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

Raargh. The old kzin was spitting and cursing. His prosthetic arm was badly damaged, she saw, and when he tried to stand his right knee gave way and he fell forward. Leonie remembered he had been wounded in his knees long before. Her light showed blood and a gleam of bone. She applied her last field-dressing. There were sounds diminishing in distant tunnels.

"Leonie," said Raargh, "I cannot run. You must go on alone."

"There is no need. Our mission was reconnaissance. We know what is here and what is happening here. Our job now is to tell the others, not for one or two of us to fight Protectors and Morlock bands alone."

"We attack!" Raargh cried. Leonie knew the kzin attack-reflex well. A kzin, like the Protector she had just killed, would crawl to its enemies if that was the only chance of a final slash or bite. But Raargh could inhibit that reflex when his wits were about him. It was why he had grown old. He was not going to be much use crawling into battle on two functioning limbs.

"Is that what you would tell Vaemar, were he here?" she asked him.

Raargh was silent for a moment. Then "You are bleeding," he said. "Still you must leave me. Go and report. Urrr."

Leonie touched the leg and felt it give. The webs of interlocking and reinforcing cartilage might help it a bit, but the bone was gone. She saw something too she had never seen before—a spasm in the old kzin's arm and face that could only be unbearable pain.

"We have both had worse wounds," she told him. "Use the rifle as a crutch. Let us get back to the car."

"No! Dishonor! I stay and cover your retreat from Morlocks."

"You have done that once before in these caves. But there is no need this time. Come! Or we stay together here till Morlocks and Protectors return!"

Leonie's years as a guerrilla leader had taught her kzin as well as human psychology. She allowed the old kzin to lurch and hobble painfully around to collect the ears of the Morlocks he had killed. He tried to cut or wrench off some part of the Protector he had killed as a trophy additional to the conveniently large ears but she did not see the details. Then grumbling, sometimes mewing involuntarily like a cat in agony, leaning on his rifle, Raargh limped slowly with her back towards the daylight. She resumed the helmet briefly as they passed the tunnels where, she guessed, tree-of-life had been stored. She supposed the Protectors had taken it, along with all the weapons and other assets they could gather, deep into the great cavern system. They would be back soon.

There was no sign of the young ferals who had gone before them, and who, Leonie knew, might regard either a uniformed human or a kzin as equally their enemy. She told Patrick they were coming and to be ready for take-off.

Rarrgh moved with more difficulty as they went on. Leonie's suit had enhanced power joints, or it would have been quite impossible, but even so she could barely support part of his huge weight. Work, legs! she commanded silently. You are Leonie now! She knew kzinti could discipline their bodies to a literally superhuman degree and if they slowed down in a combat situation they were in a dire way indeed. She was surprised at what her new legs could do, and thought briefly that her old legs, injured by kzin claws and repaired by primitive surgery, could not have done it. I wonder if she was an athlete? Then: Not a really useful thought at the moment! Get a life! But the tunnel, which they had descended so easily, was a different matter to ascend with Raargh in such a condition. A desperate call from Patrick to hurry did not help. Finally they had to stop.

"Raargh legs no good," the old kzin muttered disgustedly.

"Legs heal." Leonie told him.

"Raargh finish. Raargh die."

His leg injuries were not fatal. But Leonie knew that kzinti, who preferred to die on the attack, could also die of shame.

"No, Raargh not coward! Urrr!"

"Raargh might as well be dead. Cannot attack! Cannot support Leonie-Comrade. Go to Fanged God now before shame deeper."

Raargh's natural eye was turning a peculiar violet color. The pattern of his respiration was changing in a way Leonie had never heard in him before. But self-induced death for a kzin could be very quick. Leonie had seen it during the Liberation.

"Did Leonie dig Raargh out of rockfall for nothing?" she asked in the Mocking Tense that it would once have been instant death for any human on Wunderland to use towards a kzin. "Did Leonie trust Raargh for nothing? Does Vaemar wish Raargh to die? Do Raargh's kits not wish to have Rarrgh hunt with them again? Will others rear Raargh's kits and chrowl Raargh's harem? Urrr!" She saw the fury and agony in his eye, but he made another effort.

"Legs can be repaired," she told him. And then: "Remember it is Leonie who speaks. Remember what happened to Leonie's legs in cave! Leonie, manrret, lived with Raargh's help! Leonie walks again!"

There were times when she had scratched the old kzin's ragged ears in a gesture of comradeship. But she knew better than to touch him in such a manner now. Then, greatly daring, she stood before him and placed her hands on his shoulders. "You will not desert Leonie!" The Tense of Military Command. My instinct was to use the Imploring Tense, she thought. Slowly his breathing changed again.

"Leonie survived worse than Raargh," he admitted at length. "Raargh will not be shamed," he added in a different tone of voice. Slowly and painfully he stood and hobbled on. Leonie let him lead. Was that what it was for? She wondered. So I could talk a kzin into living? And then she thought: But Raargh is a special kzin. It took a long time, and there were more calls from Patrick.

Patrick opened