Man-Kzin Wars XIV (3 page)

“There is one thing, though,” she said before he could get started. “It was generally kzin tactical doctrine, after they got the measure of us in the early days, to travel in the largest possible fleets. This ship doesn’t look as it it was hit by a fleet.”

“Well, that’s very interesting, but what has it got to do with me?” Vaemar asked the two humans. Their breathing indicated they were nervous, but confronting a predator with more than twice their combined bodyweight would tend to have that effect. Vaemar was used to it, and went out of his way to underplay the fangs. Yawning was definitely out, and watching a videotape of a downed spacecraft isn’t particularly stimulating, so concentration was needed.

“Well, we were all set to sell the video to a news channel. We’d agreed to a huge price, and everything looked grand. But then Sarah thought of something.”

Sarah explained: “You see, I figured it was probably shot down by a kzin warcraft. I mean it’s the easy explanation, isn’t it? And that might stir up old resentments. If you think it would cause interspecies trouble, we wouldn’t go through with it. I mean, we could do with the money, but money isn’t everything, and it was just luck that we saw the fin. So it’s not as if we did anything to earn any. We don’t really deserve it.” She would have smiled, but knew better. The circumstances in which humans showed their teeth to kzin were very restricted.

Vaemar looked at her thoughtfully. A sense of honor in a female human. He’d known it before, of course; he had several manrett friends, but it was not altogether common, and rather refreshing. “But why me?”

“We talked to Abbot Boniface first, and he said you were the one to see. He said you are effectively leader of the kzin, and it was time you got into politics,” Sarah told him innocently.

Vaemar sighed, a kzin noise like treacle going down a drain. He was already getting into politics, and he hated every single politic he’d gotten into. But he liked these people. The male was ginger-haired and had orange spots all over his face. Freckles, he thought they were called. The female was a nice chocolate color, which looked much healthier, and she had crinkly black hair, which looked like spun wire. When he moved, the sun flashed on the metal of his ear-ring. After the adventure in the caves with Rarrgh, he had the beginnings of a respectable collection of human and kzinti ears hanging from his belt. The kzin—yes, call it “
surrender
”—on Wunderland, while the war went on in space, had been inevitable, and he was overwhelmingly glad of it for many reasons, but it did make life complex sometimes.

“It might, of course, have been downed by a kzin warcraft,” his deep voice half-purred. “But a spacecraft is unlikely. Most of the ships from Earth that tried to run the blockade were detected and intercepted when still in deep space. Getting this close would have been difficult. An approach well out of the ecliptic might have been tried, but there were detecting satellites out there, too. If it had got as far as low orbit of
Ka’ashi
—I beg your pardon, of
Wunderland—
there would be little defense except aircraft and a few satellites. If it had run into the fleet or one of its prides, there would have been nothing left of it.

“I shall have records searched to see if there is any mention of the kzin shooting down a craft that got very close. They may not exist—much was destroyed at . . .” He couldn’t quite
bring himself to say either “
Liberation
” or “
surrender
” easily, and the humans noticed it—“at the signing of the truce with Man, but it would be interesting to see if there is anything left. Hroth, who was staff-officer, is writing an account.”

Not a pleasant job for a kzin to undertake,
thought Sarah.
Still, it may be an interesting document. And humans will enjoy buying it to read heroic things about themselves.

The young kzin looked at them both. “But that is of historical interest. The question is, should you suppress your finding in the interests of kzin-man relations. The answer is ‘no,’ you must not. Sell it to your television station. Only complete honesty and openness between our species can help us forge the trust we both need. This is history, it is our task to make the future, we must not let the past dictate to us. And now, please join my mate and me for afternoon tea. I hope you like cucumber and tomato sandwiches, Karan is rather proud of her sandwiches. She has even tried eating some of them . . . I must confess my own vices include a taste for cake. My Sire took me when I was a very young kit to his secretary’s children’s party. She gave me cake and a large ball of fiber to leap upon. I sometimes wondered where she got that idea—until I found out.” His ears lifted in the kzin equivalent of a smile.

“I trust you were not offended,” Sarah said nervously.

“On the contrary, I have had some made for my own kits.”

Senator von Hohenheim was busy. He was always busy. So when the little sharp-faced man knocked on his door and came in without being asked, the senator switched on a scowl that would have astonished his electorate. The senator was a bulky man, and on television could have passed for a bald Santa Claus out of uniform, but just at the moment his glare would have smashed mirrors and broken camera lenses. “What the hell do you want, you grubby little runt? I’m busy. I’ve got a committee to chair in ten minutes.”

Alois Grün was apologetic. “I’m sorry, Senator, but it’s important. The evening news will have some footage of a spaceship from Earth that crashed into the Great Southern Ocean some years ago. Nobody knew of it until now, apparently. Well, hardly anybody.” He looked meaningfully at the senator.

“Why should it be of the slightest interest to me, for G—Oh.” There was a pause which, if not in fact pregnant, had definitely been going into overdrive on the chocolate biscuits.

“Oh. You don’t think . . .”

“Well, Senator,” Grün was still deferential, but there was more than a faint hint of something a great deal less gentle. Skinny little Smeagol of a creature the man might be, but, Senator von Höhenheim reminded himself, he had survived the Occupation, where perhaps eight Wunderlanders in every ten had not. Darwin had operated ruthlessly among the humans of Wunderland for more than sixty years. There was cunning there, and even more importantly, ruthless determination. “It is hard to explain otherwise, is it not? I mean, your orders were obeyed instantly. I was there to see the missiles launched in accordance with your instruction. Obviously I didn’t see the actual strike, but there must have been one, must there not? And since the ship was never found, well, this might well be it, don’t you think?”

The senator looked at him and considered. “Is it too late to damp the story down? Can we prevent it going out?”

“I have read Earth history. I was a schoolteacher once, a long time ago, before the invasion.” A not-so-subtle reminder that he had been one of the fortunate or cunning few who had retained access to geriatric drugs. And that he knew a lot. “The Marconi scandals, Watergate, the climate change falsifications. In each case the cover-up was worse than the original wrongdoing. To cover up now would surely cause an even bigger storm than the video itself. It would prove there was something to hide. I cannot recommend that approach, Senator.” The little man rubbed his hands together. It didn’t show in any
too
obvious way, but he was enjoying this, just as he enjoyed lecturing the senator on subjects he would know nothing about.

“Of course, it goes without saying that should an unfortunate accident befall me, I have left a record that would be published. Killing my attorney, banker, or other obvious trustees would be an inadequate means of suppression. It is not in an obvious or vulnerable place, and indeed, there may be more than one copy.”

The senator looked at him narrowly. “Well, it surely is inconsequential. After all, it’s been eighteen years. The thing has been in the sea and must surely be corroded. There will be nothing to show what brought it down. And one hole must look much like another. Everyone will take it for granted that it was some kzin attack that destroyed it.”

“Forensic science is very advanced, Senator. And some modern materials resist corrosion. Spaceship hull alloys, for instance.”

“Most of the police stations and laboratories were destroyed at Liberation.”

“Only ‘most.’ Some records survived. As did a few of the police—the lucky ones. You know how collaborators were dealt with . . . Except for those smart enough to keep a foot in each camp,” Grün said. “The Kzin got most of those early, with telepath sweeps.” He went on: “Meanwhile, ARM has been bringing in new up-to-date detection equipment. To say nothing of the rumors we hear that they’ve got kzin telepaths working for them on interrogations. Kzin torturers, too, some say.”

“I refuse to believe that, even of ARM. If the population found out . . .”

“I could not be at all sure that there won’t be some that tell the truth,” Grün said. “And if that got out, well, you would be in serious trouble, Senator. Hanged as a traitor, very likely. You’ve seen plenty of hangings, and worse. You know what they entail. Certainly the story of how you only pretended to join the collaborators to spy on them would be . . . difficult . . . to sustain. At best, it would be the end of your career. Even if you escaped the noose or the axe, I doubt you would find eking out a living as a laborer in some back-block farm very appealing. And don’t forget there are still plenty of people who wouldn’t let an acquittal by a court inhibit them.”

“But there cannot be many of the KzinDiener left alive. Who could tell that the order was mine?”

“Well, I was there, of course, and I saw you give the order. Oh, not that
I
would say anything,
of course
.” The little man rubbed his hands together again. “But there might well have been other survivors. The abbot at Circle Bay Monastery tried to protect von Thoma, and maybe . . . some others. Naturally, they would not be anxious to draw attention to themselves at this stage of things, but they might seek amnesty in exchange for testifying against you. I don’t say this is inevitable or even likely, but are you prepared to completely rule it out?” He looked with his head tilted to the side, at his master. His master pursed his lips and looked back.

Stan Adler was in fine form. His current affairs program always beat the competition in the audience ratings. He spoke into the camera with his trademark lopsided half-grin. “Tonight, the Appropriations Committee Chairman, Senator von Höhenheim, has again objected to funding a proper investigation of the downing of the spaceship
Valiant
in the Southern Ocean. Our news investigators, following the initial sighting of the wreck by honeymooners Sarah and Greg Rankin in the Southern Ocean,” the screen cut to a wedding picture of the happy pair, “have gone diving in difficult storm-tossed waters to find the wreck and have positively identified her.

“It is known that she was bringing military and medical supplies, which might have saved many lives had they arrived and been transferred to the Resistance. Perhaps even shortened the final phase. Tell me, Senator, why exactly do you object to a properly equipped government investigation of this tragedy?”

The camera facing the senator showed a green light, and he looked into its lens rather than at his interrogator. “Well, Stan, you know that I am only the chairman, I don’t make these decisions all on my own.” The senator was genial.

Stan the Man smiled in the way that, his admirers had suggested, would make a kzin warrior nervous. He wore a casual shirt with his monogram, a small stylized eagle in black, over the pocket holding his phone. Cell phones had been back in the city for less than six months, so it was something of a status symbol.

“But I hear that your voice was the strongest in opposition to it. In fact, it was taken for granted that it would go through unopposed. It was only at the last moment that your supporters came out against it. And you got the casting vote. That was the first passage. And things aren’t very different now you have it back from the lower house.”

“You have to understand, Stan, that we cannot spend the taxpayers’ money just the way we would like. It is a matter of priorities. Of course we would all like to know exactly what happened, and someday we shall. But it is hardly urgent. The wreck has been there for many years, a few more will hardly make much difference.”

“But you funded the building of a new Arts Complex costing over ten million dollars. Many people could give you long lists of things they would say were needed more urgently. From orphanages to prostheses to pharmaceutical factories. Not many on Wunderland are interested in arts today. Poetry and painting were not really survival skills. Dancing a ballet for a hungry kzin would be like playing a lure for a hungry fish. Not to mention rebuilding our space navy instead of relying on Sol forces. And what about the very controversial plan to drain much of Grossgeister Swamp at a much bigger cost? Even if one accepts that both of these are worthwhile projects, which I don’t, they are hardly more urgent. The longer the wreck is underwater, the less information we shall be able to recover. I can hardly take it that that is what you want, Senator?”

“On the subject of the Arts Complex . . .” von Höhenheim began.

“Perhaps it would be better if we remained with the subject at hand at the moment, Senator. The question was, why do you want to delay getting any information about what downed the
Valiant
?”

“I want nothing of the kind. After all, what mystery is there? We are certain to discover that a kzin warship crippled it somewhere in space, as happened to countless others,” said von Höhenheim.

“Not according to the kzin leader, Vaemar, who is in the process of getting a couple of doctoral degrees in mathematics and history, and who had a look at the kzin records.”

“A kzin!” The senator’s scorn was virtually palpable.

“A kzin, may I remind you, Senator, who has proved his loyalty to the ideal of kzin-human cooperation on more than one occasion. You will recall that it is only a few years since he saved an entire expedition into Grossgeister Swamp,
and
was instrumental in obtaining our first live specimens of Jotok. Before that, he helped thwart a plan by former collaborators to kidnap him and use him against humanity. ARM, which is not renowned for being over-trustful, has allowed him to accept a commission in the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Munchen University. He works with Nils and Leonie Rykermann, not only two of the most heroic leaders of the Resistance, but also two of the most respected leaders on Wunderland today. He is a friend of Dimity Carmody.”