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

it begins, perhaps," said Rykermann. Now, with Leonie's hand in his, he realized that he was looking at Dimity without hopeless pain and longing. Not because of what she had done, nor indeed because he loved her any the less, but because his love for Leonie filled his heart, suddenly, strangely, and with a depth and fullness he had never known before. She had been near death with him many times, but this time, watching her enter the Protectors' caves with only Raargh, as he himself prayed desperately over a console of screens, had been different.

"Strange," he said. "This was where it all began so many years ago. I had flown out here because the monks had sighted a strange creature, a big catlike thing that didn't fit into the ecology." He remembered giving the strange orange hair he had found to Leonie, his graduate student, to dissect. Thinking of her as she had been in those days, he realized something else. Her walk was as it had been then, no longer clumsy.

"So it begins," echoed Colonel Cumpston, as he followed, escorting Dimity. His gaze wandered to Vaemar, resplendent in gold armor and shimmering cloak and sash of Earth silk, who, with Karan, Raargh and Big John, was pointing to one of the monastery fishponds. The juvenile Jotok he had helped save in Grossgeister Swamp were growing and joining. Orlando had fished one from a pond and was waving it playfully at Albert Manteufel. Don't pretend to be scared, Albert! Cumpston tried to telepath him. Don't pretend to run! But Guthlac's pilot was a veteran and knew better than to do any such thing. A growl from Raargh and a gesture at his proud new possession—a second ear-ring for his belt, there being no room for more ears left on the first—and the kitten snapped to attention. Another growl and warning cuff from Karan and the Jotock was restored to the water.

"Hope. Perhaps joy. Perhaps, truly . . . peace. For this little world at least," Cumpston said. As with Guthlac and Rykermann, many lines of strain and weariness seemed to have gone from his face. Reports from far-flung ships and bases were that the peace was holding. At this moment, for this moment at least, humans and the kzinti Empire were sharing a universe.

The group of friends drew together. Vaemar drew Rykermann aside for a moment.

"You love her, I know," he said.

"Yes," said Rykermann. He had never heard a kzin use the word "love" before, and wondered what Vaemar's conception of it was. But he knew who he meant.

"I think I understand," said Vaemar. "I say that to you alone. Speak it to no other human. She has taught me a little of that . . . but she must go her own way."

"I know," said Rykermann. They drifted apart in the flow of the company.

Dimity had known Cumpston since her return to Wunderland eight Earth-years previously. He and Vaemar had made the counterattack that had relieved their desperately outnumbered group in the fight against the mad ones. But now it was as if she saw him for the first time: a hardened warrior and leader, yet a man whose kindness and patience had done as much as any to bring peace to this tortured planet. That unnatural blend of human qualities that made up the knight.

The wedding party drifted through the monastery gates into the meadow spangled and starred with its multicolored flowers. Brightly-colored creepers covered the last few outlines of what had once been a refugee shantytown. Two pavilions had been set up, food laid out for two different feasts, and a couple of great kzin drums. There would be dancing later. Orlando and Tabitha were looking forward to that.

Vaemar again approached Rykermann and Leonie as they walked. His eyes followed Rykermann's to Dimity, her hand moving to take the colonel's.

"I know she had to do what she did," he said. "I know more about the Pak, the Protectors, now. There was no choice." He muttered something about a dream that Rykermann did not hear clearly.

"We humans have come a long way from the Pak," said Rykermann. "How far will we go? What will we become?"

And then: "What will we all become."

"That, I think," said Vaemar, "is a very good question."

TEACHER'S PET

Matthew Joseph Harrington

I

PLEASANCE: 70 Ophiuchi AB-I (A-II/B-V), located in Trojan relationship to its binary suns, Topaz and Amethyst. Orbital distance from either star 20.8 A.U. Principal source of heat geothermal. Gravity: .93. Diameter: 6510 miles. Rotation: 27 hours 55 minutes. Year: 12263 standard days. Axial inclination<1°. Atmosphere: 39% oxygen, 57% nitrogen, 3% helium, 1% argon. Sea level pressure 7.9 pounds/square inch. No moons. Discovery by ramrobot reported 2136, but existence concealed and colonization limited to families of UN officials until corruption trials of 2342-2355.

Pleasance's crops are grown under artificial lighting, as natural illumination comes to about 0.5% of Earth's. The climate does not vary with latitude, and qualifies as warm temperate. Constant low-level vulcanism is found everywhere on the planet, both land and sea. Almost all of Pleasance's warmth is due to release of massive fossil heat by outgassing of carbon dioxide and helium; the carbon dioxide is taken up by native oceanic life with great efficiency. Local lifeforms are killed by excess light, however. 

The planet has the distinction of being the only known habitable world whose orbit is outside its system's singularity, so that ships may reach it within minutes after leaving hyperspace. 

As a result of its founders' propensities, Pleasance's culture is legalistic to a possibly excessive degree . . .  

Peace Corben's mother was this old: she had met Lucas Garner.

The name had not been Corben, then, and the real name wasn't in the records Peace had found in Cockroach's computer. Possibly the old woman hadn't seen any reason to include it; more likely, given her paranoia, she'd feared its discovery by hostile parties.

Like everything else she'd tried to be, Jan Corben had been a great paranoid. The ship