Man-Kzin Wars XIII-ARC (11 page)

She went down to the scout ship with Roscoe. They spent enough time there that the guards got distinctly bored. However, by the time they left, she felt fairly certain the ship could function with a single pilot.

Later, Jenni drew blood from the kzin and gave it to Ida with detailed instructions as to what she needed to look for. She asked Theophilus to do an analysis of hair, urine, and fecal samples.

Then she went and took the kzin for a walk.

* * *

“I have arranged some privacy for us,” she said. “Anyone monitoring us will hear me questioning you about your recent lack of appetite and the like. Innocent conversation.”

The kzin flickered his ears in a manner that was—Jenni now suspected—an expression roughly equivalent to a human raising her eyebrows. That is, indicating surprise and perhaps a small element of doubt and incredulity.

People with fur on their faces must employ other visual clues,
she thought.
I suspect there are a host of olfactory ones that I’m missing.

She swallowed a sigh of regret. There was so much more to learn, but the time for study had ended.

“You must take that kzinti ship and flee,” she said. A flaring of nostrils and flattening of ears caused her to amend her words. “Or if ‘flee’ is too cowardly a term for you, then say ‘escape.’ Whatever term you choose, I will help you.”

The kzin’s ears flattened, his hackles rose, but although his body spoke of tension, his words indicated a high measure of trust. For the first time, he did not speak in the abbreviated, staccato version of Interworld he had used to this point for communication with humans.

“Why?” asked the kzin. “Not why must I escape, but why will you help me? Strange as you are, I have never fancied you a traitor to your people.”

Jenni smiled her gentle smile. “No. I also do not think of myself as a traitor. Rather, during these long months over which I have cared for you, I have had much time for reflection about humans, about kzinti, about those other aliens of which I have been told, although I am not likely ever to have an opportunity to study them. I have come to certain conclusions.”

The kzin gave a brief, human-style nod of encouragement, and Jenni went on.

“There are humans—Miffy among them—who believe that in order to defeat the kzinti, we humans must become more kzinti than the kzinti themselves. We must become more ruthless than our worst imaginings of you and your culture: more brutal, more bloodthirsty.

“Miffy and his type would say that long ago, humanity took a wrong turn when it slowly embraced a creed of pacifism. They forget how close humanity was as a species to destroying not only ourselves, but our native biosphere. I suspect many of Miffy’s sort have not been cleared to learn about the horrors included in the historical record of that time, not only about wars, but about industrial accidents that occurred because humans channeled their aggressive natures towards achieving their goals, rather than trying to see the larger impact of such actions.

“Yet, even though I personally disagree that pacifism was a wrong choice if humanity was to survive without destroying itself, there is some truth in what Miffy and those like him believe. We humans learned how not to destroy ourselves, but this was achieved at the price of creating a false history, a history full of outright lies and clever omissions.

“When, with our meeting with the kzinti, the need to fight came again to the human race, we were shocked to discover how very easy killing was, how quickly we adapted the technologies of peace and prosperity to those of war and destruction. Then, too, rumors came to some ears that our Golden Age had in itself been a lie, created not by our own cultural and spiritual evolution, but seeded and enforced from without.”

The kzin bent his whiskers forward in interest, but Jenni went on without further explanation. She did not know how much the kzinti had learned about Brennan and the Protectors. Not knowing this, she did not think it was her place to spread that particular bit of information.

“So, is our pacifistic nature a lie and the warlike true?” She smiled, deliberately barring her teeth and touching first the front incisors, then the side canines. “We have two types of teeth: those designed for the eating of plants, those for the eating of flesh. No one rejects their teeth, yet we keep rejecting one or the other side of our natures: the hunter or the gatherer. One must be right, the other wrong. The truth is less easy to accept. We are both warlike and peaceful, hunters and planters, ruthless and nurturing.

“If I let those such as Miffy have their way, then I am denying what is most real. That is why I am going to help you. Not because I am a traitor, but precisely because I am not.”

“I have but one sort of teeth,” the kzin growled.

“Do you?” Jennie said. “But your claws retract. Think on that. Now, here is what we must do . . .”

* * *

They laid their plans with great care, not only that day, for if the physical therapy session extended too long, suspicions would be raised.

Happily, the kzin’s nature was impatient rather than otherwise. Had he possessed a human’s cautious desire to plan, to cover any and all contingencies, Jenni feared she might need confide in him his new value to Miffy.

Bioweapons had not been a real possibility to this point in the conflict between humans and kzinti because too little had been known about the kzinti’s biology. A great deal can be learned from genetic scans, but in the end, a test subject is needed.

Jenni knew that her patient thought his value would end when every bit of information had been extracted from him. She suspected he thought that he would then be killed. She did not think he had any idea that more likely Miffy would keep him alive so that various infections could be tested upon him.

Jenni herself would refuse to participate in such tests. She thought that Theophilus would also refuse. Ida and Roscoe, though, were of a different sort. Roscoe was Miffy with a background in medicine, rather than in espionage. Like Miffy, Roscoe enjoyed power and domination. She knew he had found it difficult to work as her subordinate.

Ida was a more complex person. A great number of her family members had been on a ship when the kzinti had taken it. Moreover, she knew without a doubt that many of them were dead. Ships with holes like that in their hulls didn’t usually preserve the passengers. It was hardly any comfort for her to imagine them enslaved.

Morevover, Jenni did not trust herself to become an accomplice at one remove. Could she really refuse to try to keep the kzin alive if he was infected with something deadly and painful? Could she keep from trying to create a cure, even if she knew that cure might be used to blackmail the Patriarchy into a surrender?

Her only choice was to get the kzin away before he could be so used. It would be a small victory, but if one only thought of winning a war, not individual battles, then there could be no hope for victory.

So while the kzin made certain the scout ship was capable of flight, she did her best to learn what she could to facilitate the escape itself.

There were many small details, but she was quite good at details. As she gathered codes and set trails, she was aware that Roscoe was cooking up a horrible brew in a lab she wasn’t supposed to know about, that experts were coming to take a closer look at the drive of the scout ship, that time was, in fact, running out.

* * *

Had it not been for his long captivity and the practice he had acquired in suppressing his immediate response to behaviors to which most Heroes would have reacted with fang and claw, the kzin did not think he could have kept from giving away his intent during the days that led up to the planned escape.

It was not only his own tension he must suppress—although he thought that if Roscoe came and drew any more of his blood he would have the man’s ears and accept the consequences. No. He must also hide his awareness of increased tensions among the humans themselves.

Externally, Dr. Anixter seemed her usual placid, smiling self, but to anyone with a nose, she reeked of anxiety. The reasons for this, the kzin quite understood. Not only was she taking risks in assisting with the escape attempt, but afterwards there would be consequences.

What concerned the kzin more deeply were the changes he sensed in some of the others. Roscoe’s body language had shifted. Did Dr. Anixter realize he no longer deferred to her except in form?

Miffy was more moody, some hours almost merry, others so tense that he lashed out—usually verbally—at whoever was closest. From snippets of conversation he overheard, the kzin gathered that specialists were coming to look at the scout ship. This had made Miffy very happy. It had been the later news that someone important from ARM would be coming along with these specialists that had triggered the mood swings.

The kzin understood, actually. In a detached fashion, he almost sympathized with his enemy. The arrival of those above one in the hierarchy was always a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they had the power to grant promotion. However, they were more likely to hand out punishment or reprimand.

And my departure,
the kzin thought,
will surely make this a visit Miffy will long remember.

Assuming the kzin actually made it onto the scout ship and got it out of the hanger, he was left with one dilemma. Did he try to escape as Dr. Anixter intended or did he take advantage of his opportunity to try and damage this base?

The first was full of uncertainties. He might escape the base only to be shot down later. He might be recaptured. He might make it all the way to Kzin only to find himself reviled.

Taking out the base would be so much more certain. Taking out the base would provide death with honor. Some day in the future, if word of his deeds reached the Patriarchy, he might be awarded a posthumous Name.

Really, the more he considered it, taking out the base was his best option.

But always beneath that certainty came a niggling doubt:
Or are you simply afraid to return?

* * *

The day came or rather the night. In an artificial environment like the base, night and day could be eliminated, a shift schedule established. Advocates of efficiency often argued in favor of such plans, but even if night and day could be eliminated, the human need for sleep could not.

Yes. There were sleep sets that reduced the need for rest. Drugs that did the same—although these had colorful side effects. However, especially for those engaged in creative endeavors, there was no replacement for seven to nine hours of good, solid natural rest.

As more and more substitutes for actual dream-filled sleep had been developed, a side effect had been found. Much creative work was done in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind used dream time to organize material, to rearrange it, to move toward that “Eureka” moment.

So it was, in some professions, where creativity and questioning were not valued, ersatz sleep was actually a preferred alternative. However, in the research and development branches of the arts and sciences, sleep had proven irreplaceable.

The base was, as such things went, a relatively small community. This was another reason that the continuous shift model did not work well. Best to have the majority of staff awake at the same time, so they would be able to interact.

The final reason was as old as human civilization. No one liked to be inconvenienced by routine maintenance. This had probably been true when such inconvenience meant dealing with the sweepers who cleaned out the cart ruts in ancient Troy. It was certainly true in the modern era.

So the base had night and day shifts. It was during the equivalent of the deepest, darkest night that Dr. Jenni Anixter and the kzin readied themselves.

Jenni’s preparations had begun earlier that day, with the baking of twelve dozen chocolate chip cookies. As might be expected of one possessed of her rounded and jovial figure, Dr. Anixter was an excellent baker. Of course, the majority of the food at the base was provided by auto-kitchens, but scientists have always surpassed themselves in finding ways to create the rare and strange.

In another day and age, this might have been a still for the distillation of forbidden liquor, but on the base, nonreconstituted food was valued more highly than any amount of alcohol. Long ago, Jenni had rigged her oven and figured out how to get the auto-kitchen to produce the equivalents of flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and the like.

Her cookies were very popular, even with those who claimed to disdain sweets, such as Miffy. She made certain to hand deliver cookies to the guards who were on watch during the late shift. They were quite grateful. Her kindness was widely known.

Later, when questions were asked about why everyone had slept so soundly that night, why the guards on duty hadn’t been overly attentive to the feeds supplied to their various monitors, the cookies would certainly be remembered. For this reason, Jennie made certain to have a dozen or so set by in her private cookie jar.

She was completely confident nothing out of the ordinary would be found in those cookies, because there would be nothing to find. The drug that had contributed to that lack of attention had only been partly contained in the cookies. The rest had been in the drink dispensers—very few will eat fresh cookies without a beverage of some kind.

This last had been a bit trickier to pull off, but Jenni had been confident. In any case, all the drug components were engineered to break down within eight hours. Jenni might be determined to help the kzin escape, but she was not suicidal enough to point a finger directly at herself. Of course, if she was questioned under proper circumstances, she would give it all away, but that would take time and time was what the kzin needed.

She had acquired the passcodes to the various doors (including that of the hanger) and supplied a data loop that would show empty corridors during minutes when the kzin would pass down them. However, the kzin had insisted she do nothing to actively help him depart.

“You must be safe in your bed when I make my escape,” he’d said. “My honor insists that you have that much opportunity to clear yourself from complicity in my escape.”