Man-Kzin Wars XIII-ARC (53 page)

“You opened up on purpose. Is this some kind of trap?”

“Not at all, Agent Khan. We’re both talented telepaths and I’m pressed for time. Allow me to get right to the point. Right here on Canyon, sentient kzinretti are being held as sex slaves.”

“That’s absurd,” but as she spoke, a faint, guarded mental transmission passed from Bobcat to Varsha and she knew it was true.

A young man with a gaunt face and sunken eyes led a small striped horse into the stall and quickly left. “Ah, so this is a zebra,” Bobcat licked his muzzle with a broad pink tongue and proceeded to chaw down on its neck with bone-crushing force. The pitiful animal
hee-hawed
in terrible pain. Varsha dodged kicking hoofs, then the beast went still.

She suppressed a sudden surge of terror and revulsion and said, “I don’t think that’s an actual zebra, probably a genetically modified donkey.”

Bobcat didn’t look up as he lacerated a large chunk of dripping scarlet meat and threw it back whole.

“How do you know about this?” she continued.

“I partake of their services.” His face was all sticky and red.

Despite her businesslike demeanor, she arched a curious eyebrow, “I thought telepaths weren’t allowed to breed?”

“No, not breed, but my captain allows me to
ch’rowl
until my heart’s content.”

“And what, some of you macho kzintoshi have a fetish for exotic sapient females? Not in proper harems, of course, but you can
ch’rowl
them in brothels, huh?”

“I don’t believe those responsible know they are sentient. The kzinretti are quite scared and reluctant to talk, and even if they did, they don’t speak the Heroes’ Tongue or Interworld.” He rent another heavy mass of equine muscle, and Varsha’s skin crawled at the sound of striped flesh ripping.

“Wait. I caught that thought! You want me to believe that this is a human operation?”

“It is. Humans are an enterprising ape. They’ve learned to take advantage of this odd situation of coexistence with kzinti, and a sort of cottage industry has sprung up, catering to our gruesome needs.” He pointed to the drain at the center of the stall’s tiled floor as if that explained everything. “As a matter of fact, Serengeti is also a human establishment. Who else would come up with the idea of a restaurant that brings you a live animal, allows you to ravage it, hoses you down, and then is ready to serve the next famished kzin in less than an hour?”

“That’s barbaric.”

Bobcat caught the waves of nausea and denial rippling through the agent, and he decided that her smooth and supple youth wasn’t a product of boosterspice. His ears twitched like the pectoral fins of a Fafnir flying fish.

“You think kzinti are the only barbarians in known space? Do not fool yourself, Agent Khan. We’ve had four glorious wars and you’ve won every one of them. We are currently sitting at the bottom of a planetwide scar etched by one of
your
claws of mass destruction. I believe the veneer of civility has long been cast off. You have soundly beaten us, and as consolation, you offer us whorehouses and fast-food restaurants.”

Varsha knew he was right. The wars had changed humanity, just as much as they had changed kzinti. Now, each species met somewhere in the muddy middle. She composed herself rather quickly and said, almost in the Menacing Tense, “Did you invite me here to mess with me? To gloat?”

“No, Agent Khan. I need your assistance.” The kzin was covered in blood, and a bloated, banded cadaver lay bare on the floor.

“My assistance? What makes you think I’m not going to arrest you right now for espionage? Remember, I was tracking you before all this tanj prostitution affair came up. I know you’ve been selling information to the Patriarchy.”

“I am just a simple tool. Would you arrest the listening device or the listener? If you help me, I can open up further and reveal the full extent of my spying on at least three worlds, as well as some colorful sabotage and an assassination.” He let a trickle of information pass between them and her large, lilac eyes widened into saucers. “If you play your cards right and use your clever little monkey tricks to help me, you might even arrest Yearrl-Captain himself.”

“Why now? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I’m a strung-out old telepath on his last hunt and I’ve just had something of an epiphany. I know now that what I’ve done is wrong.”

The dribble of thought continued between them, and she knew he was lying about his guilt. He was quite proud, in fact. It was the closest this drug-addled kzin had come to feeling like a true warrior, but some kind of revelation had shaken him recently. Varsha caught a flash of a small, sickly kitten, black as night with aquamarine eyes, and three trapped and desolate kzinretti.

“What do you want of me?”

“Transport. I need you to pull some ARM strings and get me a ship so I can get off this fractured rock.”

“Where will you go? Fafnir? Wunderland?”

“No, those are regular scratching posts along
Devourer
’s prowl. Yearrl-Captain will have ample connections and resources to hunt me down.”

“Then where the tanj else can a
sthondat
-juice junkie and his freemother females hide in the universe?”

The predatory speed with which Bobcat slammed Varsha against the blood-splashed wall made her heart stop. “That will be the last time you refer to
my
harem in such a disrespectful manner. We did not choose our horrid circumstances.” The words came out hot with the stench of the fresh kill on his breath.

“I’m sorry. I really am.” Varsha immediately regretted her remark, not because she could feel the prickling of reaperlike claws pressed against her jugular, but because she had touched the kzinretti’s awesome heartache through the tiny telepathic feed.

Bobcat released her. “Will you assist me? All I have is one hour. By then, Yearrl-Captain expects me to be onboard the
Devourer
with the kit. When I don’t show up, he’ll immediately send Heroes down to fetch me.”

Varsha realized that that infinitesimal filament of thought running from this creature’s soul to hers had given her a taste of its bleak perspective and that of the females and even the poor shade of a kitten. She understood that, like it or not, she was becoming invested, which is precisely why she severed the connection. “I’m sorry. I guarantee you that we will investigate this prostitution ring, but I cannot under any circumstances help a spy escape. All I can give you is the assurance that I will not impede you in any way.”

Varsha turned and left the gory feeding stall before Bobcat could even process her rebuff. She thought she caught a glimpse of his lips peeling back exposing rows of deadly, ivory-colored teeth, a black hole where a three-inch canine should’ve been.

Rage erupted from Bobcat in the form of an explosive roar as Varsha Khan exited the restaurant. The female monkey had outright betrayed him. He had been so sure she would help. He had felt her pity, her genuine concern. After all these years, how little he understood these honorless
kz’eerkt
! He pounded the wash button in the stall and let the boiling water cleanse the blood and fury off of him.

* * *

Bobcat hastily made his way back to the bordello. He didn’t stop to appreciate the dazzling human civilization scrambling up the crag. He had no plan and he was entirely alone. He had two doses of the psychoactive steroid left and he needed to conserve at least one of them. He stopped suddenly at the foyer of the so-called temple and urinated on a faux stone column. The immature warriors mulling about the lobby caught a whiff of Bobcat’s musky kairomone challenge and hurriedly left, not wanting to shame their families by being embroiled in an embarrassing situation.

He ran toward the chamber holding the sentient kzinretti.

“Did you think that monkeys bold enough to work with warcats don’t hoot and holler at each other whenever there’s danger? I got a call the second your server at Serengeti overheard you murmuring to that cop.” That
kchee kz’eerkt
, Larsson, blocked his path, brandishing an impressive fifty-year-old gun.

Bobcat slowed a bit, but only a bit. He slashed with a laser-sharp claw across the pimp’s belly, and his stinking innards spilled to the carpet with an audible slosh. Bobcat jumped over the spasming body and stormed the room. The kzinretti were gone. He sniffed the air and caught their distinct spice not far off. He launched himself out of the cheap harem chamber.

Bobcat found them toward the back of the building as four of Larsson’s gorilla goons were trying to wrestle them out to the alley and into a waiting airtruck. He charged. One of the wretched apes lifted a beam pistol and shot a straight red lance of light through his shoulder. Pure, blazing agony dropped Bobcat onto the filthy alley floor. The females instinctively, viciously took note and mauled their captors with such contempt that Bobcat caught sobering pangs of it despite not being on the drug. He picked himself up, screamed and leapt onto the gun-monkey, ripping out his throat (and a better part of his shoulder), exposing clean white vertebrae.

“Yara, Xast, go back and get the simple kzinrett and her black kit!” he spat in their native tongue. They hesitated for an instant, not wanting to reenter their prison, but a fast moment later, they sprang back inside. “Raxa, prepare the cargo compartment of the truck for our escape.”

Bobcat took the hypodermic from its case and plunged it into his arm. The familiar rush of extrasensory force exploded from his brain. He tracked and gulped down the necessary knowledge to fly the human vehicle from a shredded and dying human. He also knew that Larsson had already reported his treachery to Yearrl-Captain. He had less than an hour.

The two intelligent kzinretti came out escorting the dazed mother, Tirran, and her little bundle of mewling dark matter. Without question, the group jumped into the airtruck and shut the door. Bobcat shoved himself into the cramped driver’s seat as electric pain spread from the burnt hole in his shoulder across his body. He blocked it, like he’d blocked other people’s pain, and released the brake. The airtruck rocketed out of the alley and over the bottom of the artificial canyon. He flew the tight vehicle made for small primates with reckless abandon, nearly hitting a penthouse terrace as he raced to the spaceport.

Doubt and balconies rushed by as he flew up the nineteen-plus kilometers along the north precipice. He looked across the wide gap to the south cliff and saw shining white structures and rugged, indigenous amarillo moss running up and down its face like gold and silver veins in the rock. He grasped that, one way or another, he would never see this world again.

What did he hope to accomplish? All he had was an insystem shuttle, which was absolutely no match for the might of the
Devourer of Monkeys
. Where could he take his parody of a pride that would be safe? Another thought struck him: despite her betrayal, Varsha had kept her promise, no police had even attempted to get in his way.

He slowed near the lip of the massive ravine just enough to dip into the airlock tunnel that led to the pressurized portion of the spaceport. Once at the garage, he skidded the truck to a stop. Something was wrong. He sensed no mind (or too few) in this usually busy area of spaceport. Canyon Police must have evacuated this entire zone. He tore the cargo hold’s door open and hastily pulled the females out, absorbing their fear and disorientation.

“Hurry!”

The group ran, huddled in a tight knot of flame-colored fur, down the airtight tarmac toward the waiting shuttle. Bobcat was all too aware that a second shuttle, from the bowels of
Devourer
, had just touched down nearby. His mind was so completely focused on the coming Heroes, that the sight of Canyon law enforcement officers surrounding, no,
dismantling
his ship nearly floored him. The Canyonites looked like cobalt-uniformed social insects carrying away components of his ship in single file.

His keen sense of smell and even keener telepathy discerned the presence of five fully-armed kzinti warriors before he even saw them pouring out of a passage that led back to their ship parked on the surface. His phantom tail lashed furiously. He was trapped.

“You will die, Nameless Traitor!” shouted Remover-of-Obstacles of the
Devourer
’s elite boarding squad. The black-swathed, orange warrior dwarfed the injured telepath.

“I
have
a Name!” Bobcat bared his teeth and dug in his hind claws, preparing to die fighting single-handedly and finally meet the Fanged God.

Hold your breath,
a human voice rang in his mind and compelled his lungs to lock up. The Heroes were upon them. Everything blurred. He choked. His females were suffocating. He heard the distinct clank of a metal container hitting asphalt and then a blast of smoke filled the spaceport’s pressurized terminal.

Don’t breathe; just run to me
. Varsha’s spectral voice controlled Bobcat and his harem like holopuppets. They ran, lungs yearning for air, muscles burning for oxygen. After an eternity, they cleared the haze and reached the undercover agent waiting by an old ARM ship. She finally allowed them to suck in air.

“You look like cinnamon-sprinkled shit,” she said without a hint of jest.

“Trap?” he managed to gasp, ignoring the wicked monkey’s verbal feces.

“No. I need you to link with me. Do that bridge thing you kzinti telepaths do,” she said, helping Tirran and her kit.

“Nwarrkaa Kishri Zaaarll?”
he coughed. “How do you know of the Double Bridge of Demons?”
Was she trying to help him? These monkeys lied too easily.

“We had a kzinti telepath as a consultant during the wars. Do you think you’re the first to defect?”

“No, of course not.” In fact, he bet his life on it. “That is a permanent mental structure. We would be inextricably bound forever!”

“Does it have to be lasting and demonic? How about a telepathic pontoon bridge?” She sent him an image of a temporary military bridge. “Quickly now! You didn’t give me the hour you promised and I need to explain the situation. Anything less than the speed of thought would be dangerously slow.”