Premeditated Kakabuni took over. The pleasure of flesh against flesh. Fond glances that cloak the human face in unnatural beauty. A hormonal passion driving bodies far past their design limits. “Had enough?” “No.” “Me neither.” It was strange to love a man who had no sweet talk.
Sleeping in a man’s arms was an unnatural thing to do unless you were in love with him. One had no choice in a navy bed. Her rump was pressed against the wall and a foot twisted by some kind of bar. She couldn’t sleep. She was both comfortable and frightened. He didn’t talk. He hadn’t said anything. She rapped him on the skull with her knuckles. “Knock, knock. Are you there?”
“Mmmpf. Yah.”
“You haven’t proposed to me,” she accused.
He moved his head between her breasts and went back to sleep.
“Men always propose to me before they make love to me whether they are sincere or not. How come you haven’t proposed to me?”
“Formality… protocol… etiquette… propriety,” he muttered.
She crawled over him and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m not feeling secure. We could get married right now.” She was looking down at him. “Hey, you’re awake! I woke you up!” She switched on the glow light.
“Hey, you’re beautiful. You look like a woman. What’s happening to my mind?”
“Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about marriage.”
“Never tried it.”
“Did you like my rabbit stew?”
“Yah.”
“It went very well with your pie so we should get married right now.”
“Our wedding guests would be appalled by our dishabille!”
“Are you going to propose to me?”
“I don’t know how.”
“You’re supposed to propose to a woman before you make love to her. Don’t they teach you any manners on Earth? I’ve never been treated so inconsiderately in my life.” She lifted the chain from her neck and stared at the ring. The iron had been formed under high pressure and it was full of bright little diamond crystals. She liberated her talisman from its chain. “Do you want to try it on?”
“It wouldn’t fit.”
“It’s a Swiss precision telescoping ring. It will fit any finger.” She slipped it on his special finger. “See. It fits. Now we’re married. And oh, I forgot… it has an inscription that reads ‘forever’.”
“It must have been made before boosterspice.” He held up his hand to look at it. “You’re supposed to wear one of these things, too, you know.”
“Then I couldn’t flirt with the boys.” She crawled back in bed, hip-whacking Yankee in order to make some room for herself. “Love, I forgot to ask you—do you snore? If you snore I’m getting an abortion right now.”
“With you around I just stop breathing. How about a trip to Kzin for our honeymoon? I’ve got the tickets.”
“No, thank you! If you want a honeymoon on Kzin I’m filing for divorce in the morning.” She kissed him good night and went to sleep happier than she had ever been.
Chloe dreamed about a wedding feast on Kzin in an ancient manorial hall with Major Yankee Clandeboye as the main course and Nora Argamentine and her children as dessert. She was watching from a cage that hung from the ceiling. Yankee dreamed of Earth and the ancient Royal Navy. He was being keelhauled across the barnacles of a ships bottom by a very irate British admiral.
Chapter 19
It was very difficult for Hwass-Hwasschoaw to manage the rescue from W’kkai. The signals sent from his UNSN-supplied beamer to the UNSN patrol vessel had to be masked by the normal electromagnetic radiation from W’kkai. He had his beamer set up on a mountain in his hunting range among the cluttered equipment of an amateur astronomical observatory. Still he dared not fire it at a low angle.
Worse, he had to receive redundantly generated signals broadcast by the UNSN along the vector of an interstellar radio source. It was no easy task to clean away the camouflaging noise from the weak carrier.
Then each of the outgoing messages had to be acknowledged by the UNSN and each incoming message had to be acknowledged by a burst from W’kkai. Tedious.
His political skills were taxed. He had to make judicious use of the Patriarch’s Eye, its amateur astronomers, its spies among the priests and government and navy. He had to seduce loyal warriors to arrange safe transportation to the singularity boundary. If it had been just himself and Grraf-Nig, there would have been no problems. But he also had to smuggle out his bait, the Nora-beast and her six whelps.
A crippled kzin, whose two sons had been killed years ago in combat with Si-Kish, designed Hwass a container cleverly outfitted for human hibernation. Grraf-Nig, their expert on human physiology, was consulted. More arguments. More snarling. But they had to get it right. There could be no tricks here, if Hwass did not deliver the Nora beast alive, he knew there would be no transportation to Kzin; indeed, the Yankee-beast would then try to kill him. There was no sense in provoking premature suspicion.
Endless petty knots had to be curried from the plan’s fur. Originally Hwass hoped that many years of W’kkai observations could be smuggled past W’kkai and human eyes inside the “diplomatic” pouch Interworld Space Commissioner Markham had given him at Tiamat. The contents of the pouch were, after all, intended for Kzin. But in one of his messages the Clandeboye-animal instructed him to destroy the old pouch. A duplicate would be supplied and delivered to him as he left the UNSN vessel at Kzin. So much for that. Interstellar mail was too precious to allow time for argument with monkeys.
Outlook spawned the biggest carcass of contention in this adventure. Hwass was a bold strategist, willing to take high risks because of his great skill and fleet feet. Grraf-Nig was by nature a coward. He did not like risks. Unfortunately he was essential to any plan to capture Clandeboye’s mercy ship. Grraf-Nig knew how to pilot a hyperdrive vessel; Hwass did not. Grraf-Nig understood hypershunt construction; Hwass did not. Grraf-Nig knew the poisons that would destroy a monkey mind; Hwass did not.
They snarled and yowled at each other over the details of their planned theft but the coward always prevailed because he knew his worth. Hwass tried importing exotic animals for their hunts. He tried playing scent-ball with this eater-of-grass on the local meadows—and letting him win. No amount of flattery penetrated this coward’s fur. Exasperating. Hwass had to workout his rage during the dinner chases.
It was fifteen light-years from W’kkai to Kzin. That distance couldn’t be covered in one hyperspace jump. Hwass craved to release the nerve gas after the first jump, killing the crew instantly, then to broadcast false hyperwave distress signals. If the UNSN suspected a lethal drive malfunction, blame would not fall upon Kzin.
Grraf-Nig, in his cowardly mien, argued that some unforeseen event might strand them—losing both the ship and whatever service they could provide the Patriarch. Timidly he pleaded that the gas be released after they had reached Kzin, after the exchange of slave for warrior had been completed. Then if bad luck befell them, Grraf-Nig’s precious brain (and neck) would have survived.
Dealing with this robber-of-names filled Hwass’s stomach with rotten meat. His partner did not understand the strategic importance of a gas that could kill a human crew instantly without touching any kzinti on board. In the forest Hwass practiced twisting the bark off trees with his bare hands. Boulders came apart when he smashed them against stony outcrops. Rodents were squashed to a pulp in his grip.
But Grraf-Nig remained adamant: if the gas did its job at Kzin, warriors could board the hypership, and take it, no one the wiser; if the gas failed, and the man-beasts became enraged, the whole of the Kzin fleet would be there, alert and ready to protect Kzin-home. It had already been proved that a human fleet could not take a major system of the Patriarchy. All the advantages were with the defense. And it was ninety days by hyperdrive from Man-sun to Kzin. Kzinti were adapted to slow supply lines; humans were not.