“Then I abase myself—”
“Shall I read to you what you said about this enemy? I particularly liked the one about him speaking with his anus and beshitting with his mouth.”
“I have made a grievous error!”
“Beshitted with your mouth, did you? Hr-r, but you will be sufficiently punished. You have come under my command by the orders of Chuut-Riit. That is punishment enough for any sin. I make Heroes out of kits. It is easier on me if you do all the work.”
“I volunteer immediately for any duty you may assign me!”
“Excellent.” Grraf-Hromfi pulled an antique flintspark pistol from a belt holster, and raised the goggles to his forehead, out of the way. “I prefer this to a w'tsai knife,” he said wryly. “It gives me several octal-centuries over my opponents. That makes me feel modern.” Since the pistol could fire only one musket ball at a time, it had skull-cracking knobs on the barrel so that it could be used as a club. “Disassemble and polish my weapon while we talk.” He handed Trainer-of-Slaves a polishing kit.
“Yes, Sire!”
“Chuut-Riit has been building two fleets for the last three years, not one. The Fourth Fleet was a full attack unit. The Fifth Fleet, to which you are now an honored member by the personal order of Chuut-Riit, was conceived of as an elite seed. With the launching of the Fourth Fleet, the seed is being planted. The Fifth Fleet is to grow into a fully operational attack force assimilating warriors and warships only as fast as they can learn its strict code. It will not be a loose confederation like the Fourth Fleet. Any breaks in discipline will not be tolerated.”
“Already I feel the juices of obedience in my liver, Dominant One!”
“Do you have questions?”
“Will we see action, Wise One? Or are we just a Fourth Fleet backup?” For a moment, Trainer-of-Slaves stopped his vigorous polishing of the ceremonial pistol.
“Let's take an example. Your brazen friend, Ssis-Captain, takes what he wants and does what he wants. Once he has an idea in his head, he acts. If his ears are tickled, he acts. His liver stops at nothing. If it took his fancy to put a kzinrett in command of his bridge, there she'd be pacing about and purring!”
The ears of Trainer-of-Slaves had to be consciously immobilized as he polished. He was imagining their kzinrett in command of the Blood of Heroes.
“Am I not right about your friend?”
“Hr-r, absolutely!”
“Yes. And he has never commanded a ship in battle. He sees an enemy position and he takes it, right?”
“The Blood of Heroes has a valiant crew. They are totally loyal to Ssis-Captain.”
“What will his battle-lifetime be? An octal-day? Two if he's lucky! Then again he may have no more than the time to see a monkey before he is dead and his ship, cooked meat. Chuut-Riit has assigned all such commanders to the Fourth Fleet. If they survive he may be able to teach them something. They may even kill a few monkeys. Perhaps not even that. What have the first three fleets of you out world barbarians accomplished, you screaming berserkers of Hssin, you borderland ragpickers? Bloody nothing!”
Grraf-Hromfi was now stirred up enough to clutch his planning-surface. “Hr-r, perhaps you wild barbarians have been teaching the monkeys military strategy in your own cunning way, one fleet at a time, never making the problems harder than a monkey can solve? The next thing we know, you Imperial-border scavengers will be hiring man-beasts to do your fighting. Why waste the talents you have taught them? Put them in command of your warships!”
“Sir, you speak of my father, not me.”
“Hr-r, and you are different?”
“I admire firearms. This is a fine pistol, Sire. I believe I'm ready to reassemble it.”
“Picked it up on W'kkai. That's where Chuut-Riit found me. We were both bored and listening to rumors in the marketplace to see if we couldn't sniff up some action. I had just bought the pistol from an old warrior who needed the good. Chuut wanted the pistol, too, being a collector of pre-space weapons. He swears that he added me to his retinue so that he can keep track of this pistol. Notice the mark of Kai, a famous forger for the Riits.”
“The Fourth Fleet will have glory with such a great weapons collector as Chuut-Riit.”
“You are clawing for fish? The flattery does not disguise your question. Let me be blunt since my position allows it. Chuut-Riit is not the leader of the Fourth Fleet. He is here, mere light-days away, sitting in a palace on Wunderland. You can have no idea of the difficulties he has had in trying to shape Fourth Fleet discipline. Every border Hero thinks of himself as Heaven's Admiral ripe to pillage the wealth of the unexplored frontier. The Fourth Fleet is a fleet of admirals!”
Hromfi was raving again. “And let me tell you something else, youngling. It will be Chuut-Riit who will be taking the Fifth Fleet to Man-sun as his personal armada. That's where his lies. But we won't be stalking that path of victory until he is certain that both you and I are ready. I am ready; you are not.”
“I am instantly ready to take any assignment!”
Eagerness flamed.
“Hr-r, now. Finish the pistol first. I keep even the flint ready to spark, so test that.” He checked the weapon, then returned it to Trainer-of-Slaves. “It must have been a cramped journey in the Ztirgor. Take some rest. Then report to Duty-Sergeant at lights-on. We'll have time to talk again. What else to do but exercise the Hero's Tongue? We have heaven above and stars below and years of time. An interstellar warrior's main duty is to wait.”
“Have I been dismissed, Grraf-Hromfi, Sire?”
“Not on this ship. Your duties never cease. You will, of course, take charge of maintenance immediately. But there will be many other tasks you will have to learn besides the polishing of pistols. Correct communication protocols. How one coordinates an interstellar war. And we have fighter craft out here with the Sherrek's Ear. You will learn how to defend a deep space base such as ours. Coextensively you will be learning sound military strategy. To cudgel that into your Hssin head, you will be teaching what I teach you, in turn, to my sons, a thankless and trying task, alas, for which I need help.”
“Is that all, Sire?”
“I detect a note of sarcasm in your hisses. No, that is not all. That is the beginning.”
“I look forward to your regime. In the end I shall become convinced that I am one of Heaven's Admirals, a worthy goal for a Hssin barbarian.”
“Claw your face and begone Eater-of-Grass.”
Trainer-of-Slaves took no notice of the insult for Grraf-Hromfi had spoken it with a purr. What could one's liver make of it all? He was terrified of this old kzin battle-ax but he wasn't afraid of him.
CHAPTER 16
(2403 – 2404 A.D.)
The "unclawed," as the new ratings were called, had to attend an irregular seminar given by Grraf-Hromfi. The texts, the simulations, the work sheets, the drills were based on Chuut-Riit's Military Comprehendium, the complete collection of his works. The lectures, however, were pure Grraf-Hromfi. They were all based on the exhortation: “Think before you leap!” He had a thousand ways of drubbing that message home as if he despaired of it being received.
Sometimes he used it to deliver a warning. The day he received Chuut-Riit's final report on the Third Fleet, he paced his students through that defeat, what was known of it.