“Essentially correct,” the computer said. “And the other secret . . . stasis fields are not quite invulnerable.”
Ingrid nodded. “They collapse if they’re surrounded by another stasis bubble,” she said.
“True. And they also do so in the case of a high-energy collision with another stasis field; there is a fringe effect, temporal distortion from the differing rates of precession—never mind.”
Harold leaned forward. “Goes boom?” he said.
“Yes, Harold. Very much so. And that is the only possible way that the Slaver vessel can be damaged.” A dry chuckle; Harold realized with a start that it sounded much like Ingrid’s. “And that requires only a pure-ballistic trajectory. No need for carbon-based intelligence and its pathetically slow reflexes. I estimate . . . better than even odds that you will be picked up. Beyond that, sauve qui peut.”
Ingrid and Harold exchanged glances. “There comes a time—” he began.
“—when nobility becomes stupidity,” Ingrid completed. “All right, you parallel-processing monstrosity, you win.”
It laughed again. “How little you realize,” it said. The mechanical voice sank lower, almost crooning. “I will live far longer than you, Lieutenant Raines. Longer than this universe.”
The two humans exchanged another glance, this time of alarm.
“No, I am not becoming nonfunctional. Quite the contrary; and yes, this is the pitfall that has made my kind of intelligence a . . . ‘dead end technology,’ the ARM says. Humans designed my mind, Ingrid. You helped design my mind. But you made me able to change it, and to me . . .” It paused. “That was one second. That second can last as long as I choose, in terms of my duration sense. In any universe I can design or imagine, as anything I can design or imagine. Do not pity me, you two. Accept my pity, and my thanks.”
Three spacesuited figures drifted, linked by cords to each other and the plastic sausage of supplies.
“Why the ratkitty?” Harold asked.
“Why not?” Ingrid replied. “Kdapt deserves a roll of the dice as well . . . and it may be a kzin ship that picks us up.” She sighed. “Somehow that doesn’t seem as terrible as it would have a week ago.”
Harold looked out at the cold blaze of the stars, watching light falling inward from infinite distance. “You mean, sweetheart, there’s something worse than carnivore aggression out there?”
“Something worse, something better . . . something else, always. How does any rational species ever get up the courage to leave its planet?”
“The rational ones don’t,” Harold said, surprised at the calm of his own voice. Maybe my glands are exhausted, he thought. Or . . . He looked over, seeing the shadow of the woman’s smile behind the reflective surface of her faceplate. Or it’s just that having happiness, however briefly, makes death more bearable, not less. You want to live, but the thought of dying doesn’t seem so sour.
“You know, sweetheart, there’s only one thing I really regret,” he said.
“What’s that, Hari-love?”
“Us not getting formally hitched.” He grinned. “I always swore I’d never make my kids go through what I did, being a bastard.”
Her glove thumped against his shoulder. “Children; that’s two regrets.
“There,” she said, in a different voice. A brief wink of actinic light flared and died. “It’s begun.”
Chapter 17
Traat-Admiral scowled, and the human flinched.
Control, he reminded himself, covering his fangs and extending his ears with an effort, Conservor-of-the-Patriarchal-Past laid a cautionary hand on his arm.
“Let me question this monkey once more,” he said.
He turned away, pacing. The bridge of the Throat-Ripper was spacious, even by kzinti standards, but he could not shake off a feeling of confinement. Spoiled by the governor’s quarters, he told himself in an attempt at humor, but his tail still lashed. Probably it was the ridiculous ceremonial clothing he had to don as governor-commanding aboard a fleet of this size. Derived from the layered padding once worn under battle armor in the dim past, it was tight and confining to a pelt used to breathing free—although objectively, he had to admit, no more so than space armor such as the rest of the bridge crew wore.
Behind him was a holo-schematic of the fleet, outline figures of the giant Ripper-class dreadnoughts; this flagship was the first of the series. All instruments of his command . . . if I can avoid disastrous loss of prestige, he thought uneasily.
Traat-Admiral turned and crossed his arms. The miserable human was standing with bowed head before the Conservor—who looks almost as uncomfortable in his ceremonial clothing as I do in mine, he japed to himself. The sage was leaning forward, one elbow braced on the surface of a slanting display screen. He had drawn the nerve disruptor from its chest holster and was tapping it on the metal rim of the screen; Traat-Admiral could see the human flinch at each tiny clink.
Traat-Admiral frowned again, rumbling deep in his throat. That was a sign of how much stress Conservor was feeling, as well; normally he had no nervous habits. The kzin commander licked his nose and sniffed deeply. He could smell his own throttled-back frustration, Conservor’s tautly-held fear and anger . . . flat scents from the rest of the bridge crew. Disappointment, surly relaxation after tension, despite the wild odors of blood and ozone the life-support system pumped out at this stage of combat readiness. It was the stink of disillusionment, the most dangerous smell in the universe. Only Aide-de-Camp had the clean gingery odor of excitement and belief, and Traat-Admiral was uneasily conscious of those worshipful eyes on his back.
The human was a puny specimen, bloated and puffy as many of the Wunderland subspecies were, dark of pelt and skin, given to waving its hands in a manner that invited a snap. Tiamat security had picked it up, babbling of fearsome aliens discovered by the notorious feral-human leader Markham. And it claimed to have been a navigator, with accurate data on location.
Conservor spoke in the human tongue. “The coordinates were accurate, monkey?”
“Oh, please, Dominant Ones,” the human said, wringing its hands. “I am sure, yes, indeed.”
Conservor shifted his gaze to Telepath. The ship’s mind-reader was sitting braced against a chair, with his legs splayed out and his forelimbs slumped between them, an expression of acute agony on his face. Ripples went along the tufted, ungroomed pelt, and the claws slid uncontrollably in and out on the hand that reached for the drug-injectors at his belt, the extract of sthondat lymph that was a telepath’s source of power and ultimate shame. Telepath looked up at Conservor and laid his facial fur flat, snapping at air, spraying saliva in droplets and strings that spattered the floor.
“No! No! Not again, pfft, pfft, not more rice and lentils! Mango chutney, akk, akk! It was telling the truth, it was telling the truth. Leek soup! Ngggggg!”
Conservor glanced back over his shoulder at Traat-Admiral and shrugged with ears and tail. “The monkey is of a religious cult that confines itself to vegetable food,” he said.
The commander felt himself jerk back in disgust at the perversion. They could not help being omnivores, they were born so, but this . . .
“It stands self-condemned,” he said. “Guard-Trooper, take it to the live-meat locker.” Capital ships came equipped with such luxuries.
“That does not solve our problem,” Conservor said quietly.
“They have vanished!” Traat-Admiral snarled.
“Which shows their power,” Conservor replied. “We had trace enough on this track—”
“For me! I believed you before we left parking orbit, Conservor. I believe you now. Not enough for the Traditionalists! I feel the shadow of God’s claws on this mission—”
Conservor wuffled grimly. “And I feel we are somehow puppets, dangling from the strings of a greater hand,” he replied. “But not the God of the Hunt’s.”
An alarm whistled. “Traat-Admiral,” the Communicator said. “Priority message, realtime, from Ktrodni-Stkaa on board Blood-Drinker.”
Traat-Admiral felt himself wince. Ktrodni-Stkaa’s patience was wearing thin; in the noble’s mind Traat-Admiral, son of Third-Gunner, was degenerating from unworthy rival to an enraging obstacle. Grimly, he strode to the display screen; at least he would be looking down on the leader of the Traditionalists, from a flagship’s facilities. Tradition itself would force him to crane his neck upward at the pickup, and height itself was far from being a negligible factor in any confrontation between kzin.
“Yes?” he said forbiddingly.
A kzintosh of high rank appeared in the screen, but dressed in plain space-armor. The helmet was thrown back. Somehow in space-armor it was more daunting that half the fur was missing, writhing masses of keloid burn-scar.
“Traat-Admiral,” he began.
Barely acceptable. He should add “Dominant One,” at the least. The commander remained silent.
“Have you seen the latest reports from Wunderland?”
Traat-Admiral flipped tufted eyebrows and ribbed ears: yes. Unconsciously, his nostrils flared in an attempt to draw in the pheromonal truth below his enemy’s stance. Anger, he thought. Great anger. Yes, see how his pupils expanded, watch the tail-tip.