The magnate inclined his great head.
"But rare slaves are the mainstay," his guest continued. "Trained, clever ones. As you are aware, the prime sources of monkeys are lost to us."
"You profit from the misfortunes of our kind? Do you have bulk gold in your ship at this time, then?"
"I make a living from mitigating those misfortunes, enabling Heroes to live as Heroes should despite the worst the monkeys can do. Though we were long ago driven from Ka'ashi, we still have upon some of our own worlds a few breeding colonies of such slaves who were brought there before the truce. It is a trade the humans"-the Hero's Tongue carried an even stronger inflection with that term, black lips drawing back to show a collection of daggerlike fangs-"would not approve if they knew of it. But yes, Noble and Dominant Marquis Warrgh-Churrg, I have a little gold. Largely monkey-minted coins. You may imagine how I acquired them. Not all humans are sufficiently wary of us in these times."
"What if humans should come upon you in space?"
"Space is large. There is little chance of that. And after all, we are in a state of truce. But should they do so, I trust I have not forgotten the heritage of my Sires."
"You have kittens? Surely they would grow old and die while you were between worlds. You would not see them."
"My kits must fend for themselves for long, as in the olden time. As I say, and as we all know too well, these are difficult times for many of our kind. But there are ways to save time."
"You have a hyperdrive?" There was a sudden sharpness in the other's question. There was tense silence for a moment between the two, broken only by the splash of water from the fountain that dominated the court: a great golden bowl, held aloft on the sculpted backs and shoulders of four golden humanoid slaves. The wide-eyed human flinched and sweated. The off-world kzin twitched ears and tail expressively, replying in a tone submissive but urbane:
"Not I personally, Honored Host. You have seen my ship. But yes, your observation is shrewd and correct. My principals on my homeworld have access to one of the few hyperdrive units which the humans allow us and are aware of, though whether they know the use we put it to is another matter. We pay them a large bribe not to take excessive interest in us-monkeys, as you know, have little or no honor-but it sadly inflates all our operating costs. However, it makes long journeys feasible. At present it is parked several weeks away."
"You are not your own master, then?"
"Only as far as ship captains usually are. I report ultimately to others."
"A telepath could show us your superluminal ship's location."
"Only if he could read a mechanical brain. It is encoded in my own ship's computer. And that will self-destruct if tampered with by anyone unauthorized."
"Such difficulties have been overcome before."
"I doubt they would be in this case, my principals are very security-conscious. Perhaps even overly so. But my alive and physiologically healthy presence in my ship is necessary for it to respond to the activating code words and pattern-recognition logic. Coercing me or using parts of my dead person to gain access would be futile."
"The Patriarch has few hyperdrive ships. We lost most of our ships in the wars, and the accursed UNSN has informed us what their response would be to any large-scale rebuilding program."
"The Patriarch's Admiralty keeps such things for military purposes, and its security is strict. It has, I am sure, a building program for a fleet that will one day enable us, at last, to…Urrr. The humans allow us a token fleet, presumably thinking that such a scrap will satisfy us… " His voice trailed off. After the Second War with Men, humans had greatly restricted kzinti access to the hyperdrive again, but any kzintosh knew what the Patriarch's fleet would be looking to do one day.
"However, Dominant and Feared Warrgh-Churrg, if I cannot offer you the technology of the hyperdrive, I can perhaps offer you a profitable trade. On my way here I noticed human slaves in the streets. As other visitors have told me, you have kz’eerkti on this planet."
"Kz’eerkti? Yes."
"Like this one?"
"The same sort of thing, yes." Warrgh-Churrg made a negligent, regal gesture with his tail at the sculptures and to one of the floor mosaics, showing somewhat stylized humanoids and other beasts arranged with hunting and leaping kzinti amid fylfots and patterns of battlements and teeth. His tail wave also took in a couple of stuffed specimens bearing another golden bowl and one posed in a fighting crouch with its puny fingers extended and its mouth open to scream. His hall was further adorned with the heads of several species, kzinti among them, but also a fair-sized troop of simians. "Got a few live ones around too." His gesture also took in a live simian in slave's drab peering at them from a distant archway. It turned and fled from sight.
"You hunt them?"
"Oh, the wild ones, yes." Warrgh-Churrg indicated his trophy belt, adorned with a proud showing of dried simian ears along with kzinti ones, taking in as he did so the similar but smaller collections on his guest's belt.
"Are they intelligent?"
"They are trainable, clever like trained Jotoki, but less reliable. Unless caught as infants, they are not trusty slaves. But," he added, "trained up young they can be useful."
"Where do they live? In the forests?"
"Mainly in the south. The forest belt and the hot savannah beyond. Probably also in the badlands."
"Are they common?"
"I have not counted them. I chased them when I was a kit, as my own kits do now, and still I hunt there sometimes when I visit my southern estates. Some southerners hunt them regularly." Warrgh-Churrg's body language indicated that while he was pleased to display the visible signs of affluence in his palace, his interest in the kz’eerkti habitat was less than overwhelming. His guest adopted a tense-of-polite-request, humble but not too humble.
"Forgive my curiosity, Noble Host and Marquis Warrgh-Churrg, but my interest is professional. How did they get here?"
Warrgh-Churrg shrugged his ears in a dismissive gesture.
"We had Heroes in the first fleet to Ka'ashi. Some may have returned with kz’eerkti slaves. I had relations among them. And other Heroes came later. Possibly new slaves mixed with the locals…
"Some of the landowners want to get rid of them altogether. As slaves, the adult-caught ones are never very reliable. We tried castrating them and removing their teeth and fingernails, but we found that, often enough, that only made them more savage. And, eunuchs being eunuchs everywhere I suppose, they often joined with our own kzinti eunuchs in the harems and elsewhere to plot and spread disloyalty."
"Still, on other worlds human slaves can command a very high price now," Trader told him. "My principals have the resources to buy many if they are suitable-whole troops of them. They would send ships to collect them. They are still popular on Kzinhome."
"Even after the monkeys burnt our fleets and took Ka'ashi back?"
"They took more than Ka'ashi in the First and Second Wars. But exactly. That is a large part of the reason why human slaves are in demand, apart from the sport the best of them can give in the hunt. It reminds us in these unfortunate times that they are not all-conquering, and that times can change. You may have a great source of wealth here."
"I have much wealth already, Trader." Warrgh-Churrg again gestured expansively about the room, heavy with gold, hung with lustrous purple, panels on floors and walls bedizened with intricate stones, their tiles slanted minutely to catch the shifting sunlight in changing pictures and patterns.