The Man-Kzin Wars 01 (16 page)

“
C
arita Fenger, Juan Yoshii, of the ship Rover, stuck on Prima-on Planet
One. Your crew has seen us. I suppose they realize our plight. We're
being
...
swallowed. Please take us off. If your vessel here can't do it,
please dispatch one that can. Over.
”

Silence hummed and rustled. Yoshii kept busy
.

He was returning when the voice struck again:
“
W
e lost two boats with a
total of eight heroes aboard before we established the nature of the
peril. I will not waste time explaining it to you. Most certainly I will
not hazard another craft and more lives. On the basis of observations
made by the crew of Sun Defter,
if you keep energy output minimal you have approximately five hundred hours left to spend as you see fit.
“

A click
signaled
the cutoff
.

Werlith-Commandant had been quite kindly by his lights, Yoshii
acknowledged
.

He entered the control cabin.
“
I
'm sorry, Carita," he said
.

She rose and went to meet him. Starlight guided her through shadows and
glinted off her hair and a few tears.
“
I
'm sorry too, Juan," she gulped
.

“
N
ow let's both of us stop apologizing. The thing has happened, that's
all. Look, we can try a broadcast that maybe they'll pick up in Shep, so
they'll know. They won't dare reply, I suppose, but it's nice to think
they might know. First let's eat, though, and have a couple of drinks,
and talk, and, and go to bed. The same bed.
”

He lowered his tray to the chart shelf
“
I
'm exhausted," he mumbled
.

She threw her arms around him and drew his head down to her opulent
bosom.
“
S
o'm I, chum. And if you want to spend the rest of what time
we've got being faithful, okay. But let's stay together. It's cold out
there. Even in a narrow bunk, let's be together while we can."

The sun in the screen showed about half the Soldisc at Earth. Its light equaled more than 10,000 full
Luna’s
, red rather than off-white but still ample to make Secunda shine. The planetary crescent was mostly yellowish-brown, little softened by a tenuous atmosphere of methane with traces of carbon dioxide
and ammonia. A polar cap brightened its
s
intered northern hemisphere, a shrunken one the southern. The latter was all water ice, the former enlarged by carbon dioxide and ammonia that had frozen out. These two gases did it everywhere at night, most times, evaporating again by day in summer and the tropics, so that sunrises and sunsets were apt to be violent. Along the terminator glittered a storm of fine silicate dust mingled with ice crystals.

The surface bore scant relief, but the slow rotation, 57 hours, was bringing into view a gigantic crater and a number of lesser neighbors. Probably a moon had crashed within the past billion years; the scars remained, though any orbiting fragments had dissipated. A sister moon survived, three-fourths Lunar diameter, dark yellowish like so many bodies in this system
.

Thus did Tregennis interpret what he and Ryan saw as they sat in Rover's saloon watching the approach. Data taken from afar, before the capture, helped him fill in details. Talking about them was an anodyne for both men. Markham entered. Silence rushed through like a wind.

I have an announcement," he said after a moment
.

Neither prisoner stirred
.

“
W
e are debarking in half an hour," he went on. I have arranged for your clothing and hygienic equipment to be brought along. Including your medication, Professor.
“

“
T
hank you," Tregennis said flatly
.

“
W
hy shouldn't he?" Ryan sneered.
“
K
eep the animals alive till the master race can think of a need for them. I wonder if he'll share in the feast." Markham's
stiffness
became rigidity.
“
H
ave a care," he warned. I have been very patient with you.
”

During the 50-odd hours of 3-g flight
–
during which Hraou-Captain allowed the polarizer to lighten weight-he had received no word from either, nor eye contact. To be sure, he had been cultivating the acquaintance of such kzinti among the prize crew as deigned to talk with him.
“
D
on't provoke
me.
”

“
A
ll right," Ryan answered. Unable to resist:
“
N
ot but what I couldn't put up with a lot of provocation myself, if I were getting paid what they must be paying you.
”

Markham's cheekbones reddened.
“
F
or your information, I have never had one mark of recompense, nor ever been promised any. Not one." Tregennis regarded him in mild amazement.
“
T
hen why have you turned traitor?" he asked
.

I have not. On the contrary-" Markham stood for several seconds before he plunged.
“
S
ee here, if you will listen, if you will treat me like a human being, you can learn some things you will be well advised to know." Ryan scowled at his beer glass, shrugged, nodded, and grumbled,
“
M
ight as well.
”

“
C
an you talk freely?" Tregennis inquired
.

Markham sat down. I have not been forbidden to. Of course, what I have been told so far is quite limited. However, certain kzinti, including Hraou
Captain, have been reasonably forthcoming. They have been bored by their uneventful duty, are intrigued by me, and see no immediate threat to security
.

I can understand that," said Tregennis dryly
.

Markham leaned forward. His assurance had shrunk enough to notice. He tugged his half-beard. His tone became earnest:
“
R
emember, for a dozen Earth-years I fought the kzinti. I was raised to it. They had driven my mother
into exile. The motto of the House of Reichstein was 'Ehre-' well, in English, 'Honor Through Service.' She changed it to 'No Surrender.' Most people had long since given up, you know. They accepted the kzin order of things. Many had been born into it, or had only dim childhood memories of anything before. Revolt would have brought massacre. Aristocrats who stayed on Wunderland-the majority-saw no alternative to cooperating with the occupation forces, at least to the extent of preserving order among humans and keeping industries in operation. They were, apt to look on us who fought as dangerous extremists. It was a seductive belief. As the years wore on, with no end in sight, more and more members of the resistance despaired. Through the aristocrats at home they negotiated terms permitting them to come back and pick up the pieces of their lives. My mother was among those who had the greatness of spirit to refuse the
temptation. 'No Surrender.'
“

Ryan still glowered, but Tregennis said with a dawn of sympathy,
“
T
hen the hyperdrive armada arrived and she was vindicated. Were you not glad?"
“
O
f course," Markham said.
“
W
e jubilated, my comrades and
I
, after we were through weeping for the joy and glory of it. That was a short-lived happiness. We had work to do. At first it was clean. The fighting had caused destruction. The navy from Sol could spare few units; it must go on to subdue the kzinti elsewhere. On the men of the resistance fell the tasks of rescue and relief
.

“
T
hen as we returned to our homes on
Wunderland
and many others for the first time in our lives-we found that the world for whose liberation we had fought, the world of our vision and hope, was gone, long gone. Everywhere was turmoil. Mobs stormed manor after manor of the 'collaborationist' aristocrats,
lynched, raped, looted, burned-as if those same
paroles
had not groveled before the kzinti and kept war production going for them
!
Lunatic political factions rioted against each other or did actual armed combat
.

Chaos brought breakdown, want, misery, death
.

“
M
y mother took a lead in calling for a restoration of law. We did it, we soldiers from space. What we did was often harsh, but necessary. A caretaker government was established. We thought that we could finally get on with our private lives-though
I
, for one, busied myself in the effort to build up Centaurian defense forces, so that never again could my people be overrun
.

“
I
n the years that my back was turned, they, my people, were betrayed." Markham choked on his bitterness
.

“
D
o you mean the new constitution, the democratic movement in general?" Tregennis prompted
.

Markham recovered and nodded.
“
N
o one denied that reform, reorganization was desirable. I will concede, if only because our time to talk now is limited, most of the reformers meant well. They did not foresee the consequences of what they enacted. I admit I did not myself. But I was busy, often away for long periods of time. My mother, on our estates, saw what was happening, and piece by piece made it clear to me."
“
Y
our estates. You kept them, then. I gather most noble families kept a substantial part of their former holdings; and Wunderland's House of Patricians is the upper chamber of its parliament. Surely you don't think you have come under a
...
mobocracy.
“

“
B
ut I do! At least, that is the way it is tending. That is the way it will go, to completion, to destruction, if it is not stopped. A political Gresham's Law
prevails; the bad drives out the good. Look at me, for example. I have one vote, by hereditary right, in the Patricians, and it is limited to federal matters. To take a meaningful role in restoring a proper society
through enactment of proper laws-a role which it is my hereditary duty to take-I must begin by being elected a consul of my state, Braefell. That would give me a voice in choosing who goes to the House of Delegates- No matter details. I went into politics.
”

“
H
olding your well-bred nose," Ryan murmured
.

Markham flushed again.
“
I
am for the people. The honest, decent, hard-working, sensible common people, who know in their hearts that society is tradition and order and reverence, not a series of cheap bargains between selfish interests. One still finds them in the countryside. It is in the cities that the maggots are, the mobs, the criminals, the parasites, the
...
politicians.
”

For the first time, Ryan smiled a little.
“
C
an't say I admire the political process either. But I will say the cure is not to domesticate the lower class. How about letting everybody see to his own business, with a few cops and courts to keep things from getting too hairy?" I heard that argument often enough. It is stupid. It assumes the obvious falsehood that an individual can function in isolation like an atom. Oh, I did my share of toadying. I shook the clammy hands and said the clammy words, but it was hypocritical ritual, a sugar coating over the cynicism and corruption-
”

“
I
n short, you lost.
”

I learned better than to try.
”

Ryan started to respond but checked himself. Markham smiled like a death's head.
“
T
hereupon I decided to call back the kzinti, is that what you wish to say?" he gibed. Seriously:
“
N
o, it was not that simple at all. I had had dealings with them throughout my war career, negotiations, exchanges, interrogation and care of prisoners, the sort of relationships one always has with an opponent. They came to fascinate me and I learned everything about them that I could. The more I knew, the
more effective a freedom fighter I would be, not so?
“
A
fter the
...
liberation, my knowledge and my reputation caused me to have still more to do with them. There were mutual repatriations to arrange. There were kzinti who had good cause to stay behind. Some had been born in the Centaurian System; the second and later fleets carried females. Others came to join such kinfolk, or on their own, as fugitives, because their society too was in upheaval and many of them actually admired us, now that we had fought successfully. Remember, most of those newcomers arrived on human hyperdrive ships. This was official policy, in the hope of earning goodwill, of learning more about kzinti in general, and of
frankly
having possible hostages. Even so, they were often subject to cruel discrimination or outright persecution. What could I do but intervene in their behalf? They, or their brothers, had been brave and honorable enemies. It was time to become friends.
”