Locklear knew that primitive kzinti ate vegetables as well, and so did their meat animals; but he kept his silence. It hadn’t even occurred to these piratical deserters that the kzinti below might be as prehistoric as Neanderthalers. Good; let them think they understood the kzinti! But nobody knows ’em like 1 do, he thought. It was an arrogance he would recall with bitterness very, very soon.
Gomulka set the pinnace down with practiced ease behind a stone escarpment and Parker, his gaze nervously sweeping the jungle, used his gun barrel to urge Locklear out of the craft.
Soichiro Lee’s gentle smile did not match his final words: “If you manage to hide out here, just remember we’ll pick up your little girlfriend before long. Probably a better piece of snatch than the Manaus machine,” he went on, despite a sudden glare from Gomulka. “How long do you want us to use her, asshole? Think about it,” he winked, and the canopy’s “thunk” muffled the guffaws of Anse Parker.
Locklear raced away as the pinnace lifted, making it look good. They had tossed Br’er Rabbit into his personal briar patch, never suspecting he might have friends here.
He was thankful that the village lay downhill as he began his one athletic specialty, long-distance jogging, because he could once again feel the synthetic gravity of Kzersatz tugging at his body. He judged that he was a two-hour trot from the village and paced himself carefully, walking and resting now and then. And planning.
As soon as Scarface learned the facts, they could set a trap for the returning pinnace. And then, with captives of his own, Locklear could negotiate with Stockton. It was clear by now that Curt Stockton considered himself a leader of virtue—because he was a man of ideas. David Gomulka was a man of action without many important ideas, the perfect model of a playground bully long after graduation.
And Stockton? He would’ve been the kind of clever kid who decided early that violence was an inferior way to do things, because he wasn’t very good at it himself. Instead, he’d enlist a Gomulka to stand nearby while the clever kid tried to beat you up with words; debate you to death. And if that finally failed, he could always sigh, and walk away leaving the bully to do his dirty work, and imagine that his own hands were clean.
But Kzersatz was a whole ‘nother playground, with different rules. Locklear smiled at the thought and jogged on.
An hour later he heard the beast crashing in panic through orange ferns before he saw it, and realized that it was pursued only when he spied a young male flashing with sinuous efficiency behind.
No one ever made friends with a kzin by interrupting its hunt, so Locklear stood motionless among palmferns and watched. The prey reminded him of a pygmy tyrannosaur, almost the height of a man but with teeth meant for grazing on foliage. The kzin bounded nearer, disdaining the wtsai knife at his belt, and screamed only as he leaped for the kill.
The prey’s armored hide and thrashing tail made the struggle interesting, but the issue was never in doubt. A kzin warrior was trained to hunt, to kill, and to eat that kill, from kittenhood. The roars of the lizard dwindled to a hissing gurgle; the tail and the powerful legs stilled. Only after the kzin vented his victory scream and ripped into his prey did Locklear step into the clearing made by flattened ferns.
Hands up and empty, Locklear called in Kzin, “The kzin is a mighty hunter!” To speak in Kzin, one needed a good falsetto and plenty of spit. Locklear’s command was fair, but the young kzin reacted as though the man had spouted fire and brimstone. He paused only long enough to snatch up his kill, a good hundred kilos, before bounding off at top speed.
Crestfallen, Locklear trotted toward the village again. He wondered now if Scarface and Kit, the mate Locklear had freed for him, had failed to speak of mankind to the ancient kzin tribe. In any case, they would surely respond to his use of their language until he could get Scarface’s help. Perhaps the young male had simply raced away to bring the good news.
And perhaps, he decided a half-hour later, he himself was the biggest fool in Known Space or beyond it. They had ringed him before he knew it, padding silently through foliage the same mottled yellows and oranges as their fur. Then, almost simultaneously, he saw several great tigerish shapes disengage from their camouflage ahead of him, and heard the scream as one leapt upon him from behind.
Bowled over by the rush, feeling hot breath and fangs at his throat, Locklear moved only his eyes. His attacker might have been the same one he surprised while hunting, and he felt needle-tipped claws through his flight suit.
Then Locklear did the only things he could: kept his temper, swallowed his terror, and repeated his first greeting: “The kzin is a mighty hunter.”
He saw, striding forward, an old kzin with ornate bandolier straps. The oldster called to the others, “It is true, the beast speaks the Hero’s Tongue! It is as I prophesied.” Then, to the young attacker, “Stand away at the ready,” and Locklear felt like breathing again.
“I am Locklear, who first waked members of your clan from age-long sleep,” he said in that ancient dialect he’d learned from Kit. “I come in friendship. May I rise?”
A contemptuous gesture and, as Locklear stood up, a worse remark. “Then you are the beast that lay with a palace prret, a courtesan. We have heard. You will win no friends here.”
A cold tendril marched down Locklear’s spine. “May I speak with my friends? The kzinti have things to fear, but I am not among them.”
More laughter. “The Rockear beast thinks it is fearsome,” said the young male, his ear-umbrellas twitching in merriment.
“I come to ask help, and to offer it,” Locklear said evenly.
“The priesthood knows enough of your help. Come,” said the older one. And that is how Locklear was marched into a village of prehistoric kzinti, ringed by hostile predators twice his size.
* * *
His reception party was all-male, its members staring at him in frank curiosity while prodding him to the village. They finally left him in an open area surrounded by huts with his hands tied, a leather collar around his neck, the collar linked by a short braided rope to a hefty stake. When he squatted on the turf, he noticed the soil was torn by hooves here and there. Dark stains and an abattoir odor said the place was used for butchering animals. The curious gazes of passing females said he was only a strange animal to them. The disappearance of the males into the largest of the semi-submerged huts suggested that he had furnished the village with something worth a town meeting.
At last the meeting broke up, kzin males striding from the hut toward him, a half-dozen of the oldest emerging last, each with a four-fingered paw tucked into his bandolier belt. Prominent scars across the breasts of these few were all exactly similar; some kind of self-torture ritual, Locklear guessed. Last of all with the ritual scars was the old one he’d spoken with, and this one had both paws tucked into his belt. Got it; the higher your status, the less you need to keep your hands ready, or to hurry.
The old devil was enjoying all this ceremony, and so were the other big shots. Standing in clearly-separated rings behind them were the other males with a few females, then the other females, evidently the entire tribe. Locklear spotted a few kzinti whose expressions and ear-umbrellas said they were either sick or unhappy, but all played their obedient parts.
Standing before him, the oldster reached out and raked Locklear’s face with what seemed to be only a ceremonial insult. It brought welts to his cheek anyway. The oldster spoke for all to hear. “You began the tribe’s awakening, and for that we promise a quick kill.”
“I waked several kzinti, who promised me honor,” Locklear managed to say.
“Traitors? They have no friends here. So you—have no friends here,” said the old kzin with pompous dignity. “This the priesthood has decided.”
“You are the leader?”
“First among equals,” said the high priest with a smirk that said he believed in no equals.
“While this tribe slept,” Locklear said loudly, hoping to gain some support, “a mighty kzin warrior came here. I call him Scarface. I return in peace to see him, and to warn you that others who look like me may soon return. They wish you harm, but I do not. Would you take me to Scarface?”
He could not decipher the murmurs, but he knew amusement when he saw it. The high priest stepped forward, untied the rope, handed it to the nearest of the husky males who stood behind the priests. “He would see the mighty hunter who had new ideas,” he said. “Take him to see that hero, so that he will fully appreciate the situation. Then bring him back to the ceremony post.”