From behind the huge alien, Klaus Bergen suddenly leaped up like a child’s toy from his false sleep in the microgravity. He thrust a sharpened power conduit into Kraach-Captain’s massive back. The kzin spread his huge arms in an enormous embrace, his scream going up and up in frequency-
– into silence. He hung limply in midair as his pelt began to smoke.
Madchen Franke shoved an electrode into Alien Technologist. She was quick, but the kzin caught her with one spasming swipe, tearing her arm off. As she slammed into a bulkhead, blood spurting from a fleshy gaping socket, Alien-Technologist roared and collapsed in convulsions.
Bergen’s face was a mask of grief, but he never eased his grip on the electrode lodged in Kraach-Captain’s back.
My mother peered into the control room, a laser aimed and ready. She looked around quickly, tossed me the laser.
Quickly, she grabbed the electrode piercing Alien-Technologist, standing above the concussed woman lying on the deck.
Jacobi looked wildly from side to side at the twitching kzinti. At two crew carefully holding the electrodes steady. His eyes jerked toward me.
“You,” he exclaimed.
“Me,” I replied, puffing down the laser.
Then I broke his neck with my own hands. I felt nothing.
We had Trojan Horsed the Trojan Cat. Or perhaps Trojan Monkeyed the Trojan Cat.
My mother stood over us with the welding laser while Bergen and I quickly but very carefully bound the two unconscious kzin. Franke had lost consciousness immediately. We could leave her for a few minutes without risking significant further damage. If there was one thing the crew of Feynman knew, it was cryosuspension.
I entered the kzin fighter ship in search of medical supplies. I was careful not to touch anything. This fighter was a very important prize now. There could be booby traps anywhere. Strange devices, complicated controls. I couldn’t make sense of it. Perhaps wiser heads than mine could.
“Well done, my son,” I heard my mother say to me as I sealed the kzin ship behind me. “I am proud.”
I smiled tightly, but shook my head a little. I did what I had to do. Still, I would never know the price I paid, nor what I had bought.
But at least it felt right.
Later, I stood in the tiny control room of the Feynman. Stars filled the screen, a riot of gaudy pinpoints against velvet blackness. With some thought and careful orientation, I was able to pick out Sol The sight still didn’t warm me, nor make me feel victorious.
I heard a voice behind me. “Son?”
“Yes, mother?” I replied, not needing to turn around.
“It’s time.” Her voice was old, yes, but it still crackled and burned with a trace of Herrenmann command.
I felt the familiar argument rise in my throat. “I don’t see why we can’t at least try to understand the ratcat drive. If we succeed, we would…
“If, if, if,” she interrupted softly. “You know perfectly well that the kzin booby trap their devices to keep them out of slave-race hands. And we dare not risk either of our captives to explain the failsafes here and now”
She was right, irritatingly right, Both Kraach-Captain and Alien-Technologist would be invaluable to unlocking the secrets of kzin technology when we reached Sol. But the aliens were far too large and strong to keep conscious. That was an unacceptable risk in a small lifebubble. Life support was already beginning to breakdown on Feynman. It stank. We had rigged two coldsleep chambers for our alien captives and iced them down for the trip.
But only after we had carefully deep-suspended Madchen Franke. She would reawaken on Earth intact and healed.
Kraach-Captain had never really wakened before we chilled him down. His kzin physiology had put his body into hibernation state without the biochemical tricks we humans needed for suspension. I never had the chance to explain to the alien ratcat about human honor.
Or human vengeance.
My mother and I watched the stars together for a time in silence.
I said nothing. Why should victory taste of ashes?
Finally she spoke. “Remember this, my son. Had you succeeded in the original plan, you would have saved their lives, true. But as slaves” She gestured Solward. “Perhaps, with our new cargo, we have a chance at leveling the playing field with the kzin. We can start to erase their technological advantage, to drive them back” She was right. An intact kzin fighter and crew was a prize indeed. But still…
I felt my mouth form a tense line across my face. “It isn’t enough. Sharna and the children-they need to know that I did not betray them.”
“They cannot-and must not-know. The kzin must think that their Trojan Horse expedition failed utterly.” I heard an ironic smile in her voice. “But think, Kenneth: you judged me yourself, did you not? A coward and a traitor, I believe. Both of us did what we did. What we had to do.”
Would Sharna have faith in me? Would my children see me as pawn to the kzin, or as a hero? Would they ever know howl really felt, what I had done?
Deal with it. My mother’s words echoed in my head. This was honor, the thin reassurance that I had done the right thing? It could not compare to seeing my wife and children again. To telling them in person.
I felt a tugging at my arm, and looked down to see a gnarled, blue-veined hand at my elbow. I could see how the long years of exposure to the ramscoop fusion drive had aged her, burning away everything but her devotion to a cause. And I knew how empty victory could make you feel.
“It is time for you to take the coldsleep,” she said simply. “You will awaken at Sol, a hero. Perhaps you can convince the Earthers to let you return to Wunderland, to battle for what you believe.” There was a sly smile playing about her aged face.
Even smiling, the face seemed stern. A mirror to my own, as I had recently discovered. How had I not seen it? I had been blinded by my own knotty conflicts.
“No,” I told her. “I’ll stay awake-with you.”
A slight squeeze on my arm. “Kenneth, Bergen knows Feynman far better than you.”
“There is nothing Bergen knows that I cannot learn.”
She smiled wanly. “No, there is nothing you cannot learn. But still, you must sleep.”
“You deserve to sleep, then.”
“As for me, I am too old to take the rigors of coldsleep, except for deep suspension.” She chuckled a bit. “But do not worry, Kenneth Klaus and I, we make quite the team.”
I couldn’t find the words in my Herrenmann mouth to express how I felt. I nodded agreement.
“It is all right,” she soothed, standing up a bit straighter. “I may be feeble, but never confuse that with weakness. Do not forget that I am Herrenmann, as are you.” A chuckle in the dim control room. “I will be there to waken you at Sol, my son, as I used to do when you were a child. I never expected to have that honor again.”
Finally I simply nodded I had no words.
I started to adjust the viewscreen, to get a last glimpse of Alpha Centauri before leaving the control room. To see the faint glimmer of light that four years ago had shone on my wife and children, Principle willing. But even as I began to touch the keypads, my mother’s hands gently turned me around. She peered intently into my face.
“Never backward, Kenneth.” Her voice was old, yes, but very strong. “Always look forward. That is what every Herrenmann must do.”
That is what Herrenmannen do. I nodded tightly. The future had to be focus, for now.
We walked together away from the warm lights of the control room. Toward the coldsleep chambers. I thought of the sunny seas of Earth, the salty waters, and tried to ignore the images flitting behind my eyes, images of small pale shadows fleeing hopelessly through leafy glades.