"And now it's been activated again. These transmissions prove it."
"Yes. One of the families helped us, and we have a shuttlecraft.
"You can put that gun down," he said, "I'm not going to fight you. We have enough problems already."
What are you going to do with it?"
"Get some of our people away, and some refugees. But it's a small ship. We can't take many."
To Earth?"
"No. Earth is plainly under attack as well. What would be the point? I'm thinking of sending it to We Made It."
"Why?"
"First, to give them warning. Second, because it's taking some of our eggs out of two threatened baskets. These kzin may not know of We Made It."
"No. You must send it to Earth. With Dimity Carmody aboard."
"Why? She is a shapely and clever young lady, and I know that you are in love with her. But your subjective feelings are not important now, Nils. As God is my witness I'm sorry, but to send her would be at the cost of not sending somebody else. It seems to me she is better equipped to survive here than some. If any are to survive the kzin."
"At this moment she is in your infirmary, badly injured. Head injured. Isn't regrowing brain and central nervous tissue the hardest surgical procedure of all?"
It stopped him for a moment. But he replied:
"You must see that that makes no better case for her. To take her in that condition with a lot of medical equipment-equipment that's needed here-would mean leaving even more of the others behind… You cannot think I enjoy making decisions like this?
"I, of course will not go," he went on. "These are my flock and I will not abandon them. In any case, I have already told you that it will not go to Earth. Earth warned us, remember. They already know of the kzin attack even if they are not directly experiencing it. And I can tell you we have had no laser messages from Sol System for some time. That strongly suggests their big lasers are busy." The drug might be making him tell the truth but I could see it was not affecting his willpower. "I will stay here if I must, but send her to Earth!" I shouted. "She thinks she has… she knows she has made a mathematical discovery that may have military applications."
"Can you believe that?" He was nodding in his chair now. I hoped he was not going to lose consciousness.
"Do you know of her work?"
"I've heard of it. Who hasn't?"
"Given her own chair and research unit at the age of sixteen. Discoverer of Carmody's Transform. Can't you take what I say on trust? And if the Kzin get her… "
"If the Kzin get her she dies. Or perhaps not. Again, as a man, I'm more sorry than I can say, but I believe my duty is clear. I've thought of you as a friend and I've no wish to hurt you or any man or woman. But a lot of people are going to die. Having more neuronic connections in her brain than average doesn't morally entitle her to special treatment."
"She has a military value. This is not for me or for her. The survival of the human race may depend on it."
"Perhaps I should ask her."
There was a soft phut, a pneumatic sound. I saw a dart appear in the back of my right hand. I reached to pull it out but it worked quicker and more heavily than the one I had used. The room began to go black. As I fell I saw Brother Peter advancing, with his own collecting gun.
I came around on a couch in the same room. The daylight slanting through the window told me a night and more had passed. And it was a smoky light, pulsating with distant fire. I felt, stupidly, for my strakkaker. It was gone, of course.
"How do you feel?" the abbot asked.
"Rotten." There were pains everywhere. The locator implant in my arm was doing something. I thought in a disorganized way that it was probably triggered by my generally disordered metabolism. "Well, you can be thankful. She's gone. You convinced me. You and rereading the effects and importance of Carmody's Transform and her other published work."
"To Earth?"
"To We Made It."
"That was a mistake."
"Think about it. The Kzin have let the slowboats go so far. They may change their minds and pursue them. If so, they'll be likely to go after the big ones, which are all going the same way, only a few days apart. A smaller and faster ship on its own may have more chance. Anyway, she's safely away. "The Kzin have been landing heavier warcraft in the last few hours and using heavier weapons," he went on. "Apparently they've had enough play."
"I could have gone with her."
"I have watched you since you were a child. You have always been one of our human insurance policies, and now you are one of the few of them left alive. That last night you came here to the monastery, after the first feline was seen, I knew a storm was coming. The real reports from the Meteor Guard had been passed on to us for some time. Our culture was soft, complacent, faction-ridden, our people had lost much of their pioneering heritage very quickly, and few had survival skills. You have no faction and you know something of survival. You are even a public figure. You are needed here… as a leader, now. "There is another thing," he went on, meeting my gaze. "The shuttle was full. I had to have twelve people dragged off as it was to accommodate her and her medical equipment. God help me! The rest were families. Should I have broken them up to make room for one more?"
"Yes, God help you!" Then, loath as I was to ask him anything further, "Can I… see the ship?"
Are you sure you want to?"
"I'm sure."
"You can't see her," he said, "Even if you should. She's in coldsleep. But you can see she's out of this horror. She's as safe as any can hope to be. And so is whatever's in her brain. There's a camera on the ship. You can see she's getting away."
He touched the desk. There was a framed view of Wunderland from space, already shrinking. At one corner of the screen I could see some of the stony plating that had disguised the ship, now shed and tumbling rapidly away. Then we saw something else. I think we both cried out together. The abbot had fallen on his knees and was praying loudly. Something about a cup passing.
Two points of light on the screen: A red ovoid ship, moving fast, and behind it (or I guessed behind it-such things are almost impossible to judge in space except by comparing relative sizes) a black dot with a yellow halo: a reaction-drive ship, pursuing.
I saw the hull metal around the camera port beginning to change color, volatilize. The kzin ship was holding a laser on the fleeing vessel. It seems so intent on its attack as not to see the reaction-drive ship closing. Then I saw the reaction-drive ship firing at the Kzin. There was the beginning of an explosion, and the screen went blank.
"So the Kzin did pursue them. Why did you think they would not?"
"I hoped."
I could have killed him as he knelt there. Bare-handed, I nearly tried, but an overwhelming sense of futility prevented me. Besides, it was not his fault. He had more or less done for Dimity what I had wanted him to do.
The only ones to blame were the Kzin. And she would have died in sleep without the least knowledge. A better death than many would have on this planet… or on Earth, perhaps. I realized that perhaps taking the chance to send her to We Made It had been the right one: the Kzin would not spare Sol System, and the refugees cramming the big slowboats had probably bought themselves no more than a temporary lease of life that would be spent in coldsleep. Besides, I thought more savagely, killing him in these circumstances was too kind. The little ginger cat jumped suddenly onto his shoulder and looked at me with bright button eyes. It patted at something glittering on his fat cheek which I realized was a tear. He lifted the cat down, stroking it.
I don't know how much he read in my face. His voice was calm now.
"And now I have something else to do. Come with me."
I followed him. He climbed a spiral staircase to a room I had not seen before, lined with old books. He threw open a window.
"You get a better view from here," he said: "Look!"