Although literature was not my subject, I learned a little about their own. They had some works I would call “thrillers,” but reading or viewing them was considered somewhat shameful, like watching pornography. Their respectable literature dealt with Lord Chmeee and other ancient Heroes, and was embellished with as many stylistic conventions as a Japanese Noh drama or an American Western. When the conventions were not observed, they often had difficulty in telling fact from fiction (I had to be very careful not to humiliate them here). I did not envy my colleagues, scrabbling in their little free time in the archives of the University for books and fragments which had been brought from Earth and forgotten in the excitement of settling a new planet in order to put inoffensive courses together.
I did not see as much of the other three humans as you might expect. By the end of the day we were all too mentally exhausted to socialize. Two or three of my kzin students, mainly the telepath, who, I gathered, was regarded as having become almost useless for real work (which was reassuring) took to seeking me out after hours with questions. Though my free time was limited and precious, I came to find this flattering. I talked some geriatric treatments out of the collabo Government, not exactly telling them, or myself, that I was civilizing the kzin (those telepath sweeps! Always a haunting dread!), but allowing them to draw that conclusion for themselves. The ubiquitous threat of telepaths was subtly changing the ways all humans thought and communicated. Fortunately for us, telepaths were rare, and were assigned to military duties nearly all the time. Even luckier, our telepath, who, I guessed, was assigned to the class to keep a more-or-less watching brief over us all, human and kzin, was of relatively mild nature. When I saw him he did not inject himself with the sthondat-lymph drug which heightened his powers, and I did not feel the headache which would have indicated that he was reading my mind. The telepath and I played chess occasionally. Most kzin adore chess, regarding it along with blow-dryers, talcum powder and toilet paper as the finest fruit of human civilization. I had an ulterior motive in this: there was no point in the telepath playing chess if he read my mind: that would have made it no game. So I was, I felt, subtly conditioning him to interact with me but to leave my mind alone. Even so, I dared not insult him by letting him win. He played like a typical kzin-fast and aggressive. He generally lost the first few games in short order, coming dangerously close to losing his temper-he could crush a solid metal chessman in his claws in a rage-but would then improve. I caught no trace of him probing my mind; it was just the way he worked. Of course, no other kzin would play with him. It was also a chance to pick up scraps of gossip from him-the kzin, or Telepath at least, cared little about military security. I gathered some details of the humans who were still fighting in the great caves, in Grossgeister Swamp, in the eastern hills and on the other, sparsely settled land masses. Battles were going on in space, and Sol System was still putting up fleets.
I noticed Thompson seemed to have formed a queer association with the telepath, rather as I had done. A case of uttermost underlings coming together. All of us, in our different ways, were protected a little by our value to Chuut-Riit from the casual savagery of kzin society. Much to my surprise, the telepath asked me to read aloud to him. I gathered it helped him relax, or gave him some relief from the mental noise that constantly surrounded him. I had heard rumors of telepaths with prohuman leanings, and perhaps that was what saved me at the time of the meat incident.
I dropped some meat, the food of another kzin (I had had a shock when I recognized the human bones). I was terrified the owner of the meat would attack me. Telepath, to my surprise, stopped him, as slavering, claws extended, he gathered himself to spring.
“Do not harm the Patriarch’s property!” Telepath said, and there had been something like a command in his voice.
The angry kzin, one who plainly had been drafted into the class to rid some fighting unit of his stupidity, growled and snarled. Even he, however, could realize that damaging the Patriarch’s property and Chuut-Riit’s was not a wise move. He snarled some threats about me losing my other arm, and resumed his seat. I gave the telepath some books, and tried to broadcast feelings of friendship to him-with how much success I did not know. But from that time there seemed, though I dared not have presumed upon it, to be some sort of unspoken understanding between the telepath and myself. He was, I guessed, like many telepaths, a secret intellectual, desperately lonely, and as frightened as I was, secretly not only terrified of the strutting Heroes, but also despising them.
Gradually, I began to realize the politics of the situation. I knew Chuut-Riit’s interest in humans was not universally approved of among senior kzinti. Some considered it disgusting, virtually a perversion. Others thought it a waste of time. Instead of building up the elite corps that Chuut-Riit had envisioned, many commanders had used the unit as a dumping-ground to get rid of unwanted personnel. Apart from those who were simply old or physically disabled, some of these were misfits because they were stupid, and some were misfits because they were intelligent.
I was, however, beginning to worry about graduating the class. I could not fail any, but if I passed them all as qualified “human experts,” the more stupid ones might well let me down in the field. Certainly the consequences would be unpleasant for them, but they would be a great deal more unpleasant for me. I realized that all I could do was try to teach well, keep the content of my classes innocuous, and emphasize my position as the property of the Patriarch. Also, another worry came to me: the obviously bright ones would resent being marked no higher than the obvious thick-heads.
One day, the telepath approached me.
“This Moby Dick that Kleist-human speaks of?”
“Yes, Dominant One, have you completed it?”
“We are not far advanced with it yet. But I have a question…What became of the cetaceans?”
“The whales? Their killing was stopped by law eventually, Dominant One. It was feared that they would become extinct, and better sources of oil were found…petroleum: ‘Rock-oil.’”
“Yes, you have Cetacean allies now.”
“Yes, the dolphins. We brought them to Ka’ashi.”
“But Moby Dick was not your ally.”
“No, Dominant One. A different species. Larger and more fearsome. Ahab believed he had to be destroyed, partly in vengeance for having taken his leg, partly because” (Careful, now!) “he was an enemy of Man.”
“I see.” Yes, I thought, a Kzin would see that. “I meant to speak to Thompson-human about it, but I sensed he did not wish to discuss the matter. I could have pressed him, of course.”
Of course.
“But I did not wish to. Such things are painful to me.” No kzin normally admitted pain in any circumstances, least of all to a human, but telepaths were different. It was, I thought, a sign of the delicate empathy between us. It also, I thought, tended to confirm my guess that this one was reaching the end of the line.