Man-Kzin Wars XI, Hal Colbatch [story books to read .txt] 📗

who had never thought of it in exactly that phrasing, blinked once. Then she said, "What did he say to that?"

"Eventually, 'Oh.' Then he locked me away in my dank and lonely prison."

"Uh huh," said Peace, who judged that if a delay in her trip had extended Buckminster's durance vile to six months he'd have gotten too fat to sneak back into his cell. "Okay, let's see what's behind the fake bulkhead."

Buckminster did a good job of hiding his surprise when she opened the wall, though it took him a while to realize that that partition had had no fixtures, fittings, or access panels on either side, and therefore had no reason for existing in a one-man ship.

The interior was a shrine. Correction: a monument. There were pictures of three women, two men, and several children at progressing ages, but there were also single pictures of 51 other humans, almost all male, each with a neat black X inked onto the forehead. Peace recognized 22 of them as officials during the kzinti occupation, and had seen news stories about two of those and four of the other 29, reporting their accidental deaths. All six had struck her as being well-concealed homicides. It seemed probable that the entire 51 were dead collaborators, who had all contributed in some way to the deaths of the psychist's spouses and children.

Buckminster got it almost as soon as she did. "I'm impressed," he said. "It's hard to kill one human being without being found out. I still can't understand how you can tolerate the constant monitoring."

He didn't mind her monitoring him, so she said, "With humans it's actually less unpleasant if it's a stranger doing it."

"Oh, thanks, now it makes perfect sense."

"Glad I could help."

They blinked at each other—a grin was inappropriate for him, and impossible for her, though the broad gash of her beak partook of a certain cheerful senile vacuity—and closed the place back up before leaving. "Cleaning robot?" Buckminster said as they passed through the airlock.

"Sure. Have to tweak the programming."

"I'll do that. You can get to work on your new ship."

Peace nodded, pleased with his intelligence. Obviously, things had gone well with the Outsider: she'd come back. "Have you decided what to do after I leave?"

"Go to Home and make a fortune as a consulting ecologist with what you've taught me, then start a family somewhere else. Sårng would be good."

"Don't know it," she was startled to realize.

"No reason to, it's at the far end of kzinti space. Atmosphere's a couple of tons per square inch, they've been trying to kzinform it from floating habitats for about a thousand years, I think it was. I thought I could move things along."

Peace shook her head. "That'll mostly be carbon dioxide. Even without the impact and combustion of hydrogen for oceans, there's millennia of red heat latent in carbonate formation."

Removing his suit, Buckminster was nodding. "I had an idea from Earth news. Transfer booths are getting cheap enough for something besides emergencies, so I thought: refrigeration." He looked at her quizzically. "I don't think I've ever mentioned this, but are you aware that you hop up and down when you hear a new idea you really like?"

"Yes. Were you thinking convection, or Maxwell's Demon?"

"Both in one step. Transmitter in the atmosphere, receiver in orbit. Only the fast molecules get transmitted, the rest are pushed out and fresh let in. Dry ice comes out near true zero, slower than orbital speed, and falls in eccentric orbit to make a shiny ring. Less heat arriving, and the gas returns to the atmosphere very gradually for slow heat release. You're doing it again."

"I know. Suggestion: send all the molecules in the transmitter, and draw the momentum shortage from the adjacent atmosphere. Faster turnover, massive downdraft, more hot air comes in from the sides."

Buckminster thought about it. Then he carefully hung up his suit, turned back to her—and hopped up and down.

* * *

Buckminster had the cleaner on monitor when Peace came up and said, "He's ready to come out. Want to be there?"

"No."

"Okay," she said, and went off to the autodoc.

She'd naturally set it so Corky didn't wake up until it was opened, so the first thing he saw was a Protector. He stared, appalled—she was something of a warning notice for "Don't Eat Spicy Foods At Bedtime"—and then, astoundingly, said, "You're Jan Corben's little girl?"

Widening her eyes was just about her only option in facial expressions. "Now how did you arrive at that?" she exclaimed.

"You have her eyes," he said.

"It didn't actually work out that way," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"Not unless you can come up with a really good reason for breaking into my home."

She watched him catch up. "Protector," he said to himself, just grasping it. Then he said, "Where were you during the War?"

She scooped him out of the autodoc, shut it, and plunked his bare behind down on the lid, stingingly hard. "You are an invader in my home," she said, looking up at him. "You may now explain yourself to my full satisfaction."

"You can't kill a human breeder," he said skeptically.

"You're not a relative. Even if you were, invasive brain readout wouldn't damage your testicles."

For the first time he looked worried. "I thought it was a kzinti base. I wanted to steal a ship."

Peace blinked, then said, "Buying a ship would be recorded. You wanted to attack their home planet."

"To land. And kill the Patriarch."

Peace blinked again, then touched her caller and said, "Buckminster, come to the kitchen. You have to hear this."

"Four minutes," came the reply.

She hauled Corky off the 'doc by his elbow, and walked to the kitchen still holding his arm. He stumbled a few times, then got his feet under him. She was exasperated enough to contemplate changing step just to louse him up, but refrained, as it would be waste work to haul him the rest of the way. She had the floor produce a seat, stuck him in it, and dispensed a few small dishes. "Eat,"