“Oh! No, no of course, it couldn't be, could it?… but… well, everything is on the House for any Crashlander! We haven't forgotten what we owe them. I'm sorry, I'm getting old… I'm getting very old. I survived, you know… So many didn't.”
“This is an official party. Gratuitous service won't be necessary,” Patrick Quickenden interjected. “We would simply like to give our orders now!”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
“Well,” said Dimity, as the old man shuffled off mumbling, “It seems the secret's out, such as it is. We can't silence him… But this is all so… I've been feeling strange ever since I came here.”
“We can silence him, actually!” Patrick Quickenden said. She shook her head. “I appear to be remembered. Well, it was partly to find my past that I wanted to come back. Paddy… look!”
“That's the annex to the new physics block,” said Meinertzhagen, following her pointing finger to the building across the street.
With .61 Earth gravity Wunderland buildings tend to be tall. Many, of course, had been leveled in the war. This one was large and new. High on its portico was the legend:
THIS CENTER IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF DIMITY CARMODY,
DISCOVERER OF CARMODY'S TRANSFORM. DAUGHTER OF PROFESSORS LARRY AND MOIRA CARMODY, BORN: 2344
FIRST PAPER PUBLISHED: 2354
SPECIAL PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AND ASTROMETAPHYSICS: 2360
MURDERED BY THE KZIN: 2367
“I knew I'd been a professor,” said Dimity. “That is one thing I did remember. I even remembered the title of the chair. They said I looked too young, but somehow I was sure of it.”
“Too young!” Patrick was still gazing at the dates on the inscription. “This explains the strength of your alpha-wave when we found you. It also explains… begins to explain, rather, how you did what you did.”
He crossed the street to read the inscription more closely. In smaller letters below the main wording was a rhymed couplet. It was an adaptation from a limerick once quoted to Nils Rykermann in the Café Lindenbaum.
There was a young mind blazed so bright,
Dreamed of traveling faster than light…
“Does the expression “can of worms” mean anything to you?” asked Patrick as he returned to the group. “I think we may have just opened one.”
“I think,” said Meinertzhagen, “we had better enjoy our meal. I hope you like Wunderland cuisine. It's got a strong North European background, of course, but many of the dishes are local. There are some intriguing blends.”
“Like the vegetation,” said Patrick. “Look at those colors! Where else, on any world, could you see a blend like that! And under such a sky!” He had conquered his agoraphobia and was feeling rather pleased with the fact.
The university gardens were well tended and a thing of pride and prestige. There were a variety of green, red and orange plants, blended and landscaped into a contrast of hot and cold colors. For the Crashlanders it was a Wonderland indeed.
“Yes, they make quite a pleasing mixture, don't they?” said Meinertzhagen. “The green plants are from Earth, of course, and the red are native. Poems have been written about how well they go together. There's a lot of symbolism there.”
“The orange plants too,” said Dimity. “It's almost like a spectrum. I seem to know the others, but I don't remember them. Are they Wunderland too?”
“I think,” said Meinertzhagen, not knowing fully what she meant, “that the orange plants may have come originally from the sixth planet of 61 Ursa Majoris… also known as Kzin. It's had a lot of effects here.”
Chapter 6
Andre brought Colonel Cumpston into the chamber at the point of a nerve disrupter and secured him with a police web. He had, he explained, found him at one of the disguised entrances to the fortress. He had evidently been following the kzinti. Raargh affected complete indifference and signaled to Vaemar to do the same. Cumpston had been searched and X-rayed and had a number of small weapons removed.
“I'll leave you,” said Andre, “with these two. Perhaps you had better hope they don't get hungry.”
Obviously there would be listening devices and spy cameras in the room where they were kept. In any case, humans and Kzin were coming and going. Still, it was impossible not to talk. They had no writing materials.
“How find us?” Raargh asked.
“I put a tracking device in Vaemar's chessboard. I knew he seldom traveled without it. Forgive me for this discourtesy. It was useful in the event.” Cumpston replied in his careful human approximation of the Heroes' Tongue. He did not think it tactful to tell the kzin that some of the game they had eaten had contained both chemicals and micro-robots that had made tracking them a great deal more certain than that.
“There is much discourtesy,” growled Raargh. “And it does not seem very useful.” Still, the bond between them held. Raargh had not forgotten how Cumpston had helped him—and Vaemar—to life and freedom on the terrible God-forsaken day of Surrrendir, and the three of them had shared things since.
I can't tell him help will be on the way, thought Cumpston. Though friend and foe both should be able to work that out. Help will take a long time to get here, though. If I'd had a few more minutes it would have been a different story. The entrance to the subterranean fortress—if it was the main entrance he had been brought through—as well disguised. Obviously, if it's not been picked up by satellites over the last five years. It had taken him a long time to be brought this far, past guarded doors and weapons positions. He had seen only a few kzin, but they were well dug in and protected, and there were heavy weapons. The place was like a maze on several levels, a labyrinth. Any attacking force would face heavy fighting and innumerable delays.
Cumpston and the kzinti exchanged stories, speaking fairly freely. There was no point in hiding from their captors what they knew already.
This chamber, like the one containing the hologram projector, and like others Cumpston had been led through, was electronically smart. It contained a control console and stacks of weapons and ammunition. None of these presented him with any opportunity, since he was restrained in the web and in any case the weapons were securely locked. The two kzinti had more freedom of movement, but he could see they were being closely tracked. The snouts of cameras and guns followed their movements from several corners.
He had expected the kzinti, confined, to be in a killing frenzy, but Raargh was moving slowly, deliberately. Cumpston had undergone an intensive course in Kzinti body-language, and what he read from the big kzin was relaxation, laziness, a sort of lofty contempt for events. Even his tail, usually the giveaway with a kzin trying to conceal his emotions, was relaxed. So, as far as Cumpston could tell, were the pheromones of his body. He could detect little of the gingery smell that, when intensified, signaled kzin anger. Vaemar, he saw, was copying Raargh's example. Maybe they've drugged him, Cumpston thought. Or maybe he's the greatest actor on this planet.
Raargh had tried to free him when the guards left, but when he approached the web an alarm had sounded and a quick, stabbing red laser beam spat into the ground at his feet. Raargh adjusted his artificial eye and told them the web, as well as the weapons cabinets, was guarded by infrared rays, too closely meshed for him to get through.