole.
“How do you know about this?” she continued.
“I partake of their services.” His face was all sticky and red.
Despite her businesslike demeanor, she arched a curious eyebrow, “I thought telepaths weren’t allowed to breed?”
“No, not breed, but my captain allows me to ch’rowl until my heart’s content.”
“And what, some of you macho kzintoshi have a fetish for exotic sapient females? Not in proper harems, of course, but you can ch’rowl them in brothels, huh?”
“I don’t believe those responsible know they are sentient. The kzinretti are quite scared and reluctant to talk, and even if they did, they don’t speak the Heroes’ Tongue or Interworld.” He rent another heavy mass of equine muscle, and Varsha’s skin crawled at the sound of striped flesh ripping.
“Wait. I caught that thought! You want me to believe that this is a human operation?”
“It is. Humans are an enterprising ape. They’ve learned to take advantage of this odd situation of coexistence with kzinti, and a sort of cottage industry has sprung up, catering to our gruesome needs.” He pointed to the drain at the center of the stall’s tiled floor as if that explained everything. “As a matter of fact, Serengeti is also a human establishment. Who else would come up with the idea of a restaurant that brings you a live animal, allows you to ravage it, hoses you down, and then is ready to serve the next famished kzin in less than an hour?”
“That’s barbaric.”
Bobcat caught the waves of nausea and denial rippling through the agent, and he decided that her smooth and supple youth wasn’t a product of boosterspice. His ears twitched like the pectoral fins of a Fafnir flying fish.
“You think kzinti are the only barbarians in known space? Do not fool yourself, Agent Khan. We’ve had four glorious wars and you’ve won every one of them. We are currently sitting at the bottom of a planetwide scar etched by one of your claws of mass destruction. I believe the veneer of civility has long been cast off. You have soundly beaten us, and as consolation, you offer us whorehouses and fast-food restaurants.”
Varsha knew he was right. The wars had changed humanity, just as much as they had changed kzinti. Now, each species met somewhere in the muddy middle. She composed herself rather quickly and said, almost in the Menacing Tense, “Did you invite me here to mess with me? To gloat?”
“No, Agent Khan. I need your assistance.” The kzin was covered in blood, and a bloated, banded cadaver lay bare on the floor.
“My assistance? What makes you think I’m not going to arrest you right now for espionage? Remember, I was tracking you before all this tanj prostitution affair came up. I know you’ve been selling information to the Patriarchy.”
“I am just a simple tool. Would you arrest the listening device or the listener? If you help me, I can open up further and reveal the full extent of my spying on at least three worlds, as well as some colorful sabotage and an assassination.” He let a trickle of information pass between them and her large, lilac eyes widened into saucers. “If you play your cards right and use your clever little monkey tricks to help me, you might even arrest Yearrl-Captain himself.”
“Why now? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“I’m a strung-out old telepath on his last hunt and I’ve just had something of an epiphany. I know now that what I’ve done is wrong.”
The dribble of thought continued between them, and she knew he was lying about his guilt. He was quite proud, in fact. It was the closest this drug-addled kzin had come to feeling like a true warrior, but some kind of revelation had shaken him recently. Varsha caught a flash of a small, sickly kitten, black as night with aquamarine eyes, and three trapped and desolate kzinretti.
“What do you want of me?”
“Transport. I need you to pull some ARM strings and get me a ship so I can get off this fractured rock.”
“Where will you go? Fafnir? Wunderland?”
“No, those are regular scratching posts along Devourer’s prowl. Yearrl-Captain will have ample connections and resources to hunt me down.”
“Then where the tanj else can a sthondat-juice junkie and his freemother females hide in the universe?”
The predatory speed with which Bobcat slammed Varsha against the blood-splashed wall made her heart stop. “That will be the last time you refer to my harem in such a disrespectful manner. We did not choose our horrid circumstances.” The words came out hot with the stench of the fresh kill on his breath.
“I’m sorry. I really am.” Varsha immediately regretted her remark, not because she could feel the prickling of reaperlike claws pressed against her jugular, but because she had touched the kzinretti’s awesome heartache through the tiny telepathic feed.
Bobcat released her. “Will you assist me? All I have is one hour. By then, Yearrl-Captain expects me to be onboard the Devourer with the kit. When I don’t show up, he’ll immediately send Heroes down to fetch me.”
Varsha realized that that infinitesimal filament of thought running from this creature’s soul to hers had given her a taste of its bleak perspective and that of the females and even the poor shade of a kitten. She understood that, like it or not, she was becoming invested, which is precisely why she severed the connection. “I’m sorry. I guarantee you that we will investigate this prostitution ring, but I cannot under any circumstances help a spy escape. All I can give you is the assurance that I will not impede you in any way.”
Varsha turned and left the gory feeding stall before Bobcat could even process her rebuff. She thought she caught a glimpse of his lips peeling back exposing rows of deadly, ivory-colored teeth, a black hole where a three-inch canine should’ve been.
Rage erupted from Bobcat in the form of an explosive roar as Varsha Khan exited the restaurant. The female monkey had outright betrayed him. He had been so sure she would help. He had felt her pity, her genuine concern. After all these years, how little he understood these honorless kz’eerkt! He pounded the wash button in the stall and let the boiling water cleanse the blood and fury off of him.