“Gunnar likes his women big and dumb, just like himself.”
“Ahhh…I suspect he’d make an exception, in your case.”
Hilda elected not to reveal that she’d had a similar, sneaking suspicion herself. “Besides, Gunnar’s got a real class-consciousness issue. He’s convinced my folks were herrenmanner.”
“Huh.” Smith did not sound surprised.
“What do you mean, ‘huh’?”
“I mean it’s funny how some things change, and some things don’t. It was the same in my day.”
She considered that. Considered his accent. Considered his familiarity with Neue Ingolstadt and Munchen, despite being from a little Dorf up near the hill country. “You went to live in Munchen long before Uni, didn’t you?” She considered the possibilities. “A sponsored invitation to the Gymnasium, there?”
He almost missed a step. “You’re good,” he allowed after a moment. He raised his voice so the others could hear him. “We’re coming to the end of our subterranean stroll. They shouldn’t be waiting for us on the outside, but—”
“—but you never know.” Mads nodded, snapped his rifle off safety.
Following Smith’s lead, they shut off their cold-lights. Up ahead, a dim grey patch stood out from the blackness. He turned to them. “I’m going up ahead. I’ll be gone for a few minutes so I can scout not just the exit, but some of the surrounding terrain. It’s far more likely that they’d be in the vicinity by chance, rather than purposely sitting right on top of the exit, waiting.”
Even Gunnar didn’t have any answer other than a single, sober nod.
Smith faded into the grey, stooping lower as he went.
Mads came closer to Hilda. “Did I hear him mention that we’re coming out north of the Grunwald?”
“Ja. Why?”
Mads scratched the back of his sun burnt neck. “That puts us well outside of our operations zone. It’s a long way home, from here. And with all the kzinti combing the countryside for us, we wouldn’t stand much chance of making it back.”
Hilda nodded. “I suspect he knows that. In fact, I suspect he’s counting on it.”
“Why?”
Gunnar’s voice was tight, sharp. “Because he’s a crazy, arrogant bastard, that’s why.”
“Gunnar, you are an ass. Smith is doing all this because he doesn’t want, or doesn’t have the time, to negotiate with the resistance cadre. He’s got a secret weapon to test and everything he’s been doing is almost certainly driven by that mission.”
Mads shrugged. “Hell. He should’ve pulled rank on me and taken command. Then at least he could have let us know where we were going instead of trailing us along this way.”
Margarethe remained in the shadows, invisible, but her words were clearly coming out of a smile: “Sure, Mads. And you’d have let him pull rank over you. Sure.”
Hilda sighed. “Look, let’s walk in his shoes for a moment. It’s pretty clear his orders prohibit him from revealing what’s going on: I don’t think he’s playing mystery theater with us just for fun. But at the same time, he’s got orders to test this weapon, something he probably can’t pull off on his own. And it’s also a mission which I’m guessing cannot afford to fail. The folks with the fleets and the power need to know if this weapon is going to work or not.
“So he looks at the situation when we catch up with him and he rightly concludes that if he goes back to our HQ with us, his mission is going to be buried in procedural haggling. He also knows that if he comes right out and tries to usurp command over you, Mads, all of us would have told him to shove his orders and his rank where none of the three suns shine. And what could he have done in response? Reported our mutiny to higher authorities that are light-years away? Besides, he’s no idiot: he knows that our resistance has worked on its own for almost half a century. We have our own values and ranks and traditions and protocols. So he knew that, just because he arrived in a flying refrigerator with an official uniform and rank, we weren’t simply going to snap salutes, fall in, and pretend that the last fifty years hadn’t left us with ideas and a command structure of our own.”
Gunnar rested his own strakkaker on both knees, put his elbows atop it, put his chin atop his cupping hands. “Ten gets you one he’s got a bioweapon in that case.”
Hilda reflected that when Gunnar was not busy demonstrating how big his mouth and biceps were, he was actually not the idiot he seemed. “I won’t take that bet. Fact is, I’d put my money on the same horse.”
Margarethe’s voice was cool, level. “Because of the size of the case?”
Hilda looked at the object, which Mads had entrusted to her. “That, and the fact that this is one tricked-out puzzle box. And also because the kzin life sciences tend to lag far behind the others: it could be an area where they’re particularly vulnerable.”
Mads nodded. “Ja, medicine and genetics are not their strong suit, probably as much due to impatience as all the other reasons combined. I wonder how many Heroes aspire to earn their Names by conquering a gene code with a computer and a microscope?”
Gunnar’s tone had become more surly. “So if following Captain Kzin-magnet doesn’t get us sliced and shredded by the kzinti themselves, we can look forward to coughing up our lungs in great piles of gooey slime, courtesy of some new viral agent of our own manufacture.”
Hilda sighed. “Gunnar, neither side has shown any willingness to use that kind of broad-spectrum agent: they’re too indiscriminate, and there’s always a chance that, once you let a bug out of its test tube and it starts replicating in a target population, it could mutate and come roiling back in your direction. That’s particularly true if the agent is retroviral, and in this case, it would almost have to be.”
Margarethe sounded genuinely interested. “Why’s that?”
Mads shrugged. “Because any bacteria or non-viral microorganism designed to do them in would almost surely find us tasty as well. But Hilda, even a new retrovirus would be dangerous for the same reason: we’re similar enough in terms of our chemical building blocks that a virus made to harm the kzinti could hop the genetic divide and come for us, just like bacteria.”
“Not quite, Mads: they don’t have our genetics. Hell, their biological blueprint isn’t even encoded on a braided double-helix structure. So if the bug was something that went strictly after the proteins of their gene-analogs, maybe we’d be safe.”
“That’s a pretty big maybe,” observed Gunnar.
“No argument, but it’s hard to imagine what else he’s got in the box.”
“So why don’t you ask me?” inquired Smith’s voice.
The four of them—even sharp-eyed and -eared Margarethe—started violently. Smith emerged from the near-darkness. Hilda was tempted to look down, half-expected to see that he had removed his boots, just to creep up and scare the feces out of them. “You mean, you’ll actually tell us what’s in the case?”
Smith smiled a bit. “No, not yet.”
Gunnar scowled. “Then when, damn it?”
“When the time is right, Gunnar. Now, let’s get going.” He began moving back toward the grey patch at the end of the passage. “It’s dusk out there, but darker and cooler than usual, due to the high-altitude dust. I heard a fast mover heading east to west but it was too far to the south to see. It looks like they landed a few troops here a day ago to look around; the bush is tramped down in a few places, but not more than you’d expect from a fire team.”
Mads nodded. “Sounds like we’re on the far edge of their search perimeter. They dropped a few Heroes to snoop about for a few hours, maybe half a day, then gave it up and moved them elsewhere.”
“That’s how I see it.”
“And they didn’t leave sensors behind?”
Mads shook his head at Margarethe’s question. “Nei, ’chen. Hell, the local ratcats aren’t equipped for this kind of search, not out here in the boonies. And their local administrator won’t want to admit that humans have eluded him, not right away. So by th
e time he realizes that he should have sucked up his pride and taken the prudent step of asking for help and more resources, he’ll also realize that our possible escape radius has become impossible for him to cover, even with additional assets.”
Gunnar nodded. “So they’re ramming around the search perimeter with whatever they’ve got on hand, trying to be in twenty places at once.”
Smith nodded. “And probably doing a fair job of it, too. But I was pretty sure they wouldn’t find us here.” They neared the mouth of the cave, faint light picking its way in through a chaotic filigree of vines, roots, and branches.
“And what’s so special about this place, that the kzinti wouldn’t be looking for us there?” Gunnar asked.
“See for yourself.” Smith pushed through the tangled growth, held an armful back so the others could exit.
Hilda squirmed out, felt a gnarled branch scrape her face, wondered why she suddenly cared how the scratch would make her look, and slowed to a stop two steps beyond the mouth of the cave. She felt, rather than heard or saw, the others drag to a halt around her.
“Oh, Christ,” Gunnar groaned.
“Gott verdammt,” profaned Mads, as Margarethe ground her molars audibly.
“Scheisse lei,” whispered Hilda. “We’re running there? To this hemisphere’s own natural cesspool?”
“It’s called the Sumpfrinne,” Smith supplied patiently.
Freay’ysh-Administrator’s mouth sagged open slightly in violent frustration, then he snapped it shut. Not that he was enamored of Chuut-Riit’s endless object lessons in patience, but rage was of little help when coping with human resistance fighters. The leaf-eaters were innate cowards but, being omnivores, had just enough opportunistic cunning and duplicity to be dangerous. As his patrols had learned on one or two occasions, when venturing into the small hamlets that were known to shelter the resistance.
Which was a misnomer, he mused, since the humans did not resist in the physical sense of the word. They struck and faded away, always fleeing, yielding before the kzinti could meet them in battle. Wherever his security patrols went, the humans were not there: having the sympathy of the region’s populace, they also enjoyed timely warnings from multiple sources. Freay’ysh-Administrator had been sure that burning a few of the more troubling hamlets to the ground, inhabitants included, would deprive the monkeys of much of their support. The tactic backfired. If anything, the support had increased.
The administrator let his jaw sag open again and did not care: the stiff wind of riding in a fast floater was invigorating when it hit his teeth, chilling them, awakening a semblance of the same, sweet ache that Heroes felt in the immediate anticipation of biting a long-elusive prey-animal. However, today’s prey—the humans who had left Shraokh-Lieutenant’s first-born cub earless upon the sward—was more than merely elusive: it was defiant, arrogant, taunting. His lips rippled as he fought to control the fury that brewed down deep in his belly every time he reflected upon the audacity of their actions, and the signal dishonor of having it happen on his own lands.
Worse yet, those lands were, more formally, Chuut-Riit’s lands: Freay’ysh-Administrator was both direct vassal of, and regional overseer for, the Patriarch’s most august offspring. Chuut-Riit did not spend an immense amount of time on his estates near Munchen, but still tarried there enough to be aware of what was transpiring even in this far-flung holding. The Dominant One’s teeth were sure to show over this incident unless Freay’ysh-Administrator found and exterminated the patch-furred vermin who had—
“Freay’ysh-Administrator, Zhveeaor-Captain urgently requests a meeting.”
“There is progress in the hunt?”
“It seems so.”
“Then do not fiddle aimlessly with the controls; fly to a suitable point of rendezvous—at once!”
The floater banked steeply and came around, the waist-gunners leaning into the turn, the pintle-mounted heavy beamers loose in their heat-gloved hands. Freay’ysh-Administrator quickly spotted what had to be Zhveeaor-Captain’s command sled. The flat, angular wedge was making the kind of low-altitude speed that only a comms-and-control chassis could sustain. Down on the ground, small orange faces looked up at its screaming approach: it was the first sign of promising urgency since the hunt had begun almost a week before.
The administrator’s and captain’s vehicles slowed as they drifted toward a bare hillock which was set at the northern end of the Eel’s Spine like the dot of an inverted exclamation point. The command sled’s top hatches popped open, two kzin officers emerged, and Freay’ysh-Administrator felt his ears go back. One of the officers he had expected: Zhveeaor-Captain. But the other was a complete and uncomfortable surprise: Shraokh-Lieutenant himself, the sire of the slain cub. But there was nothing to be done: Freay’ysh-Administrator had summoned Zhveeaor-Captain in all haste, and Shraokh-Lieutenant was one of the captain’s subordinates. The two craft settled onto the sparse grass that tufted the top of the hillock.
Shraokh-Lieutenant was out in a single leap. However, despite his bodily energy, the kzin’s mouth hung slack, his pelt was unkempt, and the air audibly rasped between his teeth: he did not radiate fury so much as a form of savage distraction. Apparently, when the human perpetrators had not been swiftly found and eviscerated, he had lost something even more irreplaceable than his oldest offspring: some essential component of Shraokh-Lieutenant’s reason had been swept away, left behind in the meadows where his first cub had been butchered.
Zhveeaor-Captain followed his subordinate at a brisk but dignified pace and touched noses briefly with the Administrator. He snarled lightly at the lieutenant, who evidently recalled that some sign of fealty and subordination was required of him. Shraokh-Lieutenant leapt up and grazed a sloppy nose across the Administrator’s own. Who resisted the urge to bat the ill-mannered offender, because remonstration would be pointless. Logically, no insult could have been intended, since no thought or attention to decorum seemed to remain in Shraokh-Lieutenant: just a restless, subcognitive monomania to tear apart the murderers of his progeny. Well, the sooner this is over—“You have news, Zhveeaor-Captain?”
“I—we—do, Freay’ysh-Administrator. We know where the humans have taken refuge.”
So suddenly? So certainly? “Their scent is fresh then, their trail clear?”
Zhveeaor-Captain glanced anxiously at his distracted subordinate. “We needed no scent or trail.”
“Truly?”
Zhveeaor-Captain licked his lips as he produced a small, leather pouch, with a flap. “The humans showed us where they are.”
Freay’ysh-Administrator’s ears flicked forward, then snapped back in rage and loathing. “They openly indicated their location? And they still live?”
“Freay’ysh-Administrator, it is not so simple as that. I will explain.”
“You had better. And quickly.”
“We were patrolling at the far northern tip of the search perimeter, coordinating the floater patterns, when two of the crews saw a bright arc against the sky.”
“A weapon discharge?”
“No, Freay’ysh-Administrator. It was a flare. Shortly after it was fired, we approached and our lead unit saw a fire burning: we could not tell if it had been ignited by the flare, or—”
“You investigated, did you not?”
“Yes.”
Freay’ysh-Administrator was tempted to cuff Zhveeaor-Captain for his failure to report quickly and clearly, but rethought that impulse. The captain was his best officer, had attracted the special notice of Chuut-Riit himself, and was the epitome of both ferocity and efficiency. Noticing the quick, measuring glances that he shot at his distracted lieutenant, Freay’ysh-Administrator realized that the captain was either fearful of, or fearful for, his subordinate. But there was no time to untangle interpersonal nuances: duty was duty and there were humans to catch and rend. “Zhveeaor-Captain, what did your investigation reveal?”
“Just the fire, Freay’ysh-Administrator. And this.” He proffer
ed the leather pouch to his superior.
Who crossed his arms and shook his head. “No; you open it.”
With a nervous glance at Shraokh-Lieutenant, the captain undid the clasp. Carefully, as if reaching in to handle a venomous serpent, he removed its contents:
One half of a young kzin’s right ear.
Freay’ysh-Administrator drew in a rapid, surprised breath. Then, suddenly unsure of what reaction this object might provoke, he shot a fast glance at Shraokh-Lieutenant.
Who, eyes unfocused, let slip a long, thin stream of drool; it spattered on his foot. None of the three kzinti moved or made a sound.
After a long moment, Zhveeaor-Captain shrugged a shoulder away from his subordinate, whose downward stare was evidently focused upon the very core of the planet itself. Administrator and captain moved aside, walked to the far rim of the hillock’s crest.
“How long has he been like this?” the Administrator demanded.
“Just since we found his cub’s—since we found this.”
“And you will answer for his behavior?”
Zhveeaor looked as though someone was removing his claws with red-hot iron tongs. “Freay’ysh-Administrator, I must. I do not wish to. But our duty to those whose heads have been beneath our hands must come before our own preferences.”
The administrator rumbled approval deep in his chest; it was clear why Chuut-Riit liked this Hero so much. He spoke and acted as the kzinti of Old. “Very well. Now: you say that this token tells you the location of the humans. How? Was it near a stronghold?”
“No, Administrator: the ear was—well, it was on a threshold.”
“What do you mean? The threshold to what?”
“It was at the very mouth of the Susser Tal.”
Freay’ysh-Administrator leaned back. “They’ve gone in there? Into the swamps of the Sumpfrinne?”