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

is an early step to knowledge. Know horror and you know glory. Know fear and you know courage."

"You understand the human idea of the knight, Vaemar? The ideal, I mean."

"I trust so. I have read much human history. It fascinates me that the knight should emerge from the dark ages, as it fascinates me that Roman order, Greek art and thought, could combine with barbarian vigor to build an order that would take you to the stars. Was it like that with other star-faring races, I wonder, races that did not have the Jotok as we did? But yes, I know of human knights. Some kzinti are like that too, but not many, and as you would expect, not quite the same."

"Can you imagine Pak knights, crusaders, chivalrous champions of some cause beyond ensuring more breeders?" said Dimity. "I cannot. I loved Nils because he, for all his lack of self-awareness, had something of the knight in him. I never saw what he did in the war, of course, Leonie had all of that. . . . The Pak were—it seems are—little more than gene-carrying machines, breeding and fighting and crossing between the stars for no end but reproduction. Trapped by their own brain structure. Trapped, as I fear most of all to be trapped."

"Can we use that, I wonder? There are at least four blood-lines here."

"With the childless Protector to keep them in order."

"Yes. He is our prime target."

"Target? You have high hopes, Vaemar-Hero."

"A Hero does not need hope, Dimity-Human."

They logged onto the internet with the computers supplied. As they had guessed, they could receive but not send data. Dimity and Vaemar were both clever with computers, and they spent a lot of time trying to circumvent this.

Chapter 10

The well-armed car carrying Arthur Guthlac, Colonel Cumpston and Karan touched down beside Vaemar's empty vehicle. Apart from its turret-mounted weapons, Cumpston had a strakkaker and Guthlac a heavy, powerful beam rifle, a great cannon of a thing based on a kzin sidearm, and with mini-waldos for human use. Karan had a kzinrret's knife, the new and improved female version of a w'tsai, and another strakkaker. Weapons ready, the occupants alighted, the humans wearing breathing filters as Dimity had. In case they needed the car quickly, the engine was left idling and the doors unlocked. There was no sign of any live friend or enemy.

Karan pointed and bounded to the dead thunderbirds, the humans hurrying behind. Small scavengers scattered.

"Beam rifle, close range," said Cumpston. "And the other looks like a kzin bite."

"They stood here," said Karan, pointing. Looking closely, Guthlac and Cumpston could make out two very different-sized sets of footprints, the larger tipped with claw points. "It didn't get near them."

"The car has been tampered with," said Cumpston. "Look! Its antennas are gone." He also tried the door.

"Dimity and Vaemar, according to the ways we can measure IQs, are possibly the two cleverest beings on Wunderland," said Guthlac. "I hope they can look after themselves."

"Clever doesn't necessarily mean survivor," said Cumpston. "There's more than a touch of the idiot savant in Dimity. Super-genius she may be, but she's narrowly focused. Just because she shatters the old sexist stereotype of the beautiful blonde doesn't mean she . . . More common sense, better instincts and reflexes, may mean survival in a place like this. Vaemar, I can't pronounce on. But he's an intellectual, too, however sharp his claws are. I wish old Raargh was with them, or some human sergeant-major."

Guthlac thought he detected something in his friend's voice when he spoke of Dimity. There could hardly be a less appropriate time or place for him to comment. "Karan, can you follow their trail?" he asked

Karan was already moving down one of the rock-tunnels, almost on all fours, a barred orange shadow in the shifting and flickering grey light.

"We might do better to search from the air," Guthlac said. "This is another labyrinth."

"If there was anything to see from the air I think we'd have seen it," said Cumpston. "Come on! We're lucky to have her, but I don't want her getting too far ahead on her own. If anything happened to her, would you want to be the one to tell Vaemar?"

"Trail stops," said Karan a few minutes later.

They caught up to her. They were standing in a circular space in the rock-maze.

"Do you smell anything?" Guthlac asked her.

"Sand and rock turned over." Karan said. "Not a long time past. And kzintosh. There has been another male kzin here. And at the car. And something else. A bad smell."

Cumpston pointed to the edge of the rock wall. "Sand and rock turned over there?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"A gravity motor."

"But all gravity motors are monitored," said Guthlac.

"Get through to the monitoring stations," said Cumpston. "Pull your rank, Arthur! Hurry! They must have recorded something."

Guthlac sent the message. His face was dark. "I'm getting a very ugly thought," he said.

"So am I. But tell me yours first."

Guthlac made sure Karan was out of earshot, still hunting along the rock wall. He spoke softly and quickly.

"Vaemar has taken Dimity into space. He's a kzin. It looks as if he's taking her to the Patriarchy. Our pioneering hyperdrive expert!"

"Any ship that took off from here would be too small for interstellar travel."

"But it could meet a bigger one."

"We've monitored Vaemar pretty carefully. And taken other precautions. There's been no hint of anything like that."

"Apart from reversing the kzinti's whole military position, it would get him back his place beside the Riit throne. Perhaps position him for a bid for the Patriarchy! Why should we trust him to be more loyal to us than to his own species? Especially when the reward could be so enormous? I know policy was to trust him as much as possible, but perhaps we've put too much temptation in his way. Or perhaps it was just a mistake to trust a ratcat!"

"That hangs together very nastily," said Cumpston. "I have just one small ray of hope that you're wrong. It was