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

kzinti, for that matter. If it's none of those things, well . . ."

"What chances of other humans there?"

"I hope there won't be any. But even this long after the war, there are too many Ferals about. Leonie and some others have been trying to bring them in, particularly the children, but it's a slow process. They're cunning and wild, and, incidentally, can be very dangerous. There are still weapons lying about for anyone to pick up. I don't know if you understand danger sufficiently, Patrick. Obey Leonie's instructions at all, all times."

"We Made It isn't exactly a garden world, you know," Patrick said. "And I was a spacer before I got involved in hyperdrive engineering. My life hasn't been completely sheltered."

"Those are natural dangers. Not like thinking beings, highly-intelligent beings, consciously out to get you . . . A spacer, yes, of course you were . . .

"I never asked you . . . " Rykermann went on after a pause. "But were you—"

"Yes. I was flying the first ship that helped stop the derelict, and the first to board it. I found Dimity."

"And without you?"

"It was heading straight for one of the gas-giants. We had quite a race to catch it and deploy the grapnels before it went too deep into the gravity-well. We kept signalling, and there was no answer . . ."

"You found Dimity . . ."

"I'll not forget going aboard, pushing through those floating eyeless corpses with their lungs going before them, those monks with their shaven heads, and my light falling on that black medical coffin, with the last lights of its emergency power blinking red. There was a translucent panel. When I saw her face I thought at first that she was dead, too, of course, but she looked so . . ."

"So we owe you Dimity's life."

"There were several ships and crews involved. They were all needed before we saved the ship. It wasn't just me. Others actually got her out."

"But without you she'd be dead."

"That's true."

"And without Dimity, no working hyperdrive. Not for decades at least. Not until too late."

"No. We were making slow progress translating the manual. Dimity was still in rehabilitation therapy when we got it—they were wondering what to do with her, in fact. Then she got word of what was happening somehow and forced her way onto the project. How she broke out of the hospital, evaded the medics, got into the project headquarters—all underground on a strange planet—and forced the team-leaders to give her a hearing and authority was an epic in itself. As you say, she saved us decades. Without her, we might easily be working on it still."

"And without the hyperdrive, Leonie and I would surely be dead by now, and unless we'd made Protectors Wunderland and probably Earth would be kzin hunting-grounds."

"Not to mention my own world. I was wrong to say we might be working on it still. They'd have got to We Made it, sooner or later. Probably sooner. We were behind kzin lines though we didn't know it."

"If we need to land and search for tree-of-life," said Leonie, "Or do any fighting, it might be handy to have a kzin with us."

"Apart from Vaemar there aren't that many kzinti available who we know well enough to use, not at short notice," said Rykermann. "And even on this planet, most of them still have no love for monkeys. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking the handful of Wunderkzin like Vaemar and Raargh are typical, Patrick. I know we're civilizing them, but it's a slow business . . ."

"I was thinking of Raargh. He knows the caves, too, and that eye of his could be useful," said Leonie. "I think the alte Teufel's bored with peace, anyway. Promise him the chance of battle, and he'd be with us. I'll call him and brief him now."

"Take care, Lion-cub." He kissed her.

* * *

"It's all so . . . " Patrick Quickenden waved his hands at the landscape below them, another part of the great limestone plateau which Vaemar had flown over a few days before. The sight of a herd of gagrumphers that Leonie pointed out filled him with excitement.

He's like a kid, Leonie thought. Hard to feel objectively about him. I know he loves Dimity, which makes him a sort of ally of mine—"The lover of my rival is my friend?" That's a new one. Does she love hm? Dimity, who I've competed against hopelessly since I was 18, who saved my life, apart from saving our species. Paddy, if she could love you, and you could take her back to Procyon, it would make things . . . And I know someone else who's in love with her, too. I wonder if he knows he is . . . One other, at least. That's if you don't count . . . Well, let's not get too complicated . . . Paddy, sparkle-eyed at the streams running under the sky and the gagrumphers plunging away through the trees, there's a lot riding on you . . .

The great problem, once you've been any sort of leader, which means once you've been any sort of manipulator: Can you again come to value people for what they are, rather than for how they might be able to serve your own ends? We forget that between men and women sexual exploitation isn't the only kind of exploitation there is. At least we do as soon as a war's over. . . . Now if you and Dimity . . . What am I thinking about? Dimity may well be dead. Patrick, you seem a happy, decent man, the product of a world less tortured than this one. Can I leave you an innocent man, not try to make you my catspaw? She caught his eyes. In love with Dimity he might be, but Leonie saw he was admiring her at least as much as the landscape. I wonder if it would turn him