All the talents! Richard thought, recalling the Jinxian's words as they stowed their gear. This is a crew about as ill-assorted as it is possible to get, even before our other members join.
"My cabin will be completely secure?" Peter Robinson, junior partner of Robinson and Son, Mental Investigations, seconded to the Institute-Guthlac Expedition, asked for the third time. He pitched his hat into one corner of the cabin, took off his sunglasses, and wiped them with a nervous gesture. "Yes. Completely. Remember this is a Puppeteer-built ship."
"I don't know if you understand how fear-how difficult it is for me to be sharing a ship with a specimen of Pseudofelis sapiens ferox… with a kzintosh of the Patriarchy."
"You won't have to mix until we get there. And he is a diplomat, bound by protocols," Gay assured him again.
"I will have to use my will to assert dominance," said Peter Robinson. "And not just once as in normal civilized society of our kind, but continually. This will be an ordeal. He will try to destroy me, either by crushing me psychologically, or physically. I will not let him. But I wish there was a human telepath good enough to do this job. I have a nice business and plenty of work here on Wunderland."
There isn't," said Richard. "But," he added awkwardly after a pause, "this kzintosh is a representative of the Patriarch, no less, and bears the Patriarch's Sigril. It embarrasses me but must ask you: Are you sure you will feel no conflict of loyalty?"
"I once saw a real kzinti telepath," said Peter Robinson. "A dribbling, vomiting, twitching freak, despised by all and doomed to die a terrible death after a short life of misery and degradation. "In thousands of years the laboratories and science of the Patriarchy never tried to find a drug that would allow us to function without destroying us. Research along those lines was even deliberately forbidden: The Patriarchy did not want strong or sane telepaths. The human laboratories on Wunderland found such a drug only a few years after the Liberation, and since then we Wunderkzin telepaths can live almost normal lives. Liberation! Can you have any doubt where my loyalties lie?"
He paused, and stared into Richard's eyes.
"I will not deny that there are times I look in a mirror and ask: 'What am I? What are my kind? Where do we go?' I am not free of everything… But I saw a kzinti telepath once."
Most kzin, even if they had a perfect academic grasp of human languages, spoke them with a harsh, grating tone. Peter Robinson's vocal chords had been altered by microsurgery when he was young. It was strange to hear the perfect, almost accentless Interworld, with only traces of the now-dead language and accent of Wunderlander, from the fanged jaws of Man's ancient enemy.
"You did say my cabin will be secure?"
Charrgh-Captain arrived from Kzin by a regular flight. His Interworld was fluent, but his voice could never be taken for human. He handed over his credentials, retaining a bag with diplomatic markings for himself, and briefly acknowledged the human members of the crew. At the sight of Peter Robinson he curled his lip and said nothing. He thought something, though, and Richard and Gay saw Peter Robinson flinch. He shuffled backward into his cabin, looking more like a telepath of the Patriarchy than they had ever seen him look. Then suddenly he came out again and returned Charrgh-Captain's stare. Then he burst forth:
"I am a Wunderkzin and my destiny is my own. Regarding low Kdaptists I have nothing to say. Neither I nor my ancestors have committed any crime against the Patriarchy save to assert our freedom after you lost a war. You have no legal rights over our kind and no claims against us. The Patriarchy conceded that in the MacDonald-Rishshi Treaty and the protocols.
"Further, Wunderland jurisprudence is still derived from the old Law and our independence is established by legal precedent. I refer you to Sraakra-Rykermann v. Representatives of the Patriarchy, cited in the 154th Edition of Nichols on Police Offenses."
Charrgh-Captain was moved to snarl back, but in Interworld rather than the Heroes' Tongue. "I have no interest. We signed those truces when we were defeated and had no choice! Do not speak of them!"
"But sign them you did. Have your kind not voiced contempt for the humans who say a promise made under duress does not bind? And as for being defeated, would you hazard another war now?"
We rebuild our Empire with the hyperdrive, smug freak. But fear not this day. My diplomatic status protects you."
Peter Robinson closed the door again. This time he locked it.
Charrgh-Captain inspected his own quarters and assured himself that the kitchen and food supplies were suitable for kzin needs. He ran a quick eye over their stores in general and a rather more thorough one over their weapons. He stared coldly at the kzin autodoc, though with many kzinti traveling on human ships now it was no longer on the military secret list. He checked it without comment. There was little more to be done. He watched as Richard and Gay went through the takeoff checks.
The Whomping Wallaby climbed out of the vast singularity of the Centauri system and dropped into hyperdrive.
Few humans or Kzin can stand to "look" upon Hyperspace for long, and there is no purpose in trying to do so. For most of its flight the Wallaby's ports were opaqued. A crew member remained on watch in case of emergencies, which would mainly concern the life-system, but automatic pilot and massdetector-the latter considered by many a greater technological miracle than the hyperdrive shunt itself-flew the ship.
Most spacefarers of all kinds adjust to the long watches alone or with a skeleton crew while their shipmates hibernate. It is also a widespread ritual of human space travel that changeover time is leisurely. This is not merely for debriefing and briefing: The retiring crew member, if he or she has stood watch alone, is usually hungry for company and conversation before returning to hibernation, and the relieving crew member needs time to adjust.
Gatley Ivor, first on watch, had spent changeover rambling gently to Melody Fay about the antiquities he loved. Charrgh-Captain, who took over from Melody, was the only one who had not obeyed-and possibly did not know of-this convention of relaxed talk, though in his case no one would have insisted upon it, and the Jinxian apparently did not care for Kzin company in any case.
His hand-over report to Gay had been brief and to the point, though comprehensive. She had no idea whether the big kzin was hardened against loneliness and boredom or simply not prepared to betray feeling them. But to a previous generation the idea of entrusting the watch of a human ship to a kzin of the Patriarchy would have been beyond belief in any case. Gay spoke long to Peter Robinson when she handed over to him in turn.
The watches aboard the Whomping Wallaby had had to be planned with some care. Richard relieved Peter Robinson to take what they calculated would be the last watch of the voyage. They inspected the ship and the log, and settled down in the couches on what was still called the bridge for a bourbon and ice cream together.
Peter Robinson knew the ritual even if he did not need it. And perhaps he does need it, thought Richard. He is far more talkative and gregarious than any kzin of the Patriarchy-anxious to prove his human credentials, perhaps. And his preference for being called by his full name-there are two explanations for that, of course: While on the one hand it reinforces his Wunderkzin identity, on the other hand in kzin society a full name is the rare and ultimate sign of high nobility.
Aloud he said: "I hope the watch was not too boring."
"Being alone for a while is no great hardship for me," the Wunderkzin replied. "The computer's gaming skills are adequate without being overwhelming, and I have my sculpting tool and my poetry. There is my little laboratory, and I enjoy experiments-I assure you I stick to safe ones in these circumstances. I do not miss my mate much without her scent. To me being on watch in a spaceship when all others aboard sleep is the equivalent of silence, such as I only know otherwise sometimes in the wilder parts of Wunderland. It is very peaceful. It is precious to me.