Early shook his head. “East and West are one, to the servants of the Hidden Temple.”
Shigehero started, impressed still more, then made a deep bow, smiling. “Your authority is undisputed, Master. Although not that of the ARM!”
Early relaxed, joining in the chuckle. “Well, the ARM is no more than a finger of the Hidden Way and the Rule That Is To Come, eh? As is your Association, oyabun. And many another.” Including many you know nothing of. “As above, so below; power and knowledge, wheel within wheel. Until Holy Blood—”
“—fills Holy Grail.”
Early nodded, and his face became stark. “Now, let me tell you what has been hidden in the vaults of the ARM. The Brotherhood saw to it that the knowledge was suppressed, back three centuries ago, along with much else. The ARM has been invaluable for that… Long ago, there was a species that called themselves the Thrint—”
Jonah looked up as Early left the oyabun's sanctum.
“How did it go?” he murmured.
“Well enough. We've got an alliance of sorts. And a very serious problem, not just with the kzinti. Staff conference, gentlemen.”
The Belter fell into line with the others as they left the Association's headquarters. I wonder, he thought, looking up at the rock above. I wonder what really is going on out there. And whether it might get him Catskinner back.
Chapter V
“STOP THAT,” Dnivtopun said angrily, alerted by the smell of blood and a wet ripping sound.
His son looked up guiltily and tried to resist. The thrint willed obedience, feeling the adolescent's half-formed shield resisting his Power like thick mud around a foot. Then it gave way, and the child released the human's arm. That was chewed to the bone; the young thrint had blood all down its front, and bits of matter and gristle stuck between its needle teeth. The slave swayed, smiling dreamily.
“How many times do I have to tell you: Do not eat the servants!” Dnivtopun shrieked, and used the Power again: SHAME. GUILT. PAIN. ANGUISH. REMORSE. SHOOTING PAINS. BURNING FEET. UNIVERSAL SCRATCHLESS ITCH. GUILT.
The slave was going into shock. “Go and get medical treatment,” he said. And: FEEL NO PAIN. DO NOT BLEED. This one had been on the Ruling Mind for some time; he had picked it for sensitivity to Power, and its mind fit his mental grip like a glove. The venous spurting from its forelimb slowed, then sank to a trickle as the muscles clamped down on the blood vessels with hysterical strength.
Dnivtopun turned back to his offspring. The young thrint was rolling on the soft blue synthetic of the cabin floor; he had beshat himself and vomited up the human flesh—thrint used the same mouth-orifice for both—and his eating tendrils were writhing into his mouth, trying to clean it and pick the teeth free of foreign matter. The filth was sinking rapidly into the floor, absorbed by the ship's recycling system, and the stink was fading as well. The vents replaced it with nostalgic odors of hot wet jungle, spicy and rank, the smell of thrintun. Dnivtopun shut his mind to the youngster's suffering for a full minute; his eldest son was eight, well into puberty. At that age, controls imposed by the Power did not sink in well. An infant could be permanently conditioned, that was the way baby thrint were toilet trained, but by this stage they were growing rebellious.
CEASE HURTING, he said at last. Then: “Why did you attack the servant?”
“It was boring me,” his son said, still with a trace of sulkiness. “All that stuff you said I had to learn. Why can't we go home, father? Or to Uncle Tzinlpun's?”
With an intense effort, Dnivtopun controlled himself. “This is home! We are the last thrintun left alive.” Powerless take persuasion, he decided. BELIEVE.
The fingers of mind could feel the child-intellect accepting the order. Barriers of denial crumbled, and his son's eye squeezed shut while all six fingers squeezed painfully into palms. The young thrint threw back his head and howled desolately, a sound like glass and sheet metal inside a tumbling crusher.
QUIET. Silence fell; Dnivtopun could hear the uncomprehending whimper of a female in the next room, beyond the lightscreen door. One of his wives; they had all been nervous and edgy, female thrintun had enough psionic sensitivity to be very vulnerable to upset.
“You will have to get used to the idea,” Dnivtopun said. Powergiver knows it took me long enough. He moved closer and threw an arm around his son's almost-neck, biting him affectionately on the top of the head. “Think of the good side. There are no tnuctipun here!” He could feel that bring a small wave of relief; the Rebels had been bogeymen to the children since their birth. “And you will have a planet of your own, some day. There is a whole galaxy of slaves here, ready for our taking!”
“Truly, father?” There was awakening greed at that. Dnivtopun had only been Overseer of one miserable food-planet, a sterile globe with a reducing atmosphere, seeded with algae and bandersnatchi. There would have been little for his sons, even without the disruption of the War.
“Truly, my son.” He keyed one of the controls, and a wall blanked to show an exterior starscape. “One day, all this will be yours. We are not the last thrintun—we are the beginning of a new Empire!” And I am the first Emperor, if I can survive the next few months. “So we must take good care of these slaves.”
“But these smell so good, father!”
Dnivtopun sighed. “I know, son.” Thrintun had an acute sense of smell when it came to edibility; competition for food among their presapient ancestors had been very intense. “It's because—” no, that's just a guess. Few alien biologies in the old days had been as compatible as these humans… Dnivtopun had a suspicion he knew the reason; food algae. The Thrint had seeded hundreds of planets with it, and given billions of years… That would account for the compatibility of the other species as well, the Kzin; they could eat humans, too. “Well, you'll just have to learn to ignore it.” Thrintun were always ravenous. “Now, listen—you've upset your mother. Go and comfort her.”
Ulf Reichstein-Markham faced the Master and fought not to vomit. The carrion breath, the writhing tentacles beside the obscene gash of mouth, the staring faceted eye… It was so—beautiful, he thought, as shards of crystalline Truth slid home in his mind. The pleasure was like the drifting relaxation after orgasm, like a hot sauna, like winning a fight.
“What progress has been made on the amplifier helmet?” his owner asked.
“Very little, Masteeeeeeeeee!” He staggered back, shaking his head against the blinding-white pressure that threatened to burst it. Whimpering, he pressed his hands against the sides of his head. “Please, Master! We're trying!”
The pressure relaxed; on some very distant level, he could feel the alien's recognition of his sincerity.
“What is the problem?” Dnivtopun asked.
“Master—” Markham stopped for a moment to organize his thoughts, looking around.
They were on the control deck of the Ruling Mind, and it was huge. Few human spaceships had ever been so large; this was nearly the size of a colony slowship. The chamber was a flattened oval dome twenty meters long and ten wide, lined with chairs of many different types. That was logical, to accommodate the wild variety of slave-species the Thrint used. But they were chairs, not acceleration couches. The Thrint had had very good gravity control, for a very long time. A central chair designed for thrint fronted the blackened wreck of what had been the main computer. The decor was lavish and garish, swirling curlicues of precious metals and enamel, drifting motes of multicolored lights. Beneath their feet was a porous matrix that seemed at least half-alive, that absorbed anything organic and dead and moved rubbish to collector outlets with a disturbing peristaltic motion. The air was full of the smells of vegetation and rank growth.