“Waiting is very difficult. At the moment it is all we can do.”
“I think they are listening to us.”
“Yes.”
“It does not matter,” said Vaemar. “Seizing me by a trick and insulting my Honored Step-Sire Raargh—even insulting you, my chess-partner—is not the way to gain my cooperation…”
“If she and Emma have you, they can use your Name to the other kzinti.”
“And what you said… that Emma's plans would destroy every kzin on Wunderland… Do you believe that?”
“Yes, Vaemar. Worse, it would mean no peace between our kinds would ever be possible. That will be difficult enough as things are.”
“It surprises me, that she should behave so.”
“Not me, so much, perhaps, but I have read more of human history. And lived longer.”
“Do you think Henrietta is truly loyal to my Honored Sire?”
“She probably thinks she is. Whether he would approve of what she says in his name is another matter… Suppose, Vaemar, suppose against all odds Emma's plans succeeded—that the Kzin revolted and captured the hyperdrive. How would you feel?”
“I am a kzin. I am Chuut-Riit's son. But I am also a kzin of Ka'ashi—of Wunderland. I know you and other humans… difficult.”
“According to the holo, your honored Sire Chuut-Riit knew Henrietta had influenced him. And he wanted her, if he died, to influence his own sons and Traat-Admiral. He was looking—as far as being what he was allowed him to look—as some sort of eventual partnership—or at least I know of no other notion that described it more closely. His ideas were perhaps not so far removed from those we now hear from Markham and a few others—save, of course, that he saw the Kzin as the utterly dominant ones and the humans existing on sufferance—slaves perhaps at best one day a little above the Jotok.” And monkey-meat if they were fractious, he thought. But if we ever get out of this, I want this young ratcat thinking about a human-kzin relationship on more positive lines. Civilize them for a few—perhaps more than a few—generations, and who knows?
“Yes,” said Henrietta, stepping into the room, Emma beside her. “Chuut-Riit knew I influenced his policies, knew I helped him understand humans. He accepted it. But listening to you has told me a good deal. I seek to stop the secret manipulation of the human race as well as the Kzin. It appears my daughter has an altogether different agenda.”
“There is no point in hiding it any longer,” said Emma. “It is I who am truly loyal to the Patriarchy, and the memory of the Riit.”
“This ARM officer is right! Your plans are insane!” Henrietta cried out. “To guide and instruct Vaemar to help destroy the ARM conspiracy when he leads the kzinti of Wunderland is my charge and my sacred goal. You would destroy everything in a mad adventure!”
“Mad! You call me mad! Have you looked at your own brain lately?”
“Andre sides with me. We have planned this for years.”
Emma raised one hand and made a gesture. “Go and make ch'rowl with your pet monkey, then! Behold!” A dozen male kzin entered the room, standing about her. They were all, Cumpston saw, young. Older than Vaemar, taller and bulkier, but several still with the last traces of juvenile and adolescent spotting on their coats. There were also several more humans with them.
“The loyal humans and the loyal Heroes side with me!” Emma snarled. One or two of the kzin growled. Emma addressed them in the hiss-spit of the Heroes' Tongue. Cumpston was astonished that a human could pronounce it so well. She turned back to Henrietta. “You forget! Half these Heroes' Sires were of Ktrodni-Stkaa's pride! They follow me!”
“I have given them refuge.” Henrietta's hand went to the weapon on her belt. “I have tried to help the kzin of Wunderland, of every pride, but not for this! And you have here the blood of Chuut-Riit, who you would risk! Chuut-Riit, who was my good Master! Yes, and who called me friend as well as slave!”
“Chuut-Riit! You cannot impress us with that name! My loyalty is to the Riit! The true Riit, whose traditions were borne by Ktrodni-Stkaa! Chuut-Riit was a compromiser, if nothing worse! If Riit he truly was! Chuut-Riit's reward was foul death at the hands of a human assassination team. Ktrodni-Stkaa saw Chuut-Riit and Traat-Admiral for what they were! Monkey-lovers! Much good it did them!”
Cumpston looked at Vaemar with alarm. To insult a kzin—for a human to insult a kzin!—was more than bad enough. To insult a kzin's Sire was far worse. And for a human to insult a kzin's Sire of Riit blood was… unreal. But Vaemar betrayed no emotion save an unnatural stillness.
Two more humans rushed in, wearing the odd pseudo-kzin costume that seemed to be the uniform of these people.
“We've picked up activity in the south passages! Large life-forms. About a dozen of them. They appear to be human but at least one kzin.”
The human identified as Andre strode forward. “We have a common enemy!” he shouted. “We must destroy these invaders. Defense stations!” He stepped to the control console.
Vaemar screamed and leaped. One slash sent the human behind Andre who blocked his way spinning across the room, blood splattering. Then Vaemar ripped at the control console. The lights went out, save for the illuminated numbers of a couple of clocks and other pinpoints. The air was a confusion of kzin and human shrieks. There was the gingery smell of kzinti battle-reflexes. Cumpston felt the weight and sharpness of a clawed Kzinti hand on him.
“It is I, Vaemar,” a voice hissed in his ear. “Follow. Hold my tail. We must find a hiding place!”
Emergency lights were coming on as they left. Henrietta and Emma seemed to be working together at the console. The kzinti and humans were seizing weapons from the racks.
Chapter 9
The journey back the way Raargh had come, with lights and a marked trail, was much quicker. With lights and company, too, even if the company was only human, he did not suffer from the delusions of sensory deprivation. Any surviving morlocks kept out of their way—and the Rykermanns had lights whose radiations morlocks were meant to find especially painful. Raargh again went in the lead, again hoping his prosthetic arm would catch any Sinclair wire before it sliced into living flesh and bone. Arthur Guthlac kept close behind him.
The Rykermann party had automatic compasses, GPS indicators, microminiaturized deep radar and other directional aids, and there was little risk this time of getting lost. Leonie made a selection of emergency medical equipment developed in years of guerrilla war, and Dimity, the most lightly armed of the party, carried it. They went fast, but, to Raargh's impatience, at less than maximum speed. They had only their feet and were hung with gear, and Arthur Guthlac insisted on no more than a walking pace with rest stops. At his insistence they were kitted up in skin-coveralls and each third of the party took it in turns to wear gas masks and helmets. They passed the bone-heap and entered the lined tunnels. Ahead was a dim glow. There seemed little point in dousing their own lights.
“Should we spread out?” asked Jocelyn.
“I don't think there's much point in spreading far. If they've got deep radar or motion detectors they'll see us coming. If they have plasma guns or nerve gas it isn't spreading out that will save us. But it might be a good idea if they try to take us on hand-to-hand.”
“Fighting kzin hand-to-hand isn't a good idea. Anyway, the point isn't to fight. It's to stop them getting away, with or without their prisoners.”
“How do you know this is the only way out?” asked Dimity.
“I don't,” said Guthlac after a moment. “I suppose I took it for granted. In fact, knowing how paranoid the kzin can be when they put their minds to it, it's unlikely they'd have restricted themselves to a single—”
“There!” Raargh stabbed with a massive finger at Guthlac's motion detector. “Movement ahead of us and on our right flank.”