You knew you had the attention of a Jotok when three eyes were focused on you—when you commanded all five eyes you were a sensation. Big-Undermouth skittered off to bring him some squealing Grashi-burrowers in a bowl, which he munched while other arms curried his fur. Why couldn't kzin sons be like this?
He was beginning to understand his success as a Jotok trainer. At the onset of intelligence a Jotok bonded to anything that gave the basic verbal cues. He'd seen a machine-bonded-Jotok cripple its mind trying to be the son of a machine. The bonding moment was critical but it wasn't enough. The Jotok was looking for a father, and you had to be a father if you wanted a reliable Jotok slave.
This was a confusing concept for Trainer-of-Slaves. He couldn't be a real father to his Jotoki because he couldn't give them combat training. They were herbivores, not Heroes. Only a father who was a coward would sire sons who were unable to fight. (Did Trainer still remember the murder of Puller-of-Noses? Perhaps. As an inexplicable aberration.)
Trainer-of-Slaves liked his isolation, mostly because it kept him out of fights. He had to maintain a delicate balance between dueling and not dueling. He preferred to be obsequious—older warriors appreciated subservience because it allowed them to delegate duties—but younger Heroes tended to mark a deferential kzin as potential prey.
To keep that nuisance at bay he had to maintain a reputation in the tournament ring. That he was Grraf-Hromfi's favorite opponent was enormously useful to him. The proud warriors of the Third Black Pride, awed by their Commandant, didn't see that Hromfi would never have hurt or humiliate Trainer, that the old warrior was only interested in providing an able disciplinarian for his sons. He was training Trainer-of-Slaves as proxy to cull his sons, a fatherly duty for which he had no liver.
A warrior who smelled Trainer's fear was restrained by the ear of the Commandant's son he wore on his belt, and by the many scars Trainer carried on his arm and body from contests with those same sons. The scars were a badge of sorts which Trainer appreciated, however painful had been their healing, because they warned others to keep their irritation in check.
Nevertheless, despite his growing skill as a combatant, he preferred his isolation. In the old days he would have hunted the savannas of Kzin-home alone.
CHAPTER 18
(2410 – 2413 A.D.)
Isolation be complete within a military machine, no matter how remote the posting. Trainer-of-Slaves might hide behind his work, but his superiors always found him because they needed him. In time, Chuut-Riit came out for an inspection. The Black Prides were the bones of his Fifth Fleet, and he liked to keep his tail around developments. While his officers were with him in the maintenance hold of the Pride's floating drydock, the Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch, and looking out over a dismantled Scream-of-Vengeance from a catwalk, Chuut-Riit turned to Trainer-of-Slaves.
“I recall our conversation at that hunt on Hssin.”
“Sire, I was young then, of shrunken liver and rattle-brain.”
“But you showed the talents of a fine captain, a gift for feint and kill,” Chuut-Riit replied diplomatically. “Let me refresh your memory about the topic which intrigued me. You had a theory that male humans might be domesticated through their biochemistry. I recollect that you talked about a trigger to control the pace of their learning, then a block to freeze that plasticity once they had attained the desired slave behaviors.”
“Sire, I have speculated thus but never with any experimental animals upon which I could test my ideas. Mental physiology can take strange twists. The turns cannot be followed without sniffing the trail. Nor can the males be domesticated without providing the proper kind of breeding female.”
“I have a partial-name for you if you succeed in this venture.”
“Sire!”
“Too many of our humans go feral. I suspect that on Earth, with its very large population, the problem will be worse. Hunting those humans who can't adapt to slavery is a limited solution. The feral human is covert and has the ability to pose as a slave. When he strikes he can be deadly. There was a recent massacre of kzinretti and their kits. It reminded me of your proposal. If you have the time to pursue the subject I can send you all the experimental animals you can use. I should like to take such knowledge with the Fifth Fleet.”
“I am eager to accept!”
“You have the space out here?”
“I can set up feeding cages.”
Trainer-of-Slaves had a wall of clean cages erected in a munitions area that was unused—they were not on a war mission yet. The cages were small by kzin standards but quite adequate for a man-beast who wished to stand erect or lie down, and more than adequate for children. When the first group of experimental animals arrived, he established a fixed regime. They received five-eighths of the water and food they needed simply for keeping their cages clean. The remaining rations were given for appropriate cooperation. No other pressure was placed on the animals for refusal to cooperate.
They were very noisy.
Included with the first shipment was the best human-tech autodoc that Chuut-Riit's officers had been able to locate, complete with instructions in German, English, and Japanese. Its computer was essentially a full compendium of human biochemistry, though not in an easily decipherable form. The autodoc had been supplied so that he could recycle animals damaged in experiments.
First he tackled the autodoc's exotic computer and set up a program to translate its records of human biochemistry into kzin-symbolics so that they could be transferred to his data-link and integrated with the generalized model of all known organic alien brains. He was amazed to recognize one of the human neuro-transmitters as similar to a kzin neurotransmitter. Its peculiar chemical form gave him a clue as to why kzin reflexes were so much faster than human reflexes.
Within weeks Trainer-of-Slaves had his first experiments running. Long-Reach was proving to be a talented surgical student. His initial try at removing the top of a male's skull had provoked massive hemorrhaging—a mistake that was being repaired in the autodoc. Long-Reach's second attempt was a success. His animal was restrained in a comfortable chair, the dome of her cranial bone sliced off at the top to expose the brain, her human head cramped rigidly to prevent her from hurting herself.
Trainer had upped the room temperature in deference to the female's furless skin. He had tattooed a dots and comma identification on her arm so that he wouldn't mix her up with the other animals. Delicate probes were already embedded in her brain, measuring transmitter chemical activity, mapping the neural circuits involved in sensory input, monitoring blood flow, measuring neural activity changes as basic emotions were chemically switched on and off. He needed to get a paws-on feel for the brain structures he had extracted from the autodoc.
But he hovered around his experiment nervously. He didn't want her to die of shock while he was still so unsure of the human performance envelope. He had special catfish ice cream to give her when the data gathering was over in appreciation for her discomfort.
In time he would learn how to erase her inquiring mind while retaining her ability to bear children and perform her sexual functions. He wasn't yet quite sure what would be the best use for the males. If he was to domesticate them as work animals, he would need a different approach than if they were to be domesticated for food.
Thus the years went by uneventfully. Experiments on slaves. Biochemistry studies. Neural map deciphering. Polarizer maintenance. A bit of fighter acrobatics in exchange for a fast repair job. Another lethal fight with one of Hromfi's sons; another ear for his belt. More lectures on strategy. An embarrassing incident with one of Hromfi's coy daughters, fortunately in the dark. Gunnery practice. More Jotoki to train. More questions to answer. Another round of brain experiments.