Rrowl-Captain disliked risking the blood of octal-squared Heroes in Pouncing-Strike to create a mere diversion, but if the redoubtable Cha'at-Captain was sufficiently wise and skilled – which Rrowl-Captain thought most unlikely – it might be possible for his crew to survive.
If that became the case, he would deal with Cha'at-Captain's increasingly insubordinate manner in another and more direct fashion. One with less opportunity for the other kzin to accrue honor. Of course, the crew of Pouncing-Strike was loyal to their captain. Rrowl-Captain would have to be careful, or at least thorough.
However, in the most likely tactical scenario, Cha'at-Captain and his crew would not present any difficulties whatsoever, after their brave diversionary scream-and-leap toward the monkeyship.
Rrowl-Captain relaxed slightly, daydreaming of his estates to come on Man-home, after he was rightfully rewarded for bringing the contra-matter drive to Ka’ashi for use against the monkeys. A palace would be built for his many beautiful kzinretti, who would surely be of noble blood, enriching his own line. He would also have his own hunting park, he decided, a place where only he and his litter kittens would stalk and kill prey. Perhaps he would hunt a naked monkey each week, just for the sport of it.
That would relieve him of nightmares tinged with green hell-light, surely.
A languid tongue moved across thin black lips as he considered his certain reward of a double name. Which one would he choose? Perhaps the name his litter-brother had liked so, before he had died while they were still living in the creche.
Rrowl-C'mef. Rrowl-Captain rumbled the name deep in his throat. It sounded wise and powerful. The name tasted of honor and dignity, did it not? Of teeth tingling with the crunching success of prey between jaws. He would surely wrest honor and victory from the defeat of Third Fleet.
Alarms suddenly yowled, echoing on the control bridge. Rrowl-Captain folded his ears swiftly against the din. His slit pupils narrowed as he looked at the status boards, which blurred with rapid changes.
"Status report!" he shrieked.
Strategist pointed wordlessly at the main thinscreen. Rrowl-Captain saw that the tapered end of the monkeyship had stabilized. He watched as a great cloud of ionized gas emerged from the drive section of the human ship.
"What is the attitude of the alien drive section?" he roared angrily. Pouncing-Strike would begin its high acceleration scream-and-leap attack on the alien vessel at any time now.
"Nearly the approach path assigned to Pouncing-Strike." replied Strategist with a snarl.
Sure enough, the blinking marker on the tactical thinscreen representing Cha'at-Captain's vessel was accelerating along a coincident vector. Rrowl-Captain snarled his anger.
"Is there sufficient time to warn Pouncing-Strike by laserlink?" he shouted to Communications.
The young kzin's tail drooped. "No, Dominant One," he replied submissively. "We are too far away.”
Rrowl-Captain looked back at the tactical thinscreen and saw that it was true. He slashed the air in front of him with bared claws in impotent rage. May the One Fanged God damn light-speed!
The contra-matter drive of the monkeyship ignited. The cloud of gas surrounding the drive section glowed eye-searing violet for a moment.
The main thinplate viewscreen went suddenly white, then corrected automatically for the awful glare of the reaction drive. It became a great blazing column of light, brighter than suns, stretching rapidly across the viewscreen. Rrowl-Captain ground razor-sharp teeth impotently as he watched Pouncing-Strike attempt to vector away from the expanding drive wash.
"Pouncing-Strike has ceased acceleration!" shouted Strategist.
Rrowl-Captain bared his teeth. Clearly, the other ships gravitic polarizers had failed under the great stress of attempting to maneuver away from the spreading death of the contra-matter drive exhaust. It had become a ballistic lump, helpless.
The command bridge crew watched the tactical screen impotently as inertia carried Pouncing-Strike into the blazing column of radiation and plasma. Rrowl-Captain snarled and tore a claw on the Kdatlyno-hide arms of his command chair.
The white blaze erupting from the monkeyship slowly turned against the color-shifted starscape toward them, like a great sword out of mythology.
"Communications," roared Rrowl-Captain, "send a burst transmission to Spine-Cruncher. Tell them that we will divert the monkeys in order to allow them to carry out their mission.”
"At once," said Communications, proudly.
Rrowl-Captain hunched forward in his command chair, mastering his hidden fears. Honor would be his, and this victory would slay his inner demons.
"Navigator," he rasped, "begin evasive maneuvers, inward toward the monkeyship. Attempt to draw their fire. Strategist, aid him with your knowledge." Rrowl-Captains torn claw began to bleed, unnoticed, onto the spotless arm of the command chair.
"At once, Dominant One," the two other kzin shouted with one Hero's voice.
The entire command bridge seemed to blur and tremble as the gravitic polarizer's mutter grew to a low roar. A scorching odor began to emanate from the ventilators as the polarizer was pushed beyond basic design limits. The command bridge filled with the snarling of the agitated crew and the pheromonal scent of their fury.
The deadly white blaze of the alien contra-matter reaction drive stretched across the thinplate viewscreen. It grew swiftly larger and began to move to one side. But slowly.
Rrowl-Captain made the slashing gesture of fealty to the One Fanged God, and watched his fate rushing toward him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Linkage was godhead.
Bruno felt the hail of relativistic particles slowly eroding the hull of Sun-Tzu like an invigorating breeze on bare skin. The lethal blaze of radiation sleeting through the sensors was like desert sunshine, warm and friendly.
But he knew that there was so much more than what lay immediately outside the spacecraft to perceive and cherish, to make part of himselves! Everything about Sun-Tzu was now part of Bruno: the raw power of the antimatter drive, the patient, lethal tensions of the weapons systems, the exquisite fineness of his growing sensorium.
Linked, he could do many things besides wear a spaceship like a slick and sensitive skin. Bruno's mind had become more than simply human.
It had become Mind.
From its tiny human kernel, loci of subminds with special interests quickly formed and grew, each with full independent consciousness as well as being part of the developing interconnective Whole. He had become a clamoring community, a society of minds, each subunit far greater than their woefully limited biological ancestor.
Bruno sent his enhanced consciousness ranging restlessly through the sensory and computational net of Sun-Tzu, gazing outward and inward simultaneously. He could at once encompass the All, the depth and range of the universe, from quanta to quasars. A portion of Bruno was still staggered by the whirlwind of knowledge within his thoughts, but with every full Linkage, he became better able to access the vast vault of data surrounding him. It was as if his myriad selves were dissolving in a warm ocean of knowledge and certitude.
But that did not concern him overmuch, even the part of himselves that was still Bruno.
For Bruno knew that he was changing, improving, with every Linkage. His times not in communion with the computer network became less and less important, like faint memories almost forgotten over many decades of time.
Linkage also gave Bruno mastery of self. He was learning how to expand or contract his duration-sense at the slightest whim. Soon, he would be able to stretch a microsecond into eternity, or the reverse. A tiny, flawed part of Bruno – his limited biological component – wanted to shout with exhilaration, but he was far beyond mere human emotion.