Man-Kzin Wars XIII-ARC (45 page)

He landed his car in the plaza near Healer’s gravcar. His old friend paced fretfully.

“Did you get anything useful?” he asked, as Dan exited his car.

“I got all the data captured by the sensor swarm, courtesy of the Triumvir of Hem. Now all we need is a ship.” The frigid breeze of his native Raoneer stung Dan’s nose and burned his lungs. He went back into the car for a leather jacket.

“Let’s go see my father.” Healer-of-Hunter’s fur flattened on his muscular body, as if expecting a fight.

They walked up to the wide, red arched entrance of the Hall of Harmonious Dominance. The head of a lion, its mane blazing like the sun, was carved into the keystone. Two full-grown alliogs snapped and clawed at each other while chained on either side of the gate. The sparsely furred reptiles looked a lot like alligators with the fast frames of wolves. The result was something like prehistoric pristerognathus, although all Earth analogies failed to match the truly alien biology of these creatures.

They crossed a spacious, echoing vestibule. The interior of the Hall was no less lavish than Triumvirate House but it was warmer, less airy, like a medieval castle. The hide and heads of worthy game and rivals hung from the walls. They paused respectfully before the crystal sarcophagi that enshrined the remains of Selina Guthlac and Shadow.

“They died too young,” Healer said, noticing his ancestor’s small, frail body. Selina too was rather young despite the gray in her blond curly locks.

“Shadow had one foot in the grave, even before he got to Sheathclaws, and his rapport with my grandmother was much too strong. When he died, she simply faded away. Do you think our remains will rest in this great hall?”

Healer slapped a large paw across Dan’s back, breaking the reverie. “Oh, I assure you we will rest in this hall; the question is will we be honored relics or trophies?”

They continued on their way to Ceezarr’s office and passed an elderly orange and white kzinrett who gave Healer an affectionate lick from chin to cheek. On any other world, she would be severely disciplined for showing a kzintosh such tenderness in front of a human. Healer nuzzled her head. “Grandmother-aunt, Rilla, please make sure my stubborn father takes full advantage of the autodoc after our discussion is over.”

“I will,” she purred in her limited Interworld.

“Autodoc?” Dan looked to Healer nervously, but before he got an answer, Healer pushed open the heavy double-doors that led to Ceezarr’s private den.

The office was a simple and elegant affair of polished cherry wood and dark leather furniture. Four kzinti pelts hung from the red brick walls, mockingly referred to as the senate, trophies from his unification of Shadow’s competing heirs. He chose the Name Ceezarr after that battle and built the Hall of Harmonious Dominance.

“If it isn’t my first-born son, the bush doctor!” Ceezarr roared, his luxuriant black-striped, ochre fur showing distinguished silver streaks that Healer didn’t remember from before. How long had it been? He studied them as a geologist might examine the ancient bands of sedimentary layers in exposed rock. Ceezarr poured vodka into the coagulated blood of an alliog and gave it a quick stir. “Want a drink?”

“I don’t drink,” Healer snarled, thin membranous ears flattening on his head. The essay he had written back in med school postulating that the early human settlers had intentionally introduced alcohol to the kzinti in order to keep them docile (and the interspecies controversy it caused) had been one of the major ideological wedges between them.

The older kzintosh took a hearty swig. “What do you want, Healer-of-Hunters?” He ignored the human in the room.

“Honored Ceezarr, I know about the kzinti warship that suddenly appeared at the edge of our system.”

“It’s dead. The robotic sentries around the system aren’t detecting any active signatures. I say give them the fiery end these brave Heroes deserve.” Dan understood that the Great Ceezarr wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Patriarchy. He was as eager to be rid of this ship as the leaders of Angel’s Tome.

“Those sentries are a hundred years old. They could be faulty!” That came out dangerously close to sounding like the derision tense.

Dan could feel the situation quickly spiraling into fury. He needed to splash some cold reason on these potential fires. “Dominant One, I’ve met with the Triumvirate and I feel they aren’t fit to claim this prey. The Separatists will stifle all research and the Rejoiners will foolishly bound into the jaws of the Patriarchy. I believe this ship would be better off here, in Shrawl’ta, where we will use its secrets to further strengthen Sheathclaws as a whole.”

“Do not presume to dictate to me, boy! You are not your grandmother.” Fear flew off this mighty kzin like cosmic rays from the sun.

Healer hesitated for a second, then leapt into what would surely end up as a word-duel, or worse. “I mean to lead an expedition to the ship. I need
Shadow’s Chariot
. If I can rescue anyone aboard, my mission would be complete, but if I can bring back much-needed technology to our young civilization—”

“Civilization!” The old kzin gulped the rest of the drink and slammed the glass down on the bar. “Since when does my savage son, the one who abandoned an honorable career as a brilliant doctor to chase down game in the wilds of Raoneer, care about civilization?”

“You know many of my generation, of yours too, chose to live as kzinti should, hunting the brutal creatures of this untamed world. There is no shame in that!”

“No, there isn’t. Normal kzintosh are allowed the luxury of roaming the cold steppes of this world and live as the Maned God intended.”

“Am I not a normal kzintosh?”

“No, you are the direct descendant of the Ancestor. You have a duty to Shrawl’ta, the settlement he founded on Raoneer.” He glowered at Dan with ember-colored eyes, “Your ancestor too, boy.”

“Don’t be so proud, Ceezarr! All kzinti on Sheathclaws are descendants of Shadow! The original refugees amounted to barely two eights. We’re already having to abort fetuses with severe health problems! If I can bring back any survivors, we can deepen our gene pool.” Dan sensed the acute single-minded sting of primal emotion springing from Healer. It was almost a biological imperative, like the fundamental passions of pteranobats on their long, arduous journey from one end of the Panungius continent to the other to mate.

“Do not speak of our Ancestor’s blood with such insolence!” The tips of teeth poked out from Ceezarr’s jaw. His ears virtually disappeared.

“Careful father, I believe Shadow would disapprove of your creating a new Patriarchy around his lineage.” Four sicklelike claws raked across Healer’s face as the last syllable rolled out of his mouth. The powerful blow threw him clear across the room. Years of living rough allowed him to quickly recover. He’d been thrown off wombadons too many times. He poised himself, ready to pounce on the graying kzintosh, purple blood dripping on the lavish carpet.

“If you believe you can kill me, leap now and take
Shadow’s Chariot
!” Ceezarr bent his knees digging his protracted hind claws past the carpeting and well into the floorboards, his thick tail cracking like a whip, an impressive show of dominance. “If not, go back to your miserable hinterland and don’t return until you’ve earned a proper Name!”

The rational part of Healer, telling him that this was his father, receded with his lips leaving behind only a mouth full of sleek pearly teeth. They screamed and leapt. Dan backed away against the wall. It wasn’t the two massive bodies tearing each other and the office apart; it was the raw inhuman emotional emissions coming from the blazing tornado of fur.

Ceezarr mangled his son’s blocking arm with no visible sign of restraint. Despite the awful pain, Healer-of-Hunters struck with the speed of a killer and the conviction of a surgeon. With four black scalpels, he sliced muscles and tendons, punctured vital organs and severed fat oozing arteries. Twenty-three precise incisions later, the leader of all Raoneer dropped like a limp orange pelt.

“I wasn’t asking permission to take the ship,” Healer growled in the venomous Menacing Tense. He stalked out of the room leaving a sprinkled trail of urine in his path. Dan scurried out behind him careful not to step in the victory piss.

Several long minutes of crippling pain and fury passed. Ceezarr breathed deeply, carefully contemplating each stinging gash and aching bone. Then he clawed his way up to his desk and slammed on the holocomm. He snarled the voice command for the Triumvirate offices in Harp.

The crisp holographic portrait of Trimunvir Jibunoh appeared standing next to him. Horror spread across her perfectly rendered face. “Ceezarr! What happened? Has there been a coup?”

“Of a sort, Triumvir, my son, Healer-of-Hunters and Daneel Guthlac are taking control of
Shadow’s Chariot
and plan to rescue the smashed warship. We can no longer ignore the problem.”

“This is terrible!” She looked away as if absently listening to an aide, then turned back to Ceezarr. “Why are your ears flapping like a giddy old fool?”

“Because, Galia, my wayward kitten has finally become a grown kzintosh.”

Shadow’s Chariot

Healer hastily spritzed artificial epidermis on his shredded arm as they made their way toward the great plaza where
Shadow’s Chariot
had been reverently parked. Dan didn’t speak. He simply processed all the primal sensations he had just bathed in.

They entered the flat, ovoid vehicle as kzinti and human tourists gaped in horror at their sacrilege.

“If it was this easy to jump into the ship and take it, why did we bother confronting your father?” Dan finally mustered.

“That would have been disrespectful.”

“But maiming him wasn’t?”

“No.”

Shadow’s Chariot
had a small command bridge consisting of a plush, crescent-shaped couch hugging an intricate command console clearly designed for massive paws.

“I know why you’re so focused on this warship,” Dan said finally, plugging his data tablet into the barge’s control panel. All information on the warship immediately downloaded into the antique ship’s navigational computer. New charts and figures appeared on the surrounding screens.

“Do you?” Healer played at the controls and the long-atrophied gravity motors hummed to life.

“Yeah, you’re lonely.” Now that Dan had said it, he felt the waves of loneliness languorously rolling off his companion.

“Kzinti don’t require the complex social structures of primates.”

“Still, at your age you should already have a couple mates and a few kittens running around.”

The museum artifact that had lain dormant for a century achieved escape velocity in impressive defiance of inertia. Tight laser communiqués were pouring in from all over Angel’s Tome, particularly from Harp. They ignored them.

“I could say the same for you.”

“I do alright. I work at a university, have a dangerous Raoneer accent and drive a sexy car.”

A new red line had appeared on all the displays of the solar system, this one cutting a straight path directly toward the other wandering line of the warship.

“Really, the accent?” Healer’s ears flicked like the elongated thoracic ribs of the small gliding pangolins found all over the indigo canopies of Angel’s Tome.

“The females love it when I turn my S’s into Z’s and roll my R’s.”

“To be honest, since deceit is apparently physiologically impossible for me, I’m finding it difficult to find a compatible mate. They smell uncomfortably familiar to me.”

“That’s because they are,” Dan said, but noticed that Healer’s ears stopped flicking. He knew he had touched a sore spot. “Look, it isn’t a problem for other kzintosh. It’s got to be mental with you. I think because of your medical training, you know that genetically all kzinti on Sheathclaws are closely related, so it’s become a thing for you.”

“Possibly,” he said, scratching the tan fur on his chin. “Why did we stop being friends, Dan? I believe kzinti are better off with humans calling them out on their quirks.”

“You grew up too fast. You were out picking off wombadons while I was still picking my nose.”

“Perhaps there’s a harem of foreign kzinretti on that ship waiting to be rescued.”

“You know females aren’t allowed on warships.”

“Unless there’s an Admiral aboard.” Healer dialed up four scarlet meal bricks and demolished them in two gulps. “Hungry?”

“Yes, but I’d rather have a medium-rare steak and a glass of wine.”

Healer and Dan stopped talking a hundred kilometers away from the derelict, their radar bounced back a significant ping. They toggled the screens to video view. The blast-smeared, crimson ship looked like the jagged disc of a crab’s discarded carapace.

Shadow’s Chariot
warily approached the drifting ghost ship and matched speeds with it. It was so immense that it could easily swallow their barge whole. A series of blackened commas and dots were emblazoned on its side.

“What is that, the ship’s name? What does it say?”

Healer looked at it for a moment and said, “I have no idea. My written Heroes’ Tongue is horrible. My instruments confirm that there are no life signs. Although, some basic system is still running because I can detect an active power flow.”

“Yeah, I’m not picking up any emotional activity at all.” He felt Healer’s deep disappointment and added, “But I wouldn’t if they were frozen. The good news is that the long-range communications antenna has been destroyed. The bad news is that all that mysterious machinery that seems to be part of their FTL also looks damaged.”

“Look there.” Healer highlighted the area on the screen. “That gash on the starboard side, that’s what killed it. If we can seal it, we can repressurize the whole upper deck and get access to the bridge.”

“Alright, I’m releasing a repair robot now.” Dan typed the instructions into his tablet. A fat robot the size of a pregnant wombadon jetted out from the underbelly of
Chariot
and proceeded to work on the fissure in a blur of quick and numerous articulate manipulators.

“I’m going to take us in. We can land in the hanger bay and simply walk to the bridge without excursion suits.”