THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WARS

CREATED BY

LARRY NIVEN


THE MAN-KZIN WARS SERIES
Created by Larry Niven

The Man-KzIn Wars
Man-Kzin Wars ii
Man-Kzin Wars III
Man-Kzin Wars IV
Man-Kzin Wars V
Man-kzin Wars VI
Man-Kzin Wars VII
Choosing Names: ManKzin Wars Viii
                                    
 This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
 book are fictional, and any resemblance to people or incidents is purely
 coincidental.

 Copyright (D 1998 by Larry Niven. "Introduction" copyr! lit (01986 by
 Larry Niven. "The Warriors"
 pyng%t @1990. Pu~       -K-
 
           lished in The Man dn Wars. adness Has Its Place copyright 01990
           by Larry Niven. Published in Man-Kzin Wars 111. "The Man Who
           Would Be Kzin" copyright (9 1991 by Greg Bear and S.M. Stirling.
           Published in Man-Kzin Wars IV. "In the Hall of the Mountain King"
           copyright Q 1992 by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling. Published
           in Man-Kzin Wars V.

 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
 thereof in any fo~m.

 A Baen Books Original

 Baen Publishing Enterprises
 P.O. Box 1403
 Riverdale, NY 10471

 ISBN: 0-671-87879-4

 Cover art by Stephen Hickman

 First printing, June 1998

 Distributed by Simon & Schuster
 1230 Avenue of the Americas
 New York, NY 10020

 Printed in the United States of America
           CONTENTS

  The Warriors
  Larry Niven . . . . . . . . . 1

 Madness Has Its Place

  Larry Niven . . . . . . . . .23
  The Man Who Would Be Kzin
  Greg Bear and S.M. Stirling .  61
  In the Hall of the Mountain King
  Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling 127
            Introduction

            Larry Niven

  "The Warriors" wasn't just the first tale of the kzinti. It was the first
  story I ever offered for sale. I was daydreaming in math class, as usual,
  and I realized that I'd shaped a complete story. So I wrote it down, and
  bought some magazines to get the editorial addresses, and started it
  circulating.
  It was years before anyone bought it. By then I'd rewritten it countless
  times, trying out what I was learning from my correspondence writing
  course. Fred Pohl (editor of Galaxy and Worlds of If in those days) saw it
  often enough that he eventually wrote, "I think this can be improved . . .
  but maybe you're tired of reworking it, so I'll buy it as is . . ." It was
  probably his title, too.
  The kzinti look a little blurred here, don't they? I mean, if you've known
  them elsewhere. Subsequently they changed in several ways.
  I learned to answer John W Campbell's challenge: "Show me something that
  thinks as well as a man, or better, but not like a man." The kzinti took on
  more detail, gained greater consistency and lost some of their resemblance
  to humanity. They were born as one of a thousand catlike aliens in science
  fiction. As I learned how to make an alien from basic principles, body and
  mind and soul, the kzinti became more themselves.
  At the same time they were changing in another way, evolving over several
  centuries. The Man-Kzin Wars changed them far more than they changed
  mankind, because the wars killed off the least intelligent and most
  aggressive.

  This book was conceived in a casual encounter. Marilyn and I were driving
  to a Nebula Awards banquet with Jim Baen in the back seat. She drove, we
  talked . . .
  I knew about franchise universes. Jim and I had edited The Magic May Return
  and More Magic, tales set in the Magic Goes Away universe but written by
  friends whom we had invited in. I had played in neighbors' playgrounds,
  too. "A Snowflake Falls" used Saberhagen's "Berserkers," by invitation. I'd
  written a tale set at Lord Dunsany's "edge of the world," and a report on
  the year the Necronomicon hit the college campuses in paperback, and a
  study of Superman's fertility problems.
  I've never been in a war, nor in any of the armed forces. Wars have
  happened and may happen again in most of my series universes, including
  Known Space, but you'll never see them. I lack the experience. Here are a
  couple of centuries of Known Space that are dark to me.
  By the time we parked, Jim and I had agreed to open up the Man-Kzin Wars
  period of Known Space.
  Any writer good enough to be invited to play in my universe will have
  demonstrated that he can make his own. Would anyone accept my offer? I
  worried also that intruders might mess up the playground, by violating my
  background assumptions.
  But I did want to read more tales of Known Space ... and I hadn't written
  any in years.
  For the Warlock's era I had written a "bible," a set of assumptions, list
  of available characters, backgrounds, a few story ideas. For the Man-Kzin
  Wars the "bible"
 was already written, by John Hewitt for the Chaosium role-playing game,
 "Ringworld." I photocopied the appropriate pages, with his permission and
 Chaosium's.
 I did not anticipate what happened.
  I had to turn down one story outline and one completed story. It didn't
  matter. Poul and Dean both turned in 40,000-word novellas! And now
  they're talking about sequels.
  It's as if you can't say anything short in the Known Space universe.
  I guess I'm flattered. And I surely got my wish. These stories read like
  good Poul Anderson, and good Dean Ing, and good Niven; and Niven couldn't
  have written them.
                from Man-Kzin Wars, Vol. I
 THE WARRIORS

          0

   Larry Niven
  "I'm sure they saw us coming," the Alien-Technologies Officer persisted.
  "Do you see that ring, sir?"
  The silvery image of the enemy ship almost tilled the viewer. It showed as
  a broad, wide ring encircling a cylindrical axis, like a mechanical pencil
  floating inside a platinum bracelet. A tinned craft projected from the
  pointed end of the axial section. Angular letters ran down the axis,
  totally unlike the dots-and-commas of kzinti script.
 "Of course I see it," said the Captain.
  "It was rotating when we first picked them up. It stopped when we got
  within two hundred thousand miles, and it hasn't moved since."
  The Captain flicked his tail back and forth, gently, thoughtfully, like a
  pink lash. "You worry me," he commented. "If they know we're here, why
  haven't they tried to get away? Are they so sure they can beat us?" He
  whirled to face the A-T Officer. "Should we be running?"
  "No, sir! I don't know why they're still here, but they can't have anything
  to be confident about. That's one of the most primitive spacecraft I've
  ever seen." He moved his claw about on the screen, pointing as he talked.
  "The outer shell is an iron alloy. The rotating ring is a method of
  imitating gravity by using centripetal force.

                3
 4The Best of All Possible Wars

 So they don't have the gravity planer. In fact they're probably using a
 reaction drive."
  The Captain's catlike ears went up. "But we're lightyears from the nearest
  star!"
  "They must have a better reaction drive than we ever developed. We had the
  gravity planer before we needed one that good."
  There was a buzzing sound from the big control board. "Enter," said the
  Captain.
  The Weapons Officer fell up through the entrance hatch and came to
  attention, "Sir, we have all weapons trained on the enemy."
  "Good." The Captain swung around. "A-T, how sure are you that they aren't
  a threat to us?"
  The A-T Officer bared sharply pointed teeth. "I don't see how thev could
  be, sir."
  "Good. N~eapons, keep all your guns ready to fire, but don't use them
  unless I give the order. I'll have the ears of the man who destroys that
  ship without orders. I want to take it intact."
 "Yes, sir."
 "Where's the Telepath?"
 "He's on his way, sir. He was asleep."
 "He's always asleep. Tell him to get his tail up here."
  The Weapons Officer saluted, turned, and dropped through the exit hole.
 "Captain?"
  The A-T Officer was standing by the viewer, which now showed the ringed end
  of the alien ship. He pointed to the mirror-bright end of the axial
  cylinder. "It looks like that end was designed to project light. That would
  make it a photon drive, sir."
 The Captain considered. "Could it be a signal device?"
 "Urrrrr ... Yes, sir."
 'Then don't jump to conclusions."
 Like a piece of toast, the Telepath popped up through
            THE WARRIORS         5

 the entrance hatch. He came to exaggerated attention. "Reporting as
 ordered, sir."
 "You omitted to buzz for entrance.-
  Sorry, sir." The lighted viewscreen caught the Telepath's eye and he
  padded over for a better look, forgetting that he was at attention. The
  A-T Officer winced, wishing he were somewhere else.
  The Telepath's eyes were violet around the edges. His pink tail hung
  limp. As usual, he looked as if he were dying for laSof sfeep. His fur
  was flattened along the side he slept on; he hadn't even bothered to
  brush it. The effect was far from the ideal of a Conquest Warrior as one
  can get and still be a member of the kzin species. The wonder was that
  the Captain had not yet murdered him.
  He never would, of course. Telepaths were too rare, too valuable,
  and-understandably-too emotionally unstable. The Captain always kept his
  temper with the Telepath. At times like this it was the innocent
  bystander who stood to lose his rank or his ears at the clank of a
  falling molecule.
  That's an enemy ship we've tracked down," the Captain was saying. "We'd
  like to get some information from them. Would you read their minds for
  us?"
  "Yes, sir." The Telepath's voice showed his instant misery, but he knew
  better than to protest. He left the screen and sank into a chair. Slowly
  his ears folded into tight knots, his pupils contracted, and his ratlike
  tail went limp as flannel.
 The world of the eleventh sense pushed in on him.
  He caught the Captain's thought: -. . . sloppy civilian get of a
  sthondat. . ." and frantically tuned it out. He hated the Captain's mind.
  He found other minds aboard ship, isolated and blanked them out one by
  one. Now there were none left. There was only unconsciousness and chaos.
 6The Best of All Possible Wars

  Chaos was not empty. Something was thinking strange and disturbing
  thoughts.
 The Telepath forced himself to listen.

  Steve Weaver floated bonelessly near a wall of the radio room. lie was
  blond, blue-eyed, and big, and he could often be seen as he was now,
  relaxed but completely motionless, as if there were some very good reason
  why he shouldn't even blink. A streamer of smoke drifted from his left
  hand and crossed the room to bury itself in the air vent.
  "That's that," Ann Harrison said wearily. She flicked four switches in
  the bank of radio controls. At each click a small light went out.
 "You can't get them?"
  "Right. I'll bet they don't even have a radio." Ann released her chair
  net and stretched out into a fivepointed star. "I've left the receiver
  on, with the volume up, in case they try to get us later. Man, that feels
  good!" Abruptly she curled into a tight ball. She had been crouched at
  the communications bank for more than an hour. Ann might have been
  Steve's twin; she was almost as tall as he was, had the same color hair
  and eyes, and the flat muscles of conscientious exercise showed beneath
  her blue falling jumper as she flexed.
  Steve snapped his cigarette butt at the air conditioner, moving only his
  fingers. "Okay. What have they got?"
 Ann looked startled. "I don't know."
  "Think of it as a puzzle. They don't have a radio. How might they talk
  to each other? How can we check on our guesses? We assume they're trying
  to reach us, of course.
 "Yes, of course."
  "Think about it, Ann. Get Tim thinkinIZ about it, too." Jim Davis was her
  husband th~t year, and ihe ship's doctor full time. "You're the girl most
  likely to succeed. Have a smog stick?"
            THE WARRIORS         7

 "Please."
  Steve pushed his cigarette ration across the room. "Take a few. I've got to
  go.
  The depleted package came whizzing back. "Thanks," said Ann.
  "Let me know if anything happens, will you? Or if you think of anything."
  "I will. And fear not, Steve, something's bound to turn up. They m ust be
  trying just as hard as we are."
  Every con ipartment in the personnel ring opened into the narrow doughnut
  -shaped hall which ran around the ring's forward rim. Steve pushed himself
  into the hall, jockeyed to contact the floor, and pushed. From there it was
  easy going. The floor curved up to meet him, and he proceeded down the hall
  like a swimming frog. Of the twelve men and women on the Angel's Pencil,
  Steve was best at this; for Steve was a Belter, and the others were all
  flatlanders, Earthborn.
  Ann probably wouldn't think of anything, he guessed. It wasn't that she
  wasn't intelligent. She didn't have the curiosity, the sheer love of
  solving puzzles. Only he and Jim Davis-
  He was going too fast, and not concentrating. He almost crashed into Sue
  Bhang as she appeared below the curve of the ceiling.
  They managed to stop themselves against the walls. "Hi, jaywalker," said
  Sue.
 "Hi, Sue. Where you headed?"
 "Radio room. You?"
  "I thought I'd check the drive systems again. Not that we're likely to need
  the drive, but it can't hurt to be certain."
  "You'd go twitchy without something to do, wouldn't you?" She cocked her
  head to one side, as always when she had questions. "Steve, when are you
  going to rotate us again? I can't seem to get used to falling."
 8The Best of All Possible Wars

  But she looked like she'd been born falling, he thought. Her small,
  slender form was meant for flying; gravity should never have touched her.
  "Y"en I'm sure we won't need the drive. We might as well stay ready 'til
  then. Because I'm hoping you'll change back to a skirt."
  She laughed, pleased. "Then you can turn it off. I'm not changing, and
  we won't be moving. Abel says the other ship (lid two hundred gee when
  it matched courses with us. How many can the Angel's Pencil do?"
  Steve looked awed. "Just point zero five. And I was thinking of chasing
  them! Well, maybe we can be the ones to open communications. I just came
  from the radio room, by the way. Ann can't get anything."
 "Too bad."
 "We'll just have to wait."
  "Steve, you're always so impatient. Do Belters always move at a run? Come
  here." She took a handhold and pulled him over to one of the thick
  windows which lined the forward side of the corridor. "There they are,"
  she said, pointing out.
  The star was both duller and larger than those around it. Among points
  which glowed arc-lamp blue-white with the Doppler shift, the alien ship
  showed as a dull red disk.
  "I looked at it through the telescope," said Steve. "There are lumps and
  ridges all over it. And there's a circle of green dots and commas painted
  on one side. Looked like writing."
  "How long have we been waiting to meet them? Five hundred thousand years?
  Well, there they are. Relax. They won't go away." Sue gazed out the
  window, her whole attention on the dull red circle, her aleaming jet hair
  floating out around her head. "The 6rst aliens. I wonder what they'll be
  like."
  "It's anyone's guess. They must be pretty strong to take punishment like
  that, unless they have some kind
            THE WARRIORS         9

 of acceleration shield, but free fall doesn't bother them either. That ship
 isn't designed to spin." He was staring intently, out at the stars, his big
 form characteristically motionless, his expression somber. Abruptly he said,
 "Sue, I'm worried."
 "About what?"
 "Suppose they're hostile?"
  "Hostile?" She tasted the unfamiliar word, decided she didn't like it.
  "After all, we know nothing about them. Suppose they want to fight?
  We'd--
  She gasped. Steve flinched before the horror in her face. "What-what put
  that idea in your head?"
 "I'm sorry I shocked you, Sue."
 "Oh, don't worry about that, but why? Did-shh."
  Jim Davis had come into view. The Angel's Pencil had left Earth when he was
  twenty-seven; now he was a slightly paunchy thirty-eight, the oldest man on
  board, an amiable man with abnormally long, delicate fingers. His
  grandfather, with the same hands, had been a worldfamous surgeon. Nowadays
  surgery was normally done by autodocs, and the arachnodactyls were to Davis
  merely an aflliction. He bounced by, walking on magnetic sandals, looking
  like a comedian as he bobbed about the magnetic plates. "Hi, group," he
  called as he went by.
  " Hello, Jim." Sue's voice was strained. She waited until he was out of
  sight before she spoke again.
  Hoarsely she whispered, "Did you fight in the Belt?" She didn't really
  believe it; it was merely the worst thing she could think of.
  Vehemently Steve snapped, "No!" Then, reluctantly, he added, "But it did
  happen occasionally." Quickly he tried to explain. "The trouble was that
  all the doctors, including the psychists, were at the big bases, like
  Ceres. It was the only way they could help the people who
 10The Best of All Possible Wars

 needed them-be where the miners could find them. But all the danger was
 out in the rocks.
  "You noticed a habit of mine once. I never make gestures. All Belters
  have that trait. It's because on a small mining ship you could hit
  something waving your arms around. Something like the airlock button."
  "Sometimes it's almost eerie. You don't move for minutes at a time."
  "There's always tension out in the rocks. Sometimes a miner would see too
  much danger and boredom and frustration, too much cramping inside and too
  much room outside, and he wouldn't get to a psychist in time. He'd pick
  a fight in a bar. I saw it happen once. The guy was using his hands like
  mallets."
  Steve had been looking far into the past. Now he turned back to Sue. She
  looked white and sick, like a novice nurse standing up to her first
  really bad case. His ears began to turn red. "Sorry," he said miserably.
  She felt like running; she was as embarrassed as he was. instead she
  said, and tried to mean it, "It doesn't matter. So you think the people
  in the other ship might want to, uh, make war?"
 He nodded.
 "Did you have history-of-Earth courses?"
  He smiled ruefully. "No, I couldn't quaW. Sometimes I wonder how many
  people do."
 "About one in twelve."
 "That's not many-"
  People in general have trouble assimilating the facts of life about their
  ancestors. You probably know that there used to be wars before-hmmm-three
  hundred years ago, but do you know what war is? Can you visualize one?
  Can you see a fusion electric point deliberately built to explode in the
  middle of the city? Do you know what a concentration camp is? A limited
  action? You probably think murder ended with war. Well, it didn't.
            THE WARRIORS        11

 The last murder occurred in twenty-one something, just a hundred and sixty
 years ago.
  "Anyone who says human nature can't be changed is out of his head. To
  make it stick, he's got to define human nature-and he can't. Three things
  gave us our present peaceful civilization, and each one was a
  technological change." Sue's voice had taken on a dry, remote lecturehall
  tone, like the voice on a teacher tape. "One was the development of
  psychistry beyond the alchemist stage. Another was the full development
  of land for food production. The third was the Fertility Restriction Laws
  and the annual contraceptive shots. They gave us room to breathe. Maybe
  Belt mining and the stellar colonies had something to do with it, too;
  they gave us an inanimate enemy. Even the historians argue about that
  one.
  "Here's the delicate point I'm trying to nail down." Sue rapped on the
  window. "Look at that spacecraft. It has enough power to move it around
  like a mail missile and enough fuel to move it up to our point eight
  lightright?"
 "Righc,
  "-with plenty of power left for maneuvering. It's a better ship than
  ours. If they've had time to learn how to build a ship like that, they've
  had time to build up their own versions of psychistry, modern food
  production, contraception, economic theory, everything they need to
  abolish war. See?"
  Steve had to smile at her earnestness. "Sure, Sue, it makes sense. But
  that guy in the bar came from our culture, and he was hostile enough. If
  we can't understand how he thinks, how can we guess about the mind of
  something whose very chemical makeup we can't guess at yet?"
 "It's sentient. It builds tools."
 "Right."
 12The Best of All Possible Wars

  "And if Jim hears you talking like this, you'll be in psychistry
  treatment."
  "That's the best argument you've given me," Steve grinned, and stroked her
  under the ear with two fingertips. He felt her go suddenly stiff, saw the
  pain in her face; and at the same time his own pain struck, a real tiger of
  a headache, as if his brain were trying to swell beyond his skull.

  "I've got them, sir," the Telepath said blurrily. "Ask me anything."
  The Captain hurried, knowing that the Telepath couldn't stand this for
  long. "How do they power their ship?"
  "It's a light-pressure drive powered by incomplete hydrogen fusion. They
  use an electromagnetic ramscoop to get their own hydrogen from space."
 "Clever ... Can they get away from us?"
  "No. Their drive is on idle, ready to go, but it won't help them. It's
  pitifully weak."
 What kind of weapons do they have?"
  The Telepath remained silent for a long time. The others waited patiently
  for his answer. There was sound in the control dome, but it was the kind of
  sound one learns not to hear: the whine of heavy current, the muted purr of
  voices from below, the strange sound like continuously ripping cloth which
  came from the gravity motors.
  "None at all, sir." The Kzin's voice became clearer; his hypnotic
  relaxation was broken by muscle twitches. He twisted as if in a nightmare.
  "Nothing aboard ship, not even a knife or a club. Wait, they've got cooking
  knives. But that's all they use them for. They don't fight."
 "They don't fight?"
  "No, sir. They don't expect us to fight, either. The idea has occurred to
  three of them, and each has dismissed it from his mind."
            THE WARRIORS        13

  "But why?" the Captain asked, knowing the question was irrelevant, unable
  to hold it back.
  "I don't know, Sir. It's a science they use, or a religion. I don't
  understand," the Telepath whimpered. "I don't understand at all."
  Which must be tough on him, the Captain thought. Completely alien
  thoughts . . . "What are they doing now?"
  "Waiting for us to talk to them. They tried to talk to us, and they think
  we must be trying just as hard."
  "But why?-never mind, it's not important. Can they be killed by heat?"
 "Yes, Sir."
 "Break contact."
  The Telepath shook his head violently. He looked like he'd been in a
  washing machine. The Captain touched a sensitized surface and bellowed,
  "Weapons Officer!"
 "Here."
 "Use the inductors on the enemy ship."
 "But, Sir! They're so slow! What if the alien attacks?"
  "Don't argue with me, you-" Snarling, the Captain delivered an
  impassioned monologue on the virtues of unquestioning obedience. When he
  switched off, the Alien Technologies Officer was back at the viewer and
  the Telepath had gone to sleep.
  The Captain purred happily, wishing that they were all this easy.
  When the occupants had been killed by heat he would take the ship. He
  could tell everything he needed to know about their planet by examining
  their life-support system. He could locate it by tracing the ship's
  trajectory. Probably they hadn't even taken evasive action!
  If they came from a Kzin-like world it would become a Kzin world. And he,
  as Conquest Leader, would command one percent of its wealth for the rest
  of his
 14The Best of All Possible Wars

 life! Truly, the future looked rich. No longer would he be called by his
 profession. He would bear a nante ...
  "Incidental information "I said the A-T Officer. "The ship was generating
  one and twelve sixty-fourth gee before it stopped rotating."
  "Little heavy," the Captain mused. "Might be too much air, but it should
  be easy to Kzinform it. A-T, we find the strangest life forms. Remember
  the Chunquen?"
 "Both sexes were sentient. They fought constantly."
  "And that funny religion on Altair One. They thought they could travel
  in time."
  "Yes, sir. When we landed the infantry they were all gone.
  "They must have all committed suicide with disintegrators. But why? They
  knew we only wanted slaves. And I'm still trying to figure out how they
  got rid of the disintegrators afterward."
  "Some beings," said the A-T Officer, "will do anything to keep their
  beliefs."

  Eleven years beyond Pluto, eight years from her destination, the fourth
  colony ship to We Made It fell between the stars. Before her the stars
  were green-white and blue-white, blazing points against nascent black.
  Behind they were sparse, dying red embers. To the sides the
  constellations were strangely flattened. The universe was shorter than
  it had been.
  For awhile Jim Davis was very busy. Everyone, including himself, had a
  throbbing blinding headache. To each patient, Dr. Davis handed a tiny
  pink pill from the dispenser slot of the huge autodoc which covered the
  back wall of the infirmary. They milled outside the door waiting for the
  pills to take effect, looking like a full-fledged mob in the narrow
  corridor; and then someone thought it would be a good idea to go to the
  lounge, and everyone followed him. It was an unusuaRy
            THE WARRIORS        15

 silent mob. Nobody felt like talking while the pain was with them. Even the
 sound of magnetic sandals was lost in the plastic pile rug.
  Steve saw Jim Davis behind him. "Hey, Doc," he called softly. "How long
  before the pain stops?"
  "Mine's gone away. You got your pills a little after I did, right?"
 "Right. Thanks, Doc."
  They didn't take pain well, these people. They were unused to it.
  In single file they walked or floated into the lounge. Low-pitched
  conversations started. People took couches, using the sticky plastic strips
  on their falling jumpers. Others stood or floated near walls. The lounge
  was big enough to hold them all in comfort.
  Steve wriggled near the ceiling, trying to pull on his sandals.
  "I hope they don't try that again," he heard Sue say. "It hurt."
  "Try what?" Someone Steve didn't recognize, halflistening as he was.
 "Whatever they tried. Telepathy, perhaps."
  "No. I don't believe in telepathy. Could they have set up ultrasonic
  vibrations in the walls?"
  Steve had his sandals on. He left the magnets turned off.
    a cold beer. Do you realize we'll never taste beer again?" Jim
    Davis'voice.
  "I miss waterskiing.- Ann Harrison sounded wistful. "The feel of a pusher
  unit shoving into the small of your back, the water beating against your
  feet, the sun ...
  Steve pushed himself toward them. "Taboo subject," he called.
  "We're on it anyway," Jim boomed cheerfully. "Unless you'd rather talk
  about the alien, which everyone else
 16The Best of All Possible Wars

 is doing. I'd rather drop it for the moment. What's your greatest regret
 at leaving Earth?"
 "Only that I didn't stay long enough to really see it."
  "Oh, of course." Jim suddenly remembered the drinking bulb in his hand.
  He drank from it, hospitably passed it to Steve.
  "This waiting makes me restless," said Steve. "What are they likely to
  try next? Shake the ship in Morse code?"
  Jim smiled. "Maybe they won't try anything next. They may give up and
  leave."
 "Oh, I hope not!" said Ann.
 "Would that be so bad?"
 Steve had a start. What was Jim thinking?
  "Of course!" Ann protested. "We've got to find out what they're like! And
  think of what they can teach us,
 Jim!"
  When conversation got controversial it was good manners to change the
  subject. "Say," said Steve, "I happened to notice the wall was warm when
  I pushed off Is that good or bad?"
  "That's funny. It should be cold, if anything," said Jim. "There's
  nothing out there but starlight. Except-" A most peculiar expression
  flitted across his face. He drew his feet up and touched the magnetic
  soles with his fingertips.
 "Eeeee! Jim! Jim!"
  Steve tried to whirl around and got nowhere. That was Sue! He switched
  on his shoes, thumped to the floor, and went to help.
  Sue was surrounded by bewildered people. They split to let Jim Davis
  through, and he tried to lead her out of the lounge. He looked
  frightened. Sue was moaning and thrashing, paying no attention to his
  efforts.
  Steve pushed through to her. "All the metal is heating up," Davis
  shouted. "We've got to get her hearing aid out."
            THE WARRIORS        17

 "Infirmary," Sue shouted.
  Four of them took Sue down the hall to the infirmary. She was still crying
  and struggling feebly when they got her in, but Jim was there ahead of them
  with a spray hypo. He used it and she went to sleep.
  The four watched anxiously as Jim went to work. The autodoc would have
  taken precious time for diagnosis. Jim operated by hand. He was able to do
  a fast job, for the tiny instrument was buried just below the skin behind
  her ear. Still, the scalpel must have burned his fingers before he was
  done. Steve could feel the growing warmth against the soles of his feet.
 Did the aliens know what they were doing?
 Did it matter? The ship was being attacked. His ship.
  Steve slipped into the corridor and ran for the control room. Running on
  magnetic soles, he looked like a terrified penguin, but he moved fast. He
  knew he might be making a terrible mistake; the aliens might be trying
  desperately to reach the Angel's Pencil; he would never know. They had to
  be sto~ped before everyone was roasted.
  The shoes burned his feet. He whimpered with the pain, but otherwise
  ignored it. The air burned in his mouth and throat. Even his teeth were
  hot.
  He had to wrap his shirt around his hands to open the control-room door.
  The pain in his feet was unbearable; he tore off his sandals and swam to
  the control board. He kept his shirt over his hands to work the controls.
  A twist of a large white knob turned the drive on full, and he slipped into
  the pilot seat before the gentle light pressure could build up.
  He turned to the rear-view telescope. It was aimed at the solar system, for
  the drive could be used for messages at this distance. He set it for short
  range and began to turn the ship.
 18The Best of All Possible Wars

 The enemy ship glowed in the high infrared.
  "it will take longer to heat the crew-carrying section," reported the
  Alien Technologies Officer. "They'll have temperature control there."
  "That's all right. When you think they should all be dead, wake up the
  Telepath and have him check." The Captain continued to brush his fur,
  killing time. "You know, if they hadn't been so completely helpless I
  wouldn't have tried this slow method. I'd have cut the ring free of the
  motor section first. Maybe I should have done that anyway. Safer."
  The A-T Officer wanted all the credit he could get. "Sir, they couldn't
  have any big weapons. There isn't room. With a reaction drive, the motor
  and the fuel tanks take up most of the available space."
  The other ship began to turn away from its tormentor. its drive end
  glowed red.
  "They're trying to get away," the Captain said, as the glowing end swung
  toward them. "Are you sure they can't?"
 "Yes, sir. That light drive won't take them anywhere."
  The Captain purred thoughtfully. 'What would happen if the light hit our
  ship?"
  "Just a bright light, I think. The lens is flat, so it must be emitting
  a very wide beam. They'd need a parabolic reflector to be dangerous.
  Unless-- His ears went straight up.
 "Unless what?" The Captain spoke softly, demandingly.
  "A laser. But that's all right, sir. They don't have any weapons.
  The Captain sprang at the control board. "Stupid!" he spat, "They don't
  know weapons from sthondat blood. Weapons Officer! How could a telepath
  find out what they don't know? WEAPONS OFFICER!"
 "Here, sir."
 "Burn-"
            THE WARRIORS        19

  An awful hght shone in the control dome. The Captain burst into flame,
  then blew out as the air left through a glowing split in the dome.

  Steve was lying on his back. The ship was spinning again, pressing him
  into what felt like his own bunk.
 He opened his eyes.
  Jim Davis crossed the room and stood over him. "You awake?"
 Steve sat bolt upright, his eyes wide.
 "Easy." Jim's gray eyes were concerned.
  Steve blinked up at him. 'What happened?" he asked, and discovered how
  hoarse he was.
  Jim sat down in one of the chairs. "You tell me. We tried to get to the
  control room when the ship started moving. Why didn't you ring the
  strap-down? You turned off the drive just as Ann came through the door.
  Then you fainted."
  "How about the other ship?" Steve tried to repress the urgency in his
  voice, and couldn't.
  "Some ofthe others are over there now, examining the wreckage." Steve
  felt his heart stop. "I guess I was afraid from the start that alien ship
  was dangerous. I'm more psychist than emdee, and I qualified for history
  class, so maybe I know more than is good for me about human nature. Too
  much to think that beings with space travel will automatically be
  peaceful. I tried to think so, but they aren't. They've got things any
  self-respecting human being would be ashamed to have nightmares about.
  Bomb missiles, fusion bombs, lasers, that induction injector they used
  on us. And antimissiles. You know what that means? They've got enemies
  like themselves, Steve. Maybe nearby."
  -So I killed them." The room seemed to swoop around him, but his voice
  came out miraculously steady.
 "You saved the ship."
 20The Best of All Possible Wars

 "It was an accident. I was trying to get us away."
  "No, you weren't." Davis' accusation was as casual as if he were
  describing the chemical makeup of urea. "That ship was four hundred miles
  away. You would have had to sight on it with a telescope to hit it. You
  knew what you were doing, too, because you turned off the drive as soon
  as you'd burned through the ship."
  Steve's back muscles would no longer support him. He flopped back to
  horizontal. "All right, you know," he told the ceiling. "Do the others?"
  "I doubt it. Killing in self-defense is too far outside their experience.
  I think Sue's guessed."
 -0000."
  "If she has, she's taking it well," Davis said briskly. "Better than most
  ofthem will, when they find out the universe is full of warriors. This
  is the end of the world, Steve."
 "what?"
  "I'm being theatrical. But it is. Three hundred years of the peaceful
  life for everyone. They'll call it the Golden Age. No starvation, no war,
  no physical sickness other than senescence, no permanent mental sickness
  at all, even by our rigid standards. When someone over fourteen tries to
  use his fist on someone else we say he's sick, and we cure him. And now
  it's over. Peace isn't a stable condition, riot for us. Maybe not for
  anything that lives."
 "Can I see the ship from here?"
 "Yes. It'sjust behind us."
 Steve rolled out of bed, went to the window.
  Someone had steered the ships much closer together. The kzinti ship was
  a huge red sphere with ugly projections scattered at seeming random over
  the hull. The beam had sliced it into two unequal halves, sliced it like
  an ax through an egg. Steve watched, unable to turn aside, as the big
  half rotated to show its honeycombed interior.
            THE WARRIORS        21

  "In a little while," said Jim, -the men will be coming back. They'll be
  frightened. Someone will probably insist that we arm ourselves btgainst
  the next attacks, using weapons from the other ship. I'll have to agree
  with him.
  "Maybe they'll think I'm sick myself Maybe I am. But it's the kind of
  sickness we'll need." Jim looked desperately unhappy. "We're going to
  become an armed society. And of course we'll have to warn the Earth . .
  ."
MADNESS HAS ITS
PlACE

            0

     Larry Niven
  CHAPTER ONE

  A lucky few of us know the good days before they're gone.
  I remember my eighties. My job kept me in shape, and gave me enough
  variety to keep my mind occupied. My love life was imperfect but
  interesting. Modern medicine makes the old fairy tales look insipid; I
  almost never worried about my health.
  Those were the good days, and I knew them. I could remember worse.
  I can remember when my memory was better too. That's what this file is
  for. I keep it updated for that reason, and also to maintain my sense of
  purpose.

 The Monobloc had been a singles bar since the 2320s.
  In the '30s I'd been a regular. I'd found Charlotte there. We held our
  wedding reception at the Monobloc, then dropped out for twenty-eight
  years. My first marriage, hers too, both in our forties. After the
  children grew up and moved away, after Charlotte left me too, I came
  back.
 The place was much changed.
 I remembered a couple of hundred bottles in the

               25
 26The Best of All Possible Wars

 hologram bar display. Now the display was twice as large and seemed more
 realistic-better equipment, maybebut only a score of bottles in the middle
 were liquors. The rest were flavored or carbonated water, high-energy
 drinks, electrolytes, a thousand kinds of tea; food to match, raw vegetables
 and fruits kept fresh by hightech means, arrayed with low-cholesterol dips;
 bran in every conceivable form short of injections.
  The Monobloc had swallowed its neighbors. It was bigger, with curtained
  alcoves, and a small gym upstairs for working out or for dating.
  Herbert and Tina Schroeder still owned the place. Their marriage had been
  open in the'30s. They'd aged since. So had their clientele. Some of us had
  married or drifted away or died of alcoholism; but word of mouth and the
  Velvet Net had maintained a continuous tradition. Twenty-eight years later
  they looked better than ever ... wrinkled, of course, but lean and
  muscular, both ready for the Gray Olympics. Tina let me know before I could
  ask: she and Herb were lockstepped now.
 To me it was like coming home.

  For the next twelve years the Monobloc was an intermittent part of my life.
  I would find a lady, or she would find me, and we'd drop out. Or we'd visit
  the Monobloc and sometimes trade partners; and one evening we'd go together
  and leave separately. I was not evading marriage. Every woman I found worth
  knowing, ultimately seemed to want to know someone else.
  I was nearly bald even then. Thick white hair covered my arms and legs and
  torso, as if my head hairs had migrated. Twelve years of running
  construction robots had turned me burly. From time to time some muscular
  lady would took me over and claim me. I had no trouble finding company.
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   27

  But company never stayed. Had I become dull? The notion struck me as
  funny.

  I had settled myself alone at a table for two, early on a Thursday
  evening in 2375. The Monobloc was half empty. The earlies were all
  keeping one eye on the door when Anton Brillov came in.
  Anton was shorter than me, and much narrower, with a face like an axe.
  I hadn't see him in thirteen years. Still, I'd mentioned the Monobloc
  once or twice; he must have remembered.
  I sernaphored my arms. Anton squinted, then came over, exaggeratedly
  cautious until he saw who it was.
 "Jack Strather!"
 "Hi, Anton. So you decided to try the place?"
  "Yah." He sat, "You look good." He looked a moment longer and said,
  "Relaxed. Placid. How's Charlotte?"
  "Left me after I retired. just under a year after. There was too much of
  me around and I ... maybe I was too placid? Anyway. How are you?"
 "Fine."
  Twitchy. Anton looked twitchy. I was amused. ,still with the Holy
  Office?"
 "Only citizens call it that, Jack."
  "I'm a citizen. Still gives me a kick. How's your chemistry?"
  Anton knew what I meant and didn't pretend otherwise. "I'm okay. I'm
  down."
 "Kid, you're looking over both shoulders at once."
  Anton managed a credible laugh. "I'm not the kid any more. I'm a weekly."
  The ARM had made me a weekly at forty-eight. They couldn't turn me loose
  at the end of the day any more, because my body chemistry couldn't shift
  fast enough. So they kept me in the ARM building Monday through Thursday,
  and gave me all of Thursday afternoon to shed
 28The Best of All Possible Wars

 the schitz madness. Twenty years of that and I was even less flexible, so
 they retired me.
  I said, "You do have to remember. When you're in the ARM building, you're
  a paranoid schizophrenic. You have to be able to file that when you're
  outside."
 "Hah. How can anyone "
  "You get used to the schitz. After I quit, the difference was anwzing. No
  fears, no tension, no ambition."
 "No Charlotte?"
  "Well ... I turned boring. And what are you doing here?"
  Anton looked around him. "Much the same thing you are, I guess. Jack, am I
  the youngest one here?"
  "Maybe." I looked around, double-checking. A woman was distracting me,
  though I could see only her back and a flash of a laughing profile. Her
  back was slender and strong, and a thick white braid ran down her spine,
  centered, two and a half feet of clean, thick white hair. She was in
  animated conversation with a blond companion of Anton's age plus a few.
  But they were at a table for two: they weren't inviting company. I forced
  my attention back. 'We're gray singles, Anton. The young ones tend to get
  the message quick. We're slower than we used to be. We date. You want to
  order?"
  Alcohol wasn't popular here. Anton must have noticed, but he ordered guava
  juice and vodka and drank as if he needed it. This looked worse than
  Thursday jitters. I let him half finish, then said, "Assuming you can tell
  me-
 -1 don't know anything."
 "I know the feeling. What should you know?"
  A tension eased behind Anton's eyes. -There was a message from the Angel's
  Pencil."
  "Pencil ... oh." My mental reflexes had slowed down. The Angel's Pencil had
  departed twenty years ago for ...
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   29

 was it Epsilon Eridani? "Come on, kid, it'll be in the boob cubes before
 you have quite finished speaking. Anything from deep space is public
 property."
  "Hah! No. It's restricted. I haven't seen it myself Only a reference, and
  it must be more than ten years old."
  That was peculiar. And if the Beh stations hadn't spread the news through
  the solar system, that was peculiar. No wonder Anton was antsy. ARMS
  react that way to puzzles.
  Anton seemed to jerk himself back to here and now, back to the gray
  singles regime. "Am I cramping your style?"
  "No problem. Nobody hurries in the Monobloc. if you see someone you
  like-" My fingers danced over lighted symbols on the rim of the table.
  "This gets you a map. Locate where she's sitting, put the cursor on it.
  That gets you a display ... hmm."
  I'd set the cursor on the white-haired lady. I liked the readout. "Phoebe
  Garrison, seventy-nine, eleven or twelve years older than you. Straight.
  Won a Second in the Gray jumps last year. . . that's the America's Skiing
  Matches for seventy and over. She could kick your tail if you don't watch
  your manners. It says she's smarter than we are, too.
  "Point is, she can check you out the same way. Or me. And she probably
  found this place through the Velvet Net, which is the computer network
  for unlocked lifestyles."
 "So. Two males sitting together-"
  "Anyone who thinks we're bent can check if she cares enough. Bends don't
  come to the Monobloc anyway. But if we want company, we should move to
  a bigger table."
  We did that. I caught Phoebe Garrison's companion's eye. They played with
  their table controls, discussed, and presently wandered over.
 30The Best of All Possible Wan

  Dinner turned into a carouse. Alcohol was involved, but we'd left the
  Monobloc by then. When we split up, Anton was with Michiko. I went home
  with Phoebe.

  Phoebe had fine legs, as I'd anticipated, though both knees were teflon and
  plastic. Her face was lovely even in morning sunlight. Wrinkled, of course.
  She was two weeks short of eighty and wincing in anticipation. She ate with
  a cross-country skier's appetite. We told of our lives as we ate.
  She'd come to Santa Maria to visit her oldest grandson. In her youth she'd
  done critical work in nanoengineering. The Board had allowed her four
  children. (I'd known I was outclassed.) All were married, scattered across
  the Earth, and so were the grandkids.
  My two sons had emigrated to the Belt while still in their twenties. I'd
  visited them once during an investigation, trip paid for by the United
  Nations-
  "You were an ARM? Really? How interesting! Tell me a story ... if you can."
 "That's the problem, all right."
  The interesting tales were all classified. The ARM suppresses dangerous
  technology. What the ARM buries is supposed to stay buried. I remembered a
  kind of time compressor, and a field that would catalyze combustion, both
  centuries old. Both were first used for murder. If turned loose or
  rediscovered, either would generate more interesting tales yet.
  I said, "I don't know anything current. They bounced me out when I got too
  old. Now I run construction robots at various spaceports."
 "Interesting?"
  "Mostly placid." She wanted a story? Okay. The ARM enforced more than the
  killer-tech laws, and some of those tales I could tell.
 "We don't get many mother hunts these days. This
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE  31

 one was wished on us by the Belt-" And I told her of a lunie who'd sired
 two clones. One he'd raised on the Moon and one he'd left in the Saturn
 Conserve. He'd moved to Earth, where one clone is any normal citizen's
 entire birthright. When we found him he was arranging to culture a third
 clone ...

 I dreamed a bloody dream.
  It was one of those: I was able to take control, to defeat what had
  attacked me. In the black of an early Sunday morning the shreds of the
  dream dissolved before I could touch them; but the sensations remained.
  I felt strong, balanced, powerful, victorious.
  it took me a few minutes to become suspicious of this particular flavor
  of wonderful, but I'd had practice. I eased out from under Phoebe's arm
  and leg and out of bed. I lurched into the medical alcove, linked myself
  up and fell asleep on the table.
  Phoebe found me there in the morning, She asked, "Couldn't that wait till
  after breakfast?"
  "I've got four years on you and I'm going for infinity. So I'm careful,"
  I told her. It wasn't quite a lie ... and she didn't quite believe me
  either.

  On Monday Phoebe went off to let her eldest grandson show her the local
  museums. I went back to work.
  In Death Valley a semicircle of twenty lasers points at an axial array
  of mirrors. Tracks run across the desert to a platform that looks like
  strands of spun caramel. Every hour or so a spacecraft trundles along the
  tracks, poses above the mirrors, and rises into the sky on a blinding,
  searing pillar of light.
  Here was where I and three companions and twentyeight robots worked
  between emergencies. Emergencies were common enough. From time to time
  Glenn and Skii and ten or twenty machines had to be shipped off
 32The Best of All Possible Wars

 to Outback Field or Baikonur, while I held the fort at Death Valley Field.
  All of the equipment was old. The original mirrors had all been slaved to
  one system, and those had been replaced again and again. Newer mirrors were
  independently mounted and had their own computers, but even these were up
  to fifty years old and losing their flexibility. The lasers had to be
  replaced somewhat more often. Nothing was ready to fall apart, quite.
  But the mirrors have to adjust their shapes to match distorting air
  currents all the way up to vacuum, because the distortions themselves must
  focus the drive beam. A laser at 99.3% efficiency is keeping too much
  energy, getting too hot. At 99. 1 % something would melt, lost power would
  blow the laser into shrapnel, and a cargo would not reach orbit.
  My team had been replacing mirrors and lasers long before I came on the
  scene. This circuit was nearly complete. We had already reconfigured some
  robots to begin replacing track.
  The robots worked alone while we entertained ourselves in the monitor room.
  If the robots ran into anything unfamiliar, they stopped and beeped. Then
  a story or songfest or poker game would stop just as abruptly.
  Usually the beep meant that the robot had found an acute angle, an uneven
  surface, a surface not strong enough to bear a loaded robot, a bend in a
  pipe, a pipe where it shouldn't be ... a geometrical problem. The robots
  couldn't navigate just anywhere. Sometimes we'd have to unload it and move
  the load to a cart, by hand. Sometimes we had to pick it up with a crane
  and move it or turn it. Lots of it was muscle work.
 Phoebe joined me for dinner Thursday evening.
  She'd whipped her grandson at laser tag. They'd gone through the museum at
  Edward AFB. They'd skied ...
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   33

 he needed to get serious about that, and maybe get some surgery too . .
 .
  I listened and smiled and presently tried to tell her about my work. She
  nodded; her eyes glazed. I tried to tell her how good it was, how
  restful, after all those years in the ARM.
  The ARM: that got her interest back. Stet. I told her about the Henry
  Program.
  I'd been saving that. It was an embezzling system good enough to ruin the
  economy. It made Zachariah Henry rich. He might have stayed rich if he'd
  quit in time ... and if his system hadn't been so good, so dangerous, he
  might have ended in prison. Instead ... well, let his tongue whisper
  secrets to the ears in the organ banks.
  I could speak of it because they'd changed the system. I didn't say that
  it had happened twenty years before I joined the ARM. But I was still
  running out of declassified stories. I told her, -If a lot of people know
  something can be done, somebody'll do it. We can suppress it and suppress
  it again-"
 She pounced. "Like what?"
  "Like ... well, the usual example is the first cold fusion system. They
  did it with palladium and platinum, but half a dozen other metals work.
  And organic superconductors: the patents listed a wrong ingredient.
  Various grad students tried it wrong and still got it. If there's a way
  to do it, there's probably a lot of ways."
  "That was before there was an ARM. Would you have suppressed
  superconductors?"
 "No. What for?"
 "Or cold fusion?"
 "No."
  "Cold fusion releases neutrons," she said. -sheath the generator with
  spent uranium, what do you get?"
 "Plutonium, I think. So?"
 34The Best of All Possible Wars

 "They used to make bombs out of plutonium."
 "Bothers you?"
  "Jack, the fission bomb was it in the mass murder department. Like the
  crossbow. Like the Ayatollah's Asteroid." Phoebe's eyes held mine. Her
  voice had dropped; we didn't want to broadcast this all over the
  restaurant. "Don't you ever wonder just how much of human knowledge is
  lost in that ... black limbo inside the ARM building? Things that could
  solve problems. Warm the Earth again. Ease us through the lightspeed
  wall."
  'We don't suppress inventions unless they're dangerous," i said.
  I could have backed out of the argument; but that too would have
  disappointed Phoebe. Phoebe liked a good argument. My problem was that
  what I gave her wasn't good enough. Maybe I couldn't get angry enough ...
  maybe my most forceful arguments were classified ...
  Monday morning, Phoebe left for Dallas and a granddaughter. There had
  been no war, no ultimatum, but it felt final.

 Thursday evening I was back in the Monobloc.
  So was Anton. "I've played it," he said. "Can't talk about it, of
  course."
  He looked mildly bored. His hands looked like they were trying to break
  chunks off the edge of the table.
 I nodded placidly.
  Anton shouldn't have told me about the broadcast from Angel's Pencil. But
  he had; and if the ARM had noticed, he'd better mention it again.
  Companyjoined us, sampled and departed. Anton and I spoke to a pair of
  ladies who turned out to have other tastes. (Some bends like to bug the
  straights.) A younger woman joined us for a time. She couldn't have been
  over
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   35

 thirty, and was lovely in the modern style ... but hard, sharply defined
 muscle isn't my sole standard of beauty ...
  I remarked to Anton, "Sometimes the vibes just aren't right."
  "Yeah. Look, Jack, I have carefully concealed a prehistoric Calvados in
  my apt at Maya. There isn't really enough for four-"
 "Sounds nice. Eat first?"
 "Stet. There're sixteen restaurants in Maya."

  A score of blazing rectangles meandered across the night, washing out the
  stars. The eye could still find a handful of other space artifacts,
  particularly around the Moon.
  Anton flashed the beeper that would summon a taxi. I said, "So vou viewed
  the call. So why so tense?"
  Security devices no bigger than a basketball rode the glowing sky, but
  the casual eye would not find those. One must assume they were there.
  Patterns in their monitor chips would match vision and sound patterns of
  a mugging, a rape, an injury, a cry for help. Those chips had gigabytes
  to spare for words and word patterns the ARM might find of interest.
 So: no key words.
  Anton said, "Jack, they tell a hell of a story. A ... foreign vehicle
  pulled alongside Angela at four-fifths of legal max. It tried to cook
  them."
  I stared. A spacecraft nwtched course with the Angel's Pencil at eighty
  percent of lightspeed? Nothing nwn-built could do that. And warlike?
  Maybe I'd misinterpreted everything. That can happen when you make up
  your code as you go along.
  But how could the Pencil have escaped? "How did Angela manage to phone
  home?"
  A taxi dropped. Anton said, "She sliced the bread with the, you know,
  motor. I said it's a hell of a story."
           4~         .04.
 36The Best of All Possible Wars

  Anton's apartment was most of the way up the slope of Maya, the pyramidal
  arcology north of Santa Maria. Old wealth.
  Anton led me through great doors, into an elevator, down corridors. He
  played tour guide: "The Fertility Board was just getting some real power
  about the time this place went up. It was built to house a million
  people. It's never been fully occupied."
 " so?"
  "So we're en route to the east face. Four restaurants, a dozen little
  bars. And here we stop-"
 "This your apt?"
  "No. It's empty, it's always been empty. I sweep it for bugs, but the
  authorities ... I think they've never noticed."
 "Is that your mattress?"
  "No. Kids. They've got a club that's two generations old. My son tipped
  me off to this."
 "Could we be interrupted?"
  "No. I'm monitoring them. I've got the security system set to let them
  in, but only when I'm not here. Now I'll set it to recognize you. Don't
  forget the number: Apt 23309."
 "What is the ARM going to think we're doing?"
  "Eating. We went to one of the restaurants, then came back and drank
  Calvados ... which we will do, later. I can fix the records at Buffalo
  Bill. just don't argue about the credit charge, stet?"
  "But- Yah, stet." Hope you won't be noticed, that's the real defense. I
  was thinking of bailing out ... but curiosity is part of what gets you
  into the ARM. "Tell your story. You said she sliced the bread with the,
  you know, motor?"
  "Maybe you don't remember. Angel's Pencil isn't your ordinary Bussard
  ramjet. The field scoops up interstellar hydrogen to feed a fusion-pumped
  laser. The idea was
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE:    37

 to use it for communications too. Blast a message half across the galaxy
 with that. A Belter cremiman used it to cut the alien ship in half"
  "There's a communication you can live without. Anton . . . What they
  taught us in school. A sapient species doesn't reach space unless the
  members learn to cooperate. They'll wreck the environment, one way or
  another, war or straight libertarianism or overbreeding. . . remember?"
 "Sure."
 "So do you believe all this?"
  "I think so." He smiled painfully. "Director Bernhardt didn't. He
  classified the message and attached a memo too. Six years of flight
  aboard a ship of limited size, terminal boredom coupled with high
  intelligence and too much time, elaborate practical jokes, yadda yadda.
  Director Harms left it classified ... with the cooperation of the Belt.
  Interesting?"
 "But he had to have that."
  "But they had to agree. There's been more since. Angel's Pencil sent us
  hundreds of detailed photos of the alien ship. It's unlikely they could
  be faked. There are corpses. Big sort-of cats, orange, up to three meters
  tall, big feet and elaborate hands with thumbs. We're in mucking great
  trouble if we have to face up to such beasties."
  "Anton, we've had three hundred and fifty years of peace, We must be
  doing something right. The odds say we can negotiate."
 "You haven't seen them."
  It was almost funny. Jack was trying to make me nervous. Twenty years ago
  the terror would have been fizzing in my blood. Better living through
  chemistry! This was all frightening enough; but my fear was a cerebral
  thing, and I was its master.
 I wasn't nervous enough for Anton. -Jack, this isn't
 387'he Best of All Possible Wars

 just vaporware. A lot of those photos show what's maybe a graviton
 generator, maybe not. Director Harms set up a lab on the Moon to build one
 for us."
 "Funded?"
  "Heavy funding. Sontebody believes in this. But they're getting results!
  It works!"
  I mulled it. "Alien contact. As a species we don't seem to handle that
  too well."
 " Maybe this one can't be handled at all."
 "What else is being done?"
  "Nothing, or damn close. Silly suggestions, careeroriented crap designed
  to make a bureau bigger ... Nobody wants to use the magic word. War.-
  "War. Three hundred and fifty years out of practice, we are. Maybe C.
  Cretemaster will save us." I smiled at Anton's bewilderment. "Look it up
  in the ARM records. There's supposed to be an alien of sorts living in
  the cometary halo. He's the force that's been keeping us at peace this
  past three and a half centuries."
 "Very funny."
  "Mmm. Well, Anton, this is a lot more real for you than me. I haven't yet
  seen anything upsetting."
  I hadn't called him a liar. I'd only made him aware that I knew nothing
  to the contrary. For Anton there might be elaborate proofs; but I'd seen
  nothing, and heard only a scary tale.
  Anton reacted gracefully. "Of course. Well, there's still that bottle."
  Anton's Calvados was as special as he'd claimed, decades old and quite
  unique. He produced cheese and bread. Good thing; I was ready to eat his
  arm off. We managed to stick to harmless topics, and parted friends.

  The big catlike aliens had taken up residence in my soul.
 Aliens aren't implausible. Once upon a time, maybe.
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   39

 But an ancient ETI in a stasis field had been in the Smithsonian since the
 opening of the twenty-second century, and a quite different creature-C.
 Cretemaster's real-life analog-had crashed on Mars before the century
 ended.
  Two spacecraft matching course at near lightspeed, that was just short
  of ridiculous. Kinetic energy considerations ... why, two such ships
  colliding might as well be made of antimatter! Nothing short of a gravity
  generator could make it work. But Anton was claiming a gravity generator.
  His story was plausible in another sense. Faced with warrior aliens, the
  ARM would do only what they could not avoid. TI iey would build a gravity
  generator because the ARM must control such a thing. Any further move was
  a step toward the unthinkable. The ARM took sole credit (and other
  branches of the United Nations also took sole credit) for the fact that
  Man had left war behind. I shuddered to think what force it would take
  to turn the ARM toward war.
  I would continue to demand proof of Anton's story. Looking for proof was
  one way to learn more, and I resist seeing myself as stupid. But I
  believed him already.
 On Thursday we returned to Suite 23309.
  I had to dig deep to find out, but they're not just sitting on their
  thumbs," he said. "There's a game going in Aristarchus Crater, Belt
  against flatlander. They're playing peace games."
 "Huh?"
  "They're making formats for contact and negotiation with hypothetical
  aliens. The models all have the look of those alien corpses, cats with
  bald tails, but they all think differently-"
 "Good." Here was my proof. I could check this claim.
  "Good. Sure. Peace games." Anton was brooding. Twitchy. "What about war
  games?"
 40The Best of All Possible Wars

  "How would you run one? Half your soldiers would be dead at the end ...
  unless you're thinking of rifles with paint bullets. War gets more
  violent than that."
  Anton laughed. "Picture every building in Chicago covered with scarlet
  paint on one side. A nuclear war game.
 "Now what? I mean for us."
  "Yah. Jack, the ARM isn't doing anything to put the human race back on
  a war footing."
  "Maybe they've done something they haven't told you about."
 "Jack, I don't think so."
  "They haven't let you read all their files, Anton. Two weeks ago you
  didn't know about peace games in Aristarchus. But okay. What should they
  be doing?"
 "I don't know."
 "How's your chemistry?"
  Anton grimaced. "How's yours? Forget I said that. Maybe I'm back to
  normal and maybe I'm not."
  "Yah, but you haven't thought of anything. How about weapons? Can't have
  a war without weapons, and the ARM's been suppressing weapons. We should
  dip into their files and make up a list. It would save some time, when
  and if. I know of an experiment that might have been turned into an
  inertialess drive if it hadn't been suppressed."
 "Date?"
  "Early twenty-second. And there was a field projector that would make
  things bum, late twenty-third."
  "I'll find 'em." Anton's eyes took on a faraway look. "There's the
  archives. I don't mean just the stuff that was built and then destroyed.
  The archives reach all the way back to the early twentieth. Stuff that
  was proposed, tanks, orbital beam weapons, kinetic energy weapons,
  biologicals-"
 "We don't want biologicals."
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   41

  I thought he hadn't heard. "Picture crowbars six feet long, A short burn
  takes them out of orbit, and they steer themselves down to anything with
  the silhouette you want ... a tank or a submarine or a limousine, say.
  Primitive stuff now, but at least it would do something." He was really
  getting into this. The technical terms he was tossing off were masks for
  horror. He stopped suddenly, then, "Why not biologicals?"
  "Nasty bacteria tailored for us might not work on warcats. We want their
  biological weapons, and we don't want them to have ours."
  ". . . Stet. Now here's one for you. How would you adjust a'doc to make
  a normal person into a soldier?"
  My head snapped up. I saw the guilt spread across his face. He said, "I
  had to look up your dossier. Had to, Jack."
  "Sure. All right, I'll see what I can find." I stood up. "The easiest way
  is to pick schitzies and train them as soldiers. We'd start with the same
  citizens the ARM has been training since ... date classified, three
  hundred years or so. People who need the 'doc to keep their metabolism
  straight, or else they'll ram a car into a crowd, or strangle-"
  "We wouldn't find enough. When you need soldiers, you need thousands,
  Maybe millions."
 "True. It , s a rare condition. Well, good night, Anton."
 I fell asleep on the 'doc table again.

  Dawn poked under my eyelids and I got up and moved toward the holophone.
  Caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. Rethought. If David saw me
  looking like this, he'd be booking tickets to attend the funeral. So I
  took a shower and a cup of coffee first.
  My eldest son looked like I had-decidedly rumpled. "Dad, can't you read
  a clock?"
 "I'm sorry. Really." These calls are so expensive that
 42The Best of All Possible Wars

 there's no point in hanging up. "How are things in Aristarchus?"
  "Clavius. We've been moved out. We've got half the space we used to, and we
  needed twice the space to hold everything we own. Ah, the time change isn't
  your fault, Dad, we're all in Clavius now, all but Jennifer. She-" David
  vanished. A mechanically soothing voice said, "You have impinged on ARM
  police business. The cost of your call will be refunded."
  I looked at the empty space where David's face had been. I was ARM ... but
  maybe I'd already heard enough.
  My granddaughter Jennifer is a medic. The censor program had reacted to her
  name in connection with David. David said she wasn't with him. The whole
  family had been moved out but for Jennifer.
 If she'd stayed on in Aristarchus ... or been kept on ...
  Human medics like Jennifer are needed when something unusual has happened
  to a human body or brain. Their they study what's going on, with an eye to
  writing more programs for the 'does. The bulk of these problems are
  psychological.
 Anton's "peace games" must be stressful as Hell.
  CHAILYrER TWO

  Anton wasn't at the Monobloc Thursday. That gave me another week to
  rethink and recheck the programs I'd put on a dime disk; but I didn't
  need it.
  I came back the next Thursday. Anton Brillov and Phoebe Garrison were
  holding a table for four.
  I paused-backlit in the doorway, knowing my expression was hidden-then
  moved on in. "When did you get back?"
 "Saturday before last," Phoebe said gravely.
  It felt awkward, Anton felt it too; but then, he would. I began to wish
  I didn't ever have to see him on a Thursday night.
 I tried tact. "Shall we see if we can conscript a fourth?"
  "It's not like that," Phoebe said. "Anton and 1, we're together. We had
  to tell you."
  But I'd never thought ... I'd never claimed Phoebe. Dreams are private.
  This was coming from some wild direction. "Together as in?"
  Anton said, "Well, not married, not yet, but thinking about it. And we
  wanted to talk privately."
 "Like over dinner?"
 "A good suggestion."

               43
 44The Best of All Possible Wars

 "I like Buffalo Bill. Let's go there."
  Twenty-odd habitu6s of the Monobloc must have heard the exchange and
  watched us leave. Those three longtimers seem friendly enough, but too
  serious ... and three's an odd number. . .
 We didn't talk until we'd reached Suite 23309.

  Anton closed the door before he spoke. "She's in, Jack. Everything."
 I said, "It's really love, then."
  Phoebe smiled. "Jack, don't be offended, Choosing is what hurnans do."
  Trite, I thought, and skip it. -That bit there in the Monobloc seemed
  overdone. I felt excessively foolish."
  "That was for them. My idea," Phoebe said. "After tonight, one of us may
  have to go away. This way we've got an all-purpose excuse. You leave
  because your best friend and favored lady closed you out. Or Phoebe leaves
  because she can't bear to ruin a friendship. Or big, burly Jack drives
  Anton away. See?"
  She wasn't just in, she was taking over. Ah, well. "Phoebe, love, do you
  believe in murderous cats eight feet tall?"
 "Do you have doubts, Jack?"
  "Not any more. I called my son. Something secretive is happening in
  Aristarchus, something that requires a medic."
 She only nodded. "What have you got for us?"
  I showed them my dime disk. "Took me less than a week. Run it in an
  autodoc. Ten personality choices. The chemical differences aren't big, but
  ... infantry, which means killing on foot and doesn't have anything to do
  with children ... where was I? Yah. Infantry isn't at all like logistics,
  and neither is it like espionage, and Navy is different yet. We may have
  lost some of the military vocations over the centuries. We'll have to
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   45

 re-invent them. This is just a first cut. I wish we had a way to try it
 out."
  Anton set a dime disk next to mine, and a small projector. "Mine's nearly
  full. The ARM's stored an incredible range of dangerous devices. We need
  to think hard about where to store this. I even wondered if one of us
  should be emigrating, which is why-"
 "To the Belt? Further?"
  "Jack, if this all adds up, we won't have time to reach another star."
  We watched stills and flat motion pictures of weapons and tools in
  action. Much of it was quite primitive, copied out of deep archives. We
  watched rock and landscape being torn, aircraft exploding, machines
  destroying other machines ... and imagined flesh shredding.
  "I could get more, but I thought I'd better show you this first," Anton
  said.
 I said, "Don't bother."
 "What? Jack?"
  "It only took us a week! Why risk our necks to do work that can be
  duplicated that fast?"
 Anton looked lost. "We need to do sonwthing!"
  "Well, maybe we don't. Maybe the ARM is doing it all for us."
  Phoebe gripped Anton's wrist hard, and he swallowed some bitter retort.
  She said, "Maybe we're missing something. Maybe we're not looking at it
  right."
 "What's on your mind?"
  "Let'sfind a way to look at it differently." She was looking straight at
  me.
 I said, "Stoned? Drunk? Fizzed? Wired?"
 Phoebe shook her head. "We need the schitz view."
  "Dangerous, love. Also, the chemicals you're talking about are massively
  illegal. I can't get them, and Anton would be caught for sure-" I saw the
  way she was
 46The Best of All Possible Wars

 smiling at me. "Anton, I'll break your scrawny neck."
 "Huh? Jack?"
  "No, no, he didn't tell me," Phoebe said hastily, "though frankly I'd think
  either of you might have trusted me that much, Jack! I remembered you in
  the 'doc that morning, and Anton coming down from that twitchy state on a
  Thursday night, and it all clicked."
 -Okay.-
  "You're a schitz, Jack. But it's been a long time, hasn't it?"
  "Thirteen years of peace," I said. "They pick us for it, you know. Paranoid
  schizophrenics, born with our chemistry screwed up, hair trigger temper and
  a skewed view of the universe. Most schitzies never have to feel that. We
  use the 'does more regularly than you do and that's that. But some of us go
  into the ARM . . . Phoebe, your suggestion is still silly- Anton's crazy
  four days out of the week, just like I used to be. Anton's all you need."
 "Phoebe, he's right."
  "No. The ARM used to be all schitzies, right? The genes have thinned out
  over three hundred years."
  Anton nodded. "They tell us in training. The ones who could be Hitler or
  Napoleon or Castro, they're the ones the ARM wants. They're the ones you
  can send on a mother hunt, the ones with no social sense ... but the
  Fertility Board doesn't let them breed either, unless they've got something
  special. Jack, you were special, high intelligence or something-"
  "Perfect teeth, and I don't get sick in free fall, and Charlotte's people
  never develop back problems. That helped. Yah ... but every century there
  are less of us. So they hire some Antons too, and make you crazy- 11
  "But carefully," Phoebe said. "Anton's not evolved from paranoia, Jack. You
  are. When they juice Anton up they don't make him too crazy, just enough to
  get the
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE  47

 viewpoint they want. I bet they leave the top management boringly sane.
 But you, Jack--
  "I see it." Centuries of ARM tradition were squarely on her side.
  "You can go as crazy as you like. It's all natural, and medics have known
  how to handle it since Only One Earth. We need the schitz viewpoint, and
  we don't have to steal the chemicals."
 "Stet. When do we start?"
 Anton looked at Phoebe. Phoebe said, "Now?"

  We played Anton's tape all the way through, to a running theme of
  graveyard humor.
  "I took only what I thought we could use," Anton said. "You should have
  seen some of the rest. Agent Orange. Napalm. Murder stuff."
 Phoebe said, "Isn't this murder?"
  That rernark might have been unfair. We were watching this bizarre chunky
  rotary-blade flyer. Fire leaped from underneath it, once and again ...
  weapons of some kind.
  Anton said, "Aircraft design isn't the same when you use it for murder.
  It changes when you expect to be shot at. Here-" The picture had changed.
  "That's another weapons platform. It's not just fast, it's supposed to
  hide in the sky. Jack, are you all right?"
 "I'm seared green. I haven't felt any effects yet."
  Phoebe said, "You need to relax. Anton delivers a terrific massage. I
  never learned."
  She wasn't kidding. Anton didn't have my muscle, but he had big
  strangler's hands. I relaxed into it, talking as he worked, liking the
  way my voice wavered as his hands pounded my back.
  "It hasn't been that long since a guy like me let his 'doc run out of
  beta-dammasomething. An indicator light ran out and he didn't notice. He
  tried to kill his business
 48The Best of All Possible Wars

 partner by bombing his partner's house, and got some family members
 instead."
  "We're on watch," Phoebe said. "If you go berserk we can handle it. Do
  you want to see more of this?"
  "We've missed something. Children, I'm a registered schitz. If I don't
  use my 'doe for three days, they'll be trying to find me before I
  remember I'm the Marsport Strangler."
  Anton said, "He's right, love. Jack, give me your door codes. If I can
  get into your apt, I can fix the records."
  "Keep talking. Finish the massage, at least. We might have other
  problems. Do we want fruit juice? Munchies? Foodlike substances?"
  When Anton came back with groceries, Phoebe and I barely noticed.
  Were the warcats real? Could we fight them with present tech? How long
  did Sol system have? And the other systems, the more sparsely settled
  colony worlds? Was it enough to make tapes and blueprints of the old
  murder machines, or must we set to building clandestine factories? Phoebe
  and I were spilling ideas past each other as fast as they came, and I had
  quite forgotten that I was doing something dangerous.
  I noticed i nyself noticing that I was thinking much faster than thoughts
  could spill from my lips. I remembered knowing that Phoebe was brighter
  than I was, and that didn't matter either. But Anton was losing his
  Thursday edge.
  We slept. The old airbed was a big one. We woke to fruit and bread and
  dived back in.
  We re-invented the Navy using only what Anton had recorded of seagoing
  navies. We had to. There had never been space navies; the long peace had
  fallen first.
  I'm not sure when I slid into schitz mode. I'd spent four days out of
  seven without the 'doe, every week for forty-one years excluding
  vacations. You'd think I'd
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE  49

 remember the feel of my brain chemistry changing. Sometimes I do; but it's
 the central vw that changes, and there's no way to control that.
  Anton's machines were Ion out of date, and none had been developed even for
  interplanetary war. Mankind had found peace too soon. Pity~ But if the
  warcats' gravity generators could be copied before the warcats arrived,
  that alone could save us!
  Then again, whatever the cats had for weapons, kinetic energy was likely to
  be the ultimate weapon, however the mass was moved. Energy considerations
  don't he ... I stopped trying to anticipate individual war machines; what
  I needed was an overview.
 Anton was saying very little.
  I realized that I had been wasting my time making medical programs.
  Chemical enhancement was the most trivial of what we'd need to remake an
  army. Extensive testing would be needed, and then we might not get soldiers
  at all unless they retained sonte civil rights, or unless officers killed
  enough of them to impress the rest. Our limited pool of schitzies had
  better be trained as our officers. For that matter, we'd better start by
  taking over the ARM. They had all the brightest schitzies.
  As for Anton's work in the ARM archives, the most powerful weapons had been
  entirely ignored. They were too obvious.
  I saw how Phoebe was staring at me, and Anton too, both gape-jawed.
  I tried to explain that our task was nothing less than the reorganization
  of humanity. Large numbers might have to die before the rest saw the wisdom
  in following our lead. The warcats would teach that lesson ... but if we
  waited for them, we'd be too late. Time was breathing hot on our necks.
 Anton didn't understand. Phoebe was following me,
 50The Best of All Possible Wars

 though not well, but Anton's body language was pulling him back and
 closing him up while his face stayed blank. He feared me worse than he
 feared warcats.
  I began to understand that I might have to kill Anton. I hated him for
  that.

  We did not sleep Friday at all. By Saturday noon we should have been
  exhausted. I'd caught catnaps from time to time, we all had, but I was
  still blazing with ideas. In my mind the pattern of an interstellar
  invasion was shaping itself like a vast three-dimensional map.
  Earlier I might have killed Anton, because he knew too much or too
  little, because he would steal Phoebe from me. Now I saw that that was
  foolish. Phoebe wouldn't follow him. He simply didn't have the ... the
  internal power. As for knowledge, he was our only access to the ARM!
  Saturday evening we ran out of food ... and Anton and Phoebe saw the
  final flaw in their plan.
  I found it hugely amusing. My 'doe was halfway across Santa Maria. They
  had to get me there. Me, a schitz.
  We talked it around. Anton and Phoebe wanted to check my conclusions.
  Fine: we'd give them the schitz treatment. But for that we needed my disk
  (in my pocket) and my 'doe (at the apt). So we had to go to my apt.
  With that in mind, we shaped plans for a farewell bacchanal.
  Anton ordered supplies. Phoebe got me into a taxi. When I thought of
  other destinations she was persuasive. And the party was waiting ...
  We were a long time reaching the 'doe. There was beer to be dealt with,
  and a pizza the size of Arthur's Round Table. We sang, though Phoebe
  couldn't hold a tune. We took ourselves to bed. It had been years since
  my urge to rut ran so high, so deep, backed by a sadness that ran deeper
  yet and wouldn't go away.
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   51

  When I was too relaxed to lift a finger, we staggered singing to the 'doc
  with me hanging limp between them. I produced my dime disk, but Anton took
  it away. What was this? They moved me onto the table and set it working. I
  tried to explain: they had to lie down, put the disk here ... But the
  circuitry found my blood loaded with fatigue poisons, and put me to steep.

 Sunday noon:
  Anton and Phoebe seemed embarrassed in my presence. My own memories were
  bizarre, embarrassing. I'd been guilty of egotism, arrogance, self-centered
  lack of consideration. Three dark blue dots on Phoebe's shoulder told me
  that I'd brushed the edge of violence. But the worst memory was of thinking
  like some redhanded conqueror, and out loud.
 They'd never love me again.
  But they could have brought me into the apt and straight to the 'doc. Why
  didn't they?
  While Anton was out of the room I caught Phoebe's smile in the comer of my
  eye, and saw it fade as I turned. An old suspicion surfaced and has never
  faded since.
  Suppose that the women I love are all attracted to Mad Jack. Somehow they
  recognize my schitz potential though they find my sane state dull. There
  must have been a place for madness throughout most of human history. So men
  and women seek in each other the capacity for madness ...
  And so what? Schitzies kill. The real Jack Strather is too dangerous to be
  let loose.
  And yet ... it had been worth doing. From that strange fifty-hour session
  I remembered one real insight. We spent the rest of Sunday discussing it,
  making plans, while my central nervous system returned to its accustomed,
  unnatural state. Sane Jack.
           4~       -.0110~
 52The Best of All Possible Wars

  Anton Brillov and Phoebe Garrison held their wedding reception in the
  Monobloc. I stood as best man, bravely cheerful, running over with
  congratulations, staying carefully sober.
  A week later I was among the asteroids. At the Monobloc they said that
  Jack Strather had fled Earth after his favored lady deserted him for his
  best friend.
  CHAPTER THREE

  Things ran smoother for me because John junior had made a place for
  himself in Ceres.
  Even so, they had to train me. Twenty years ago I'd spent a week in the
  Belt. It wasn't enough. Training and a Belt citizen's equipment used up
  most of my savings and two months of my time.
  Time brought me to Mercury, and the lasers, eight years ago.

  Light-sails are rare in the inner solar system. Between Venus and Mercury
  there are still light-sail races, an expensive, uncomfortable, and
  dangerous sport. Cargo craft once sailed throughout the asteroid belt,
  until fusion motors became cheaper and more dependable.
  The last refuge of the light-sail is a huge, empty region: the cometary
  halo, Pluto and beyond. The light-sails are all cargo craft. So far from
  Sol, their thrust must be augmented by lasers, the same Mercury lasers
  that sometimes hurl an unmanned probe into interstellar space.
  These were different from the launch lasers I was familiar with. They
  were enormously larger. In Mercury's

               53
 54The Best of All Possible Wars

 lower gravity, in Mercury's windless environment, they looked like
 crystals caught in spiderwebs. When the lasers fired the fragile support
 structures wavered like a spiderweb in a wind.
  Each stood in a wide black pool of solar collector, as if tar paper had
  been scattered at random. A collector sheet that lost fifty percent of
  power was not removed. We would add another sheet, but continue to use
  all the available power.
  Their power output was dangerous to the point of fantasy. For safety's
  sake the Mercury lasers must be continually linked to the rest of the
  solar system across a lightspeed delay of several hours. The newer solar
  collectors also picked up broadcasts from space, or from the control
  center in Challenger Crater. Mercury's lasers must never lose contact.
  A beam that strayed where it wasn't supposed to could do untold damage.
  They were spaced all along the planet's equator. They were hundreds of
  years apart in design, size, technology. They fired while the sun was up
  and feeding their square miles of collectors, with a few fusion
  generators for backup. They flicked from target to target as the horizon
  moved. When the sun set, it set for thirty-odd Earth days, and that was
  plenty of time to make repairs-
  "In general, that is." Kathry Perritt watched my eyes to be sure I was
  paying attention. I felt like a schoolboy again. "In general we can
  repair and update each laser station in turn and still keep ahead of the
  dawn. But come a quake, we work in broad daylight and like it."
 "Scary," I said, too cheerfully.
  She looked at me. "You feel nice and cool? That's a million tons of soil,
  old man, and a layer cake of mirror sheeting on top of that, and these
  old heat exchangers are still the most powerful ever built. Daylight
  doesn't scare ou? You'll get over that."
 ary was a sixth generation Belter from Mercury,
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   55

 taller than me by seven inches, not very strong, but extremely dexterous.
 She was my boss. I'd be sharing a room with her ... and yes, she rapidly let
 me know that she expected us to be bedmates.
  I was all for that. Two months in Ceres had showed me that Belters respond
  to social signals I don't know. I had no idea how to seduce anyone.
  Sylvia and Myron had been born on Mars in an enclave of archeologists
  digging out the cities beneath the deserts. Companions from birth, they'd
  married at puberty. They were addicted to news broadcasts. News could get
  them arguing. Otherwise they behaved as if they could read each other's
  minds; they hardly talked to each other or to anyone else.
  We'd sit around the duty room and wait, and polish our skills as
  storytellers. Then one of the lasers would go quiet, and a tractor the size
  of some old Chicago skyscraper would roll.
  Rarely was there much of a hurry. One laser would fill in for another until
  the Monster Bug arrived. Then the robots, riding the Monster Bug like one
  of Anton's aircraft carriers, would scatter ahead of us and set to work.

  Two years after my arrival, my first quake shook down six lasers in four
  different locations, and ripped a few more loose from the sunlight
  collectors. Landscape had been shaken into new shapes. The robots had some
  trouble. Sometimes Kathry could reprogram. Otherwise her team had to muscle
  them through, with Kathry to shout orders and me to supply most of the
  muscle.
  Of the six lasers, five survived. They seemed built to survive almost
  anything. The robots were equipped to spin new support structure and to
  lift the things into place, with a separate program for each design.
 Maybe John junior hadn't used influence in my behalf.
 56The Best of All Possible Wars

 Flatlander muscle was useful, when the robots couldn't get over the dust
 pools or through the broken rock. For that matter, maybe it wasn't some
 Belt tradition that made Kathry claim me on sight. Sylvia and Myron
 weren't sharing; and I might have been female, or bent. Maybe she thought
 she was lucky.
  After we'd remounted the lasers that survived, Kathry said, -They're all
  obsolete anyway. They're not being replaced."
 "That's not good," I said.
  "Well, good and bad. Light-sail cargos are slow. If the light wasn't
  almost free, why bother? The interstellar probes haven't sent much back
  yet, and we might as well wait. At least the Belt Speakers think so."
 "Do I gather I've fallen into a kind of a blind alley?" She glared at me.
 "You're an immigrant flatlander. What did you expect, First Speaker for
 the Belt? You thinking of moving on?"
 "Not really. But if the job's about to fold-"
  "Another twenty years, maybe. Jack, I'd miss you. Those two-"
  "It's all right, Kathry. I'm not going." I waved both arms at the blazing
  dead landscape and said, "I like it here," and smiled into her bellow of
  laughter.
 I beamed a tape to Anton when I got the chance.

     "If I was ever angry, I got over it, as I hope you'veforgotten
     anything I said or did while I was, let's say, running on automatic.
     I'vejound another life in deep space, not much differentfrom what I
     was doing on Earth ... though that may not last. These light-sail
     pusher lasers are a blastfrom the past. Time gets them, the quakes get
     them, and they're not being replaced. Kathry says twenty years.
     '-You said Phoebe left Earth too. Working with
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE   57

  an asteroid mining setup? If you're still trading
  tapes, tell her I'm all right and I hope she is too.
  Her career choice was better than mine, I expect . . .

 I couldn't think of anything else to do.

  Three years after I expected it, Kathry asked. "Why did you come out
  here? It's none of my business, of course-
  Customs differ: it took her three years in my bed to work up to this. I
  said, "Time for a change," and "I've got children and grandchildren on
  the Moon and Ceres and Floating Jupiter."
 "Do you miss them?"
  I had to say yes. The result was that I took half a year off to bounce
  around the solar system. I found Phoebe, too, and we did some catching
  up; but I still came back early. My being away made us both antsy.
  Kathry asked again a year later. I said, "What I did on Earth was not
  like this. The difference is, on Earth I'm dull, Here-am I dull?"
  "You're fascinating. You won't talk about the ARM, so you're fascinating
  and mysterious. I can't believe you'd be dull just because of where you
  are. Why did you leave, really?"
 So I said, "There was a woman."
 "What was she like?"
  "She was smarter than me. I was a little dull for her. So she left, and
  that would have been okay. But she came back to my best friend." I
  shifted uncomfortably and said, "Not that they drove me off Earth."
 "No?"
  "No. I've got everything I once had herding construction robots on Earth,
  plus one thing I wasn't bright enough to miss. I lost my sense of purpose
  when I left the ARM."
 58The Best of All Possible Wars

  I noticed that Myron was listening. Sylvia was watching the holo walls,
  the three that showed the face of Mercury: rocks blazing like coals in
  fading twilight, with only the robots and the lasers to give the illusion
  of life. The fourth we kept changing. just then it showed a view up the
  trunk into the waving branches of the tremendous redwood they've been
  growing for three hundred years, in Hovestraydt City on the Moon.
  "These are the good times," I said. -You have to notice, or they'll go
  right past. We're holding the stars together. Notice how much dancing we
  do? On Earth I'd be too old and creaky for that-Sylvia, what?"
  Sylvia was shaking my shoulder. I heard it as soon as I stopped talking:
  "Tombaugh Station relayed this picture, the last broadcastfrom the
  Fantasy Prince. Once again, the Fantasy Prince has apparently been-"
  Starscape glowed within the fourth holo wall. Something came out of
  nowhere, moving hellishly fast, and stopped so quickly that it might have
  been a toy. It was egg-shaped, studded with what I remembered as weapons.

  Phoebe won't have made her move yet. The warcats will have to be deep in
  the solar system before her asteroid mining setup can be any deterrent.
  Then one or another warcat ship will find streams of slag sprayed across
  its path, impacting at comet speeds.
  By now Anton must know whether the ARM actually has plans to repel an
  interstellar invasion.
  Me, I've already done my part. I worked on the computer shortly after I
  first arrived. Nobodys tampered with it since. The dime disk is in place.
  We kept the program relatively simple. Until and unless the warcats
  destroy something that's being pushed by a laser from Mercury, nothing
  will happen. The warcats must condemn themselves. Then the affected
         MADNESS HAS ITS PLACE  59

 laser will lock onto the warcat ship ... and so will every
 Mercury laser that , s getting sunlight. Twenty seconds,
 then the system goes back to normal until another target
 disappears.
  If the wareats can be persuaded that Sol system is defended, maybe
  they'll give us time to build defenses.
  Asteroid ruiners dig deep for fear of solar storms and meteors. Phoebe
  might survive. We might survive here too, with shielding built to block
  the hellish sun, and laser cannon to battle incoming ships. But that's
  not the way to bet.
 We might get one ship.
 It might be worth doing.
THE MAN WHO
WOULD BE KZIN

           0

Greg Bear and
S.M. Stirling

 Copyright (D 1991 by Greg Bear & S.M. Stirling
  "I am become overlord of a fleet of transports, supply ships, and
  wrecks!" Kfraksha-Admiral said. "No wonder the First Fleet did not
  return; our Intelligence reports claimed these hunwns were leaf-eaters
  without a weapon to their name, and they have destroyed a fourth of our
  combat strength!"
  He turned his face down to the holographic display before him; it was set
  for exterior-visual, and showed only bright unwinking points of light and
  the schematics that indicated the hundreds of vessels of the Second
  Fleet. Here beyond the orbit of Neptune the humans' sun was just another
  star ... we will eat you yet, he vowed silently, A spacer's eye could
  identify those suns whose worlds obeyed the Patriarch. More that did not,
  unvisited, or unconquered yet like the Pierin holdouts on Zeta Reticuli.
  Yes, you and all like you! So many suns, so many ...
  The kzin commander's tail was not lashing; he was beyond that, and the
  naked pink length of that organ now stood out rigid as he paced the
  command deck of the Sons Contend With Bloody Fangs. The orange fur around
  his blunt muzzle bristled, and the reddish washcloth of his tongue kept
  sweeping up to moisten his black nostrils. The other kzinti on the bridge
  stayed prudently silent, forcing their batwing ears not to fold

               63
 64The Best of All Possible Wars

 into the fur of their heads at the spicy scent of highstatus anger. The
 lower-ranked bent above the consoles and readouts of their duty stations,
 taking refuge in work; the immediate staff prostrated themselves around
 the central display tank, laying their facial fur flat. Aideto-Commanders
 covered his nose with his hands in an excess of servility; irritated,
 Kfraksha kicked him in the ribs as he went by. There was no satisfaction
 to the gesture, since they were all in space-combat armor save for the
 unhinged helmets, but the subordinate went spinning a meter or so across
 the deck.
  "Well? Advise me," the kzin admiral spat. "Surely something can be
  learned from the loss of a squadron of Gut Tearer-class cruisers?"
  Reawii-Intelligence-Analyst raised tufted eyebrows and fluttered his lips
  against his fangs.
  "Frrrr. The ... rrrr, humans have devoted great resources to the defense
  of the gas-giant moons, whose resources are crucial."
  As Kfraksha-Admiral bared teeth, the Intelligence officer hurried on.
  Reawii's Homeworld accent irritated Kfraksha-Admiral at the best of
  times. His birth was better than his status, and it would not do to anger
  the supreme commander, who had risen from the ranks and was proud of it.
  He hurried beyond the obvious.
  "Their laser cannon opened fire with uncanny accuracy. We were unprepared
  for weapons of this type because such large fixed installations are
  seldom tactically worthwhile; also, our preliminary surveys did not
  indicate space defenses of any type. It is worth the risk to further
  fleet units to recover any possible Intelligence data from wreckage or
  survivors on appropriate trajectories."
  Kfraksha-Admiral's facial pelt rippled in patterns equivalent to a human
  nod.
  "Prepare summaries of projected operations for data and survivors," he
  said. Then he paused; now his tail
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   65

 did lash, sign of deep worry or concentration. "Hrrr. It is time we stomed
 being surprised by the Earth-monkeys and started 'springing unseen from
 the long grass ourselves. Bring me a transcript of all astronomical
 anomalies in this system."
  The staff officers rose and left at his gesture, and Kfraksha-Admiral
  remained staring into the display tank; he keyed it to a close-in view
  of the animal planet. Blue and white, more ocean than Homeworld, slightly
  lighter gravity. A rich world. A soft world, or so the telepaths said,
  no weapons, a species that was so without shame that it deliberately
  shunned the honorable path of war. Thousands of thousands squared of the
  animals. Unconsciously, he licked his lips. All the inore for the
  feeding.
  The game was wary, though. He must throttle his leap, though it was like
  squeezing his own throat in his claws.
 "I must know before I fight," he muttered.

 He was the perfect spy.
 He could also be the perfect saboteur.
 Lawrence Halloran was a strong projecting telepath.
  He could read the minds of most people with ease. The remaining select
  few he could invade, with steady concentration, within a week or two.
  Using what he found in those minds, Halloran could appear to be anybody
  or anything.
  He could also make suggestions, convincing his subjects---or victims-that
  they were undergoing some physical experience. In this, he relied in
  large measure on auto-suggestion; sometimes it was enough to plant a
  subliminal hint and have the victims convince themselves that they
  actually experienced something. The problem was that the Earth of the
  twenty-fourth century had little use for spies or saboteurs. Earth had
  been at peace for three hundred years. Everyone was prosperous, many
 66The Best of All Possible Wars

 were rich. The planet was a little crowded, but those who strongly disliked
 that could leave. Psychists and autodocs saw that nobody was violent or
 angry or unhappy for long. Most people were only vaguely aware that things
 had ever been very different, and the ARM, the UN technological police, kept
 it that way, ensuring that no revolutionary changes upset the comfortable
 status quo.
  Lawrence Halloran had an unusual ability that seemed to be completely
  useless. He had first used his talents in a most undignified way, appearing
  as the headmaster of his private Pacific Grove secondary school, sans
  apparel, in the middle of the quad during an exercise break. The headmaster
  had come within a hair's-breadth of being relieved of duty; an airtight
  alibi, that he had in fact been in conference with five teachers across the
  campus, had saved his job and reputation. Halloran's secret had not been
  revealed. But Halloran had learned an important object lesson: foolish use
  of his talents could have grave consequences. He had been raised to feel
  strong guilt at any hint of aggression. Children who scuffled in the
  schoolyard were sick and needed treatment.
  Human society was not so very different from an ant's nest, at the end of
  the Long Peace; a stick, inserted from an unexpected direction, could raise
  hell. And woe to the wielder if he stayed around long enough to let the
  ants crawl up the stick.
  That Halloran had not manifested his ability as an infant-not until his
  sixteenth year, in fact-was something of a miracle. The talent had
  undoubtedly existed in some form, but had kept itself hidden until five
  years after Halloran's first twinges of pubescence.
  At first, such a wild talent had been exhilarating. After the headmaster
  fiasco, and several weirder if less immediately foolish manifestations (a
  dinosaur on a slidewalk at night, Christ in a sacristy), and string of
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN   67

 romantic successes everyone else found bewildering, he had undergone what
 amounted to a religious conversion. Halloran came to realize that he could
 not use his talent without destroying himself, and those around him. The
 only thing it was good for was deception and domination.
 He buried it. Studied music. Specialized in Haydn.
 In his dreams, he became Haydn. It beat being himself
  When awake, he was merely Lawrence Halloran Jr., perpetual student:
  slightly raucous, highly intuitive (he could not keep his subconscious from
  exercising certain small forays) and generally regarded by his peers as
  someone to avoid. His only real friend was his cat. He knew that his cat
  loved him, because he fed her. Cats were neither altruists nor hypocrites,
  and nobody expected them to be noble. If he could not be Haydn, he would
  rather have been a cat.
  Halloran resented his social standing. Ifonly they knew how noble I am. He
  had a talent he could use to enslave people, and by sublimating it he
  became an irritating son of a bitch; that, he thought, was highly
  commendable self-sacrifice.
  And they hate me for it, he realized. I don't much love them either. Lucky
  for them I'm an altruist.
  Then the war had come; invaders from beyond human space. The kzinti:
  catlike aliens, carnivores, aggressive imperialists. Human society was
  turned upside down once again, although the process was swift only from a
  historical perspective. With the war eight years along, Halloran had grown
  sick of this masquerade. Against his better judgment, he had made himself
  available to the UN Space Navy; UNSN, for short. Almost immediately, he had
  been sequestered and prepared for just such an eventuality as the capture
  of a kzinti vessel. In the second kzin attack on the Sol system, a cruiser
  named War Loot was chopped into several pieces by converted launch lasers
  and fell into human hands.
 68The Best of All Possible Wars

  In this, Earth's most desperate hour, neither Halloran nor any of his
  commanding officers considered his life to be worth much in and of
  itself. Nobility of purpose ...
 And if Halloran's subconscious thought differently-
  Halloran knew himself to be in control. Had he not sublimated the worst
  of his talent? Had he not let girls pour drinks on his head?
  Halloran's job was to study the kzin. Then to become one, well enough to
  fool another kzin. After all, if he could convince humans he was a
  dinosaur-which was obviously an impossibility-why not fool aliens into
  seeing what they expected?
  The first test of Halloran-Kzin was brief and simple. Halloran entered
  the laboratory where doctors struggled to keep two mangled kzin from the
  War Loot alive. In the cool ice-blue maximum isolation ward, he
  approached the flotation bed with its forest of pipes and wires and
  tubing. Huddled beneath the apparatus, the kzin known to its fellows as
  Telepath dreamed away his final hours on drugs custom-designed for his
  physiology.
  Telepaths were the most despised and yet valued of kzinti, something of
  an analogue to Halloran-a mind reader. To k-zinti, any kind of addiction
  was an unbearably shameful thing-a weakness of discipline and concen-
  tration, a giving in to the body whose territorial impulses established
  so much of the rigid Kzinti social ritual. To be addicted was to be less
  self-controlled than a kzin already was, and that was pushing things very
  close to the edge. And yet addiction to a drug was what produced kzinti
  telepaths.
  This k7in would not have looked very good in the best of times, despite
  his two hundred and twenty centimeters of height and bull-gorilla bulk;
  now he was shrunken and pitiful, his ribs showing through matted fur, his
  limbs reduced to lumpy bone, lips pulled back from yellow teeth and
  stinking gums. Telepath had been without
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN   69

 his fix for weeks. How much this lack, and the presence of anesthetics,
 had dulled his talents nobody could say, but his kind offered the greatest
 risk to the success of Halloran's mission. The kzin had been wearing a
 supply of the telepath drug on a leather belt when captured. Administered
 to him now, it would allow him to reach into the mind of another, with
 considerable effort ...
 Halloran-Kzin had to pass this test.
  He signaled the doctors with a nod, and from behind their one-way glass
  they began altering the concentration of drugs in Telepath's blood. They
  added some of the kzinti drug. A monitor wheeped softly, pitifully,
  indicating that their kzin would soon be awake and that he would be in
  pain.
  The kzin opened his eyes, rolled his head, and stared in surprise at
  Halloran-Kzin. The dying Telepath concealed his pain well.
  "I have been returned?" he said, in the hiss-spit-snarl of what his race
  called the Hero's Tongue.
 "You have been returned," Halloran-Kzin replied.
  "And am I too valuable to terminate?" the kzin asked sadly.
  You will die soon," Halloran-Kzin said, sensing that this would comfort
  him.
  "Animals ... eaters of plants. I have had nightmares, dreams of being
  pursued by herbivores. The shame. And no meat, or only cold rotten meat
  . . ."
  "Are you still capable?" Halloran-Kzin asked. He had learned enough about
  kzinti social structure from the relatively undamaged risoner designated
  Fixer-ofWeapons to understanythat Telepath would have no position if he
  was not telepathic. Fixer was the persona Halloran would assume. "Show
  me you are still capable."
  The kzin had shielded himself against stray sensations from human minds.
  But now he closed his eyes and knotted his black, leathery hands into
  fists. With an
 70The Best of All Possible Wars

 intense effort, he reached out and tapped Halloran's thoughts. Telepath's
 eyes widened until the rheumy circles around the wide pupils were clearly
 visible. His ears contracted into tight knots beneath the fur. Then he
 emitted a horrifying scream, like a jaguar in pain. Against all his
 restraints, he thrashed and twisted until he had torn loose the internal
 connections that kept him ahve. Orange-red blood pooled around the
 flotation bed and the monitor began a steady, funereal tone.
  Halloran left the ward. Colonel Buford Early waited for him outside; as
  usual, his case officer exuded an air of massive, unwilling patience.
  "Just a minor problem," Halloran said, shaken more than he wished the
  other man to know.
 "Minor?"
 "Telepath is dead. He saw my thoughts."
 "He thought you were a kzin?"
  "Yes. He wouldn't have tried reading me if he thought I was human."
 "What happened?"
  "I drove him crazy," Halloran said. "He was close to the edge anyway ...
  I pushed him over."
  "How could you do that?" Colonel Early asked, brow lowered incredulously.
 "I had a salad for lunch," Halloran replied.

  Halloran knew better than to wake a kzin in the middle of a nightmare.
  Fixer-of-Weapons had not rested peacefully the last four sleeps, and no
  wonder, with Halloran testing so many hypotheses, hour by hour, on the
  captive.
  The chamber in which the kzin slept was roomy enough, five meters on a
  side and three meters high, the walls colored a soothing mottled green.
  The air was warm and dry; Halloran had chapped lips from spending hours
  and days in the hapless kzin's company.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   71

  Thinking of a kzin as hapless was difficult. Fixer-ofWeapons had been
  Chief Weapons Engineer and Alien Technologies Officer aboard the invasion
  cruiser War Loot, a position demanding great strength and stamina even
  with the wartime dueling restrictions, for many other kzinti coveted such
  a billet.
  War Loot had been on a mission to probe human defenses within the
  ecliptic; to that extent, the kzinti mission had succeeded. The cruiser
  had been disabled within the outer limits of the asteroid belt by
  converted propulsion bearn lasers three weeks before, and against all
  odds, Fixer-of-Weapons and two other kzin had been captured. The others
  bad been severely injured, one almost cut in half by a shorn and warped
  bulkhead. The same bulkhead had sealed Fixer-of-Weapons in a cabin
  corner, equipped with a functional vent giving access to seven hours of
  trapped air. At the end of six and a half hours, Fixer-of-Weapons had
  passed out. Human investigators had cut him free ...
  And brought him to Ceres, largest of the asteroids, to be put in a cage
  with Halloran.
  To Fixer-of-Weapons, in his more lucid moments, Halloran looked like a
  particularly clumsy and socially inept kzin. But Halloran was a
  California boy, born and bred, a graduate of UCLA's revered school of
  music. Halloran did not look like a kzin unless he wanted to.
  Four years past, to prove to himself that his life was not a complete
  waste, he had spent his time learning to differentiate one Haydn piano
  sonata or string quartet from another, not a terribly exciting task, but
  peaceful and rewarding. He had developed a great respect for Haydn,
  coming to love the richness and subtle invention of the eighteenth
  century composer's music.
 To Earth-bound flatlanders, the war at the top of the
 72The Best of All Possible Wars

 solar system's gravity well, with fleets maneuvering over periods of
 months and years, was a distant and dimly perceived threat. Halloran had
 hardly known how to feel about his own existence, much less the survival
 of the human race. Haydn suited him to a tee. Glory did not seem
 important. Nobody would appreciate him anyway.
  Halloran's parents, and their fathers and mothers before them for two and
  a half centuries, had known an Earth of peace and relative prosperity.
  If any of them had desired glory and excitement, they could have
  volunteered for a decades-long journey by slow-boat to new colonies. None
  had.
  It was a Halloran tradition; careful study, avoidance of risk, lifetimes
  of productive peace. The tradition had gained his grandfather a long and
  productive life-one hundred and fifty years of it, and at least a century
  more to come. His father, Lawrence Halloran Sr., had made his fortune
  streamlining commodities distribution; a brilliant move into a neglected
  field, less crowded than information shunting. Lawrence Halloran Jr.,
  after the death of his mother in an earthquake in Alaska, had bounced
  from school to school, promising to be a perpetual student, gadding from
  one subject to another, trying to lose himself . . .
  And then peace had ended. The kzinti-not the first visitors from beyond
  the Solar System, but certainly the most aggressive-had made their
  presence known. Presence, to a kzin, was tantamount to conquest. For
  hundreds of thousands of kzin warriors, serving their Patriarchy, Earth
  and the other human worlds represented advancement; many females, higher
  status, and lifetime sinecures, without competition.
  Humans had been drawn into the war with no weapons as such. To defend
  themselves, all they had were the massive planet- and aste roid- mounted
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   73

 propulsion lasers and fusion drives that powered their starships. These
 technologies, some of them now converted to thoroughgoing weapons by Belters
 and UN engineers, provided what little hope humans had ...
  And there was the bare likelihood-unconfirmed as yet-that humans were
  innately more clever than kzinti, or at least more measured and restrained.
  Human fusion drives were certainly more efficient-but then, the kzinti had
  gravity polarizers, not unlike that found on the Pak ship piloted by Jack
  Brennan, and never understood. The Brennan polarizer still worked, but
  nobody knew how to control it---or build another like it. Gradually,
  scientists and UNSN commanders were realizing that capture of kzinti
  vessels, rather than complete destruction, could provide invaluable
  knowledge about such advanced technology.
  Gravity polarizers gave kzin ships the ability to travel at eight-tenths
  the speed of light, with rapid acceleration and artificial gravitation ...
  The kzinti did not need superefficient fusion drives.
  Halloran waited patiently for the Fixer-of-Weapons to awaken. An hour
  passed. He rehearsed the personality he was constructing, and toned the
  image he presented for the kzin. He also studied, for the hundredth time,
  the black markings of fur in the kzin's face and along his back,
  contrasting with the brownish-red undercoat. The kzin's ears were ornately
  tattooed in patterns Halloran had learned symbolized the intermeshed bones
  of kzinti enemies. This was how the kzinti recognized each other, beyond
  scent and gross physical features; failure to know and project such facial
  fur patterns and ear tattoos would mean discovery and death. The kzinti's
  own mind would supply the scent, given the visual clues; their noses were
  less sensitive than a dog's, much more so than a human's.
 74The Best of All Possible Wars

  Another hour, and Halloran felt a touch of impatience. Kzinti were
  supposed to be light and short-term sleepers. Fixer-of-Weapons seemed to
  have joined his warrior ancestors; lie barely breathed.
  At last, the captive stirred and opened his eyes, glazed nictitating
  membranes pulling back to reveal the large, gorgeous purple-rimmed golden
  eyes with their surprisingly humanlike round irises. Fixer-of-Weapons's
  wedge-shaped, blunt-muzzled face froze into a blank mask, as it always
  did when he confronted HalloranKzin, who stood on the opposite side of
  the containment room, tapping his elbow with one fin er. Distance from
  the captive was imperative, even whent was "restrained" by imaginary
  bonds suggested by Halloran. A kzin did not give warning when he was
  about to attack, and Fixerof-Weapons was being driven to emotional
  extremes.
  The kzin laid back his ears in furious misery. -1 have done nothing to
  deserve such treatment," he growled. He believed he was being detained
  on a kzinti fleet flagship. Halloran, had he truly been a kzin, would
  have preferred human capture to kzinti detention. I can't say I like the
  ratcat, he thought, with a twinge of guilt, quickly suppressed. But
  you've got to admit he's about as tough as he thinks he is.
  "That is for your superiors to decide," Halloran-Kzin said. "You behaved
  with suspected cowardice, you allowed an invasion cruiser to be disabled
  and captured-"
  "I was not Kufcha-Captain! I cannot be responsible for the incompetence
  of my commander." Fixer-ofWeapons rose to his full two hundred and twenty
  centimeters, short for a kzin, and flexed against the imaginary bonds.
  The muscles beneath the smoothfurred limbs and barrel chest were awesome,
  despite weight loss under weeks of captivit),% "This is a travesty! Why
  are you doing this to me?"
 "You will tell us exactly what happened, step by step,
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   75

 and how you allowed animals-plant-eaters-to capture
 War Loot."
  Fixer-of-Weapons slumped in abject despair. "I have told, again and
  again."
  Halloran-Kzin showed no signs of relenting. Fixerof-Weapons lashed his
  long pink rat-tail, sitting in a tight ball on the floor, swallowed hard
  and began his tale again, and again Halloran used the familiar litany as
  a cover to probe the kzin's inner thoughts.
  if Halloran was going to be a kzin, and think like one for days on end,
  then he had to have everything exactly right. His deception would be of
  the utmost delicacy. The smallest flaw could get him killed
  immediately-
  Kzinti, unlike the UN Space Navy, did not take prisoners except for
  Intelligence and cuhnary purposes.
  Fixer-of-Weapons finished his story. Halloran pulled back from the kzin's
  mind.
  "If I have disgraced myself, then at least allow me to die,"
  Fixer-of-Weapons said softly.
  That's one wish you can be granted, Halloran thought. One way or another,
  the kzin would be dead soon; his species did not survive in captivity.
  Halloran exited the cell and faced three men and two women in the
  antechamber. Two of the men wore the new uniform-barely ten years
  old---of the UN Space Navy. The third man was a Belter cultural
  scientist, the only one in the group actually native to Ceres, dressed
  in bright lab spotter orange. The two women Halloran had never seen
  before; they were also Belters, though their Belter tans had faded. All
  three wore the broad Belter Mohawk. The taller of the two offered
  Halloran her hand and introduced herself
  "I'm Kelly Ysyvry," she said. "Don't bother trying to spell it."
  "Y-S-Y-V-B-Y,- Halloran said, displaying the show-off mentality that had
  made his social life so difficult at times.
 76The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Right," Ysyvry said, unflappable. "This," she nodded at her female
  companion, "is Henrietta Olsen."
  Colonel Buford Early, the shortest and most muscular of the three men,
  nodded impatiently at the introductions; he was an Earther, coal-black
  and much older than he looked, something Ultra Secret in the ARM before
  the war. Early had recruited Halloran four years ago, trained him
  meticulously, and shown remarkable patience toward his peculiarities.
 "When are you going to be ready?" he asked Halloran.
 "Ready for what?" Halloran asked.
 "Insertion."
  Halloran, fully understanding the Colonel's meaning, inspected the women
  roguishly.
 "I'm confused," he said, smiling.
  "What he means," Ysyvry said, "is that we're all impatient, and you've
  been the stumbling block throughout this mission."
 'What is she?" Halloran asked Early.
  "We are the plunger of your syringe," Henrietta Olsen answered. "We're
  Belter pilots. We've been getting special training in the kzinti hulk."
  "Pleased to meet you," Halloran said. He glanced back at the hatch to the
  cell airlock. "Fixer-of-Weapons will be dead within a week. I can't learn
  any more from him. So ... I'm ready for a test."
  Early stared at him. Halloran knew the Colonel was restraining an urge
  to ask him, Are you sure?, after having displayed such impatience.
  "How do you know Fixer-of-Weapons will die?" the black man said.
  Halloran's smile stiffened. He disliked being challenged. "Because if I
  were him, and part of me is, I would have reached my limit."
  "It hasn't been an easy assignment," the cultural scientist commented.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   77

  "Easier for us than Fixer-of-Weapons," Halloran said, smirking inwardly
  as the scientist winced.

  There would be many problems, of course. Halloran would never be as
  strong as a kzin, and if there were any sort of combat, he would quickly
  lose ...
  Halloran, among the kzinti, thinking himself a kzin, would have to
  carefully preprogram himself to avoid such dangerous situations, to keep
  a low profile concomitant with his status, whatever that might be. That
  would be difficult. A high-status kzin had retainers, sons, flunkies, to
  handle status-challenges; many of the retainers picked carefully for a
  combination of dim wits and excellent reflexes. An officer with
  recognized rank could not be challenged while on a warship; punishments
  for trying included blinding, castration, and execution of all
  descendants--all more terrible than mere death to a kzin. Nameless
  ratings could duel as they pleased, provided they had a senior's
  permission ... and HalloranKzin would be outside the rank structure, with
  no protector.
  Fixer-Halloran, when he returned to the kzinti feet, would likely find
  all suitable billets on other vessels filled. To regain his position and
  keep face among his fellows, he could not simply "fit in" and be docile.
  But there were more ways than open combat to gain social status.
  The kzinti social structure was delicately tuned, though how delicately
  perhaps not even the kzinti understood. Halloran could wreak his own kind
  of havoc and none would suspect him of anything but overweening ambition.
  All of this, lie knew, would have to be accomplished in less than three
  hundred hours: just twelve days. His body would be worn out by that time.
  Bad diet-all meat, and raw at that, though digestible, with little chance
  for supplements of the vitamins a human needed and
 78The Best of All Possible Wars

 the life of a kzin did not produce; mental strain; luck running out.
 He did not expect to return.
  Halloran's hope was that his death would come in the capture or
  destruction of one or more kzinti ships.
  The chance for such a victory, however negligible it might be in the
  overall strategy of the war, was easily worth one's life, certainly,his
  own life.
  The truth was, Halloran thought he was a thorough shit, not of much use
  to anyone in the long run, a petty dilettante with an unlikely ability,
  more a handicap than an asset.
  Self-sacrifice would give him a peculiar satisfaction: See, I'm not so
  bad.
 Nobility of purpose.
  And something deeper: to actually be a kzin. A kzin could be all the
  things Halloran had trained himself not to be, and not feel guilty about
  it. Dominant. Vicious. Competitive.
 Kzinti were allowed to have fun.

  The short broadcast good-byes to his friends and relatives on Earth, as
  yet unassailed by kzinti:
  His father, now one hundred and twenty, he was able to say farewell to;
  but his grandfather, a Struldbrug and still one of the foremost
  collectors of Norman Rockwell art and memorabilia, was unavailable.
  He disliked his father, yet respected him, and loved his grandfather, but
  felt a kind of contempt for the man's sentimental passion.
  His grandfather's answering service did not know where the oldest living
  Halloran was. That brought on a sharp tinge of disappointment, against
  which he quickly raised a shield of aloofness. For a moment, a very young
  Lawrence-Larry~had surfaced, wanting, desperately needing to see Grandpa.
  And there was no room for
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   79

 such active sub-personalities, not with Fixer-of-Weapons filling much of his
 cranium. Or so he told himself, drowning the disappointment as an old farmer
 might have discarded a sack of unwanted kittens.
  Halloran met his father on the family estate at the cap of Arcosanti Two in
  Arizona. The man barely looked fifty and was with his fifth wife, who was
  older than Halloran but only by five or ten years. The sky was gorgeous
  robin's egg at the horizon and lapis overhead and the green desert spread
  for ten kilometers around in a network of canals and recreational sluices.
  Amosanti Two prided itself on its ecological balance, but in fact the city
  had taken a wide tract of Arizona desert and made it into something else
  entirely, something in which bobbing lizards and roadrunners would soon go
  crazy or die. Halloran felt just as much out of place on the broad open-air
  portico at two kilometers above sea level. Infrared heaters kept the high
  autumn chill away.
  "I'm volunteering for a slowboat," Halloran told his father.
  "I thought they'd been suspended," said Rose Petal, the new wife, a very
  attractive natural blonde with oriental features. "I mean, all that
  expense, and we're bound to lose them to the, mmm, outsiders . . ." She
  looked slightly embarrassed; even after nearly a decade, the words war and
  enemy still carried a strong flavor of obscenity to most Earthers.
  "There's one going out in a few weeks, a private venture. No announcements.
  Tacit government support; if we survive, they send more."
  "That does not sound like my son," Halloran Sr. ventured.
  When I tried to assert mysey~' , you told me it was wrong. When I didnt,
  you despised me. Thanks, Dad.
  "I think it is wonderful," Rose Petal said. "Whether characteristic or
  not."
 80The Best of All Possible Wars

  "It's a way out from under family," Halloran Jr. said with a little
  smile.
  "That sounds like my son. Though I'd be much more impressed ifyou were
  doing something to help your own people. . . "
  "Colonization," Halloran Jr. interjected, leaving the word to stand on
  its own.
 "More directly," Halloran Sr. finished.
  "Can't keep all our eggs in one basket," his son continued, amused by
  arguing a case denied by his own actions. So tell him.
  But that wasn't possible. Halloran Jr. knew his father too well; a fine
  entrepreneur, but no keeper of secrets. In truth, his father, despite the
  aggressive attitude, was even more unsuited to a world of war and
  discipline than his son.
  "That's not what you're doing," Halloran Sr. said. Rose Petal stood by,
  wisely keeping out from this point on.
 "That's what I'm saying I'm doing."
  His father gave him a peculiar look then, and Halloran Jr. felt a brief
  moment of camaraderie and shared secrets. He has a little bit of the
  touch too, doesn't he? He knows. Not consciously, but ...
 He's proud.
  Against his own expectations for the meeting and farewell, Halloran left
  Arcosanti Two, his father, and Rose Petal, feeling he might have more to
  lose than he had guessed, and more to learn about things very close to
  him. He left feeling good.
  He hadn't parted from his father with positive feelings in at least ten
  years.

  There were no longer lovers or good friends to take leave of. He had
  stripped himself of these social accoutrements over the last five years.
  It was difficult to have friends who couldn't lie to you, and he always
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   81

 felt guilty with women. How could he know he hadn't influenced them
 subconsciously? Knowing this, as he returned to the port and took a
 shuttle to orbit, brought back the necessary feeling of isolation. He
 would not be human much longer. Things would be easier if he had very
 little to regret losing.

  Insertion, The hulk of the kzin cruiser, its gravity polarizer destroyed
  by the kzin crew to keep it out of human hands, was propelled by a NEO
  mass-driver down the solar gravity well to graze the orbital path of
  Venus, piloted by the two Belter women to the diffuse outer reaches of
  the asteroids, there set adrift with the bodies of Telepath and the other
  unknown kzin restored to the places where they would have died. The
  Belters would take a small cargo craft back home. Halloran would ride an
  even smaller lifeboat from War Loot toward the kzin fleet. He might or
  might not be picked up, depending on how hungry the kzin strategists were
  for information about the loss.
  The fleet might or might not be in a good position; it might be mounting
  another year-long attack against Saturn's moons, on the opposite side of
  the sun; it might be moving inward for a massive blow against Earth. With
  the gravity polarizers, the kzin vessels were faster and far more
  maneuverable than any human ships.
 And there could be more than one fleet.
  The confined interior of the cargo vessel gave none of its three
  occupants much privacy. To compensate, they seldom spoke to each other.
  At the end of a week, Halloran began to get depressed, and it took him
  another week to express himself to his companions.
  While Henrietta Olsen buried herself in reading, when she wasn't tending
  the computers, Kelly Ysyvry spent much of her time apparently doing
  nothing. Eyes open, blinking every few seconds, she would stare at a
  bulkhead
 82The Best of All Possible Wars

 for hours at a stretch. This depressed Halloran further. Were all Belters
 so inner-directed? If they were, then what just God would place him in the
 company of Belters during his last few weeks as a human being?
  He finally approached Olsen with something more than polite words to
  punctuate the silence. A kzin wouldn't have to put up with this, he
  thought. Kzinti females were subsapient, morons incapable of speech. That
  would have its advantages, Halloran thought half-jokingly.
  Women frightened him. He knew too much about what they thought of him.
  "I suppose lack of conversation is one way of staying sane," he said.
  Olsen looked up from her page projector and blinked. "Flatlanders talk
  all the time?"
 "No," Halloran admitted. "But they talk,"
  'We talk," Olsen said, returning to her reading. "When we want to, or
  need to."
 "I need to talk," Halloran said.
  Olsen put her book down. Perversely guilty, Halloran asked what she had
  been reading.
 "Montagu, The Man Who Never Was," she replied.
 "What's it about?"
  "It's ancient history," she said. "Forbidden stuff. Twentieth century.
  During the Second World Warremember that?"
  "I'm educated," he said. As much as such obscene subjects had been taught
  in school. Pacific Grove had been progressive.
  "The Allies dressed up a corpse in one of their uniforms and gave him a
  courier's bag with false infori-nation. Then they dumped him where he
  could be picked up by the Axis.
 Halloran gawped for a moment. "Sounds grim."
 "I doubt the corpse minded,"
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   83

 "And I'm the corpse?"
  Olsen grinned. "You don't fit the profile at all. You're not The Man Ww
  Never Was. You're one of those soldiers trained to speak the enemy's
  language and dropped behind the fines in the enemy's uniforms to wreak
  havoc."
 "Why are you so interested in World War Two?"
  "Fits our times. This stuff used to be pornographyor whatever the
  equivalent is for literature about violence and destruction, and they'd
  send you to the psychist if they caught you with it. Now it's available
  anywhere. Psychological refitting. still, the thought of . . ." She shook
  her head. "Killing. Even thinking like one of them-so ready to kill . . ."
  Ysyvry broke her meditation by blinking three times in quick succession and
  turned pointedly to face Halloran.
  "To the normal person of a few years ago, what you've become would be
  unspeakably disgusting."
 "And what about now?"
  "It's necessity," Ysyvry said. That word again. "We're no better than you.
  We're all soldiers now. Killers."
 "So we're too ashamed to speak to each other?"
 "We didn't know you wanted to talk," Olsen said.
  Throughout his life, even as insensitive as he had tried to become, he had
  been amazed at how others, especially women, could be so ignorant of their
  fellows. "I'll probably be dead in a month," he said.
  "So you want sympathy?" Olsen said, wide-eyed. "The Man Who Would be Kzin
  wants sympathy? Such bad technique . . ."
 "Forget it," Halloran said, feeling his stomach twist.
  "We learned a lot about you," Ysyvry continued. 'What you might do in a
  moment of weakness, how you had once been a troublemaker, using your
  abilities to fool people ... Belters value ingenuity and independence, but
  we also value respect. Simple politeness."
 84The Best of All Possible Wars

  Halloran felt a deep void open up beneath him. "I was young when I did
  those things." His eyes filled with tears. "Tanjit, I'm sacrificing
  myself for my people, and you treat me as if I'm a bleeping dog turd!"
  "Yeah," Olsen said, turning away. "We don't like flatlanders, anyway, and
  ... I suppose we're not used to this whole war thing. We've had friends
  die. We'd just as soon it all went away. Even you."
  "So," Ysyvry said, taking a deep breath. "Tell us about yourself. You
  studied music?"
  The turnabout startled him. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Yes.
  Concentrating on Josef Haydn."
  "Play us something," Olsen suggested, reaching into a hidden comer slot
  to pull out a portable music keyboard he hadn't known the ship carried.
  "Haydn, Glenn Miller, Sting, anything classical."
  For the merest instant, he had the impulse to become Halloran-Kzin.
  Instead, he took the keyboard and stared at the black and white
  arrangement. Then he played the first movement of Sonata Number 40 in E
  Flat, a familiar piece for him. Ysyvry and Olsen listened intently.
  As he lightly completed the last few bars, Halloran closed his eyes and
  imagined the portraits of Haydn, powdered wig and all. He glanced at the
  Belter pilots from the corners ofhis eyes.
  Ysyvry flinched and Olsen released a small squeak of surprise. Ile lifted
  his fingers from the keyboard and rotated to face them.
 "Stop that," Olsen requested, obviously impressed.
 Halloran dropped the illusion.
 "That was beautiful," Ysyvry said.
 "I'm human after all, even if I am a flatlander, no?"
  "We'll give you that much," Olsen said. "You can look like anything you
  want to?"
  "I'd rather talk about the music," Halloran said, adjusting tones on the
  musicomp to mimic harpsichord.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   85

  "We've never seen a kzin up close, for real," Ysyvry said. The expression
  on their faces was grimly anticipatory: Come on, scare us.
 "I'm not a freak."
  "So we've already established that much," Olsen said. "But you're a bit
  of a show-Off, aren't you?"
 "And a mind-reader," Ysyvry said.
  He had deliberately avoided looking into their thoughts. Nobility of
  purpose.
  "Perfect companion for a long voyage," Olsen added. "You can be whatever,
  whomever you want to be." Their expressions had become almost salacious.
  Now Halloran was sorry he had ever initiated conversation. How much of
  this was teasing, how much-actual cruelty?
 Or were they simply testing his stability before insertion?
 "You'd like to see a kzin?" he asked quietly.
  "We'd like to see Fixer-of-Weapons," Ysyvry affirmed. "We were told You'd
  need to test the illusion before we release the hulk and your lifeship."
 "It's a bit early~we still have two hundred hours."
  "All the more time to turn back if you don't convince us," Olsen said.
  "It's not just a hat I can put on and take off." He glanced between them,
  finding little a parent sympathy. Belters were polite, individualistic,
  gut not the most socially adept of people. No wonder their mainstay on
  long voyages was silence. "I won't wear Fixer-of-Weapons unless I become
  him."
 "You won't consciously know you're human?"
  Halloran shook his head. "I'd rather not have the dichotomy to deal with.
  I'll be too busy with other activities."
  "So the kzinti will think you're one of them, and ... will you?"
  "I will be Fixer-of-Weapons, or as close as I can become," Halloran said.
 86The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Then you're worse than the fake soldiers in World War IV' Olsen
  commented dryly.
 "Show us," Ysyvry said, over her companion I s words.
  Halloran tapped his fingers on the edge of the keyboard for a few
  seconds. He could show them Halloran-Kzinthe generic kzin he had
  manufactured from Fixer-ofWeapons's memories. That would not be
  difficult.
  "No," he said. "You've implied that there's something wrong, somehow, in
  what I'm going to do. And you're right. I only volunteered to do this
  sort of thing 'cause we're desperate. But it's not a game. I'm no freak,
  and I'm not going to provide a sideshow for a couple of bored and crass
  Belters."
  He tapped out the serenade from Haydn's string quartet Opus 3 number 5.
  Ysyvry smiled: "All right, Mr. Halloran. Looks like the UNSN made a good
  choice-not that they had much choice."
  "I don't need your respect, either," Halloran said, a little surprised
  at how deeply he had been hurt. I thought I was way beyond that.
  "What she's saying," Olsen elaborated, "is that we were asked to isolate
  you, and harass you a little. See if you're as much of a show-off as your
  records indicate you might be."
 "Fine," Halloran said. "Now it's back to the silence?"
  "No," Ysyvry said. "The music is beautiful. We'd appreciate your playing
  more for us."
 Halloran swore under his breath and shook his head.
  "Nobody said it would be easy, being a hero ... did they?" Ysyvry asked.
 " I , m no hero," Halloran said.
  "I think you have the makings for one," Olsen told him, regarding him
  steadily with her clear green eyes. "Whatever kind of bastard you were
  on Earth. Really."
 Will a flatlander ever understand Belters? They were
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   87

 so mercurial, strong, and more than a little arrogant. Perhaps that was
 because space left so little room for niceties.
  "If you accept it," Ysyvry said, "we've decided we'll make you an honorary
  Belter."
 Halloran stopped playing.
  "Please accept," Olsen said, not wheedling or even trying to placate; a
  simple, polite request.
 "Okay," Halloran said.
 "Good," Ysyvry said. "I think you'll like the ceremony"
  He did, though it made him realize even more deeply how much he had to lose
  ...
  And why do I have to die before people start treating me decently?

  The Belter pilots dropped the hulk a hundred and three hours after his
  induction into the ranks. They cut loose the kzin lifeship, with Halloran
  inside, five hours later, and then turned a shielded ion drive against
  their orbital path to drop inward and lose themselves in the Belt.
  There were beacons on the lifeship, but no sensors. In the kZiDti fleet,
  rescue of survivors was Strictly at the discretion of the commanding
  officers. Halloran entered the digitized odor-signature and serial number
  of Fixer-of-Weapons into the beacon's transmitter and sat back to wait.
  The lifeship had a month's supplies for an individual kzin. What few
  supplements he dared to carry, all consumable, would be gone in a week, and
  his time would start running out from that moment.
  Still, Halloran half hoped he would not be found. He almost preferred the
  thought of failure to the prospect of carrying out his mission. It would be
  an ordeal. The worst thing that had ever happened to him. His greatest
  challenge in a relatively peaceful lifetime.
 88The Best of All Possible Wars

  For a few days, he nursed dark thoughts about manifest destiny, the
  possibility that the kzinti really were the destined rulers of
  interstellar space, and that he was simply blowing against a hurricane.
  Then came a signal from the kzinti fleet. Fixer-ofWeapons was still of
  some value. He was going to be rescued.
  "Bullshit," Halloran said, grinning and hugging his arms tightly around
  himself. "Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit."
 Now he was really afraid.

  Wherever you are, whether in the crowded asteroid belt or beyond the
  furthest reaches of Pluto, space appears the same. Facing away from the
  sun-negligible anyway past the Belt-the same vista of indecipherable
  immensity presents itself. You say, yes, I know those are stars, and
  those are galaxies, and nebulae; I know there is life out there, and
  strangeness, and incident and death and change. But to the eye, and the
  animal mind, the universe is a flat tapestry sprinkled with meaningless
  points of fire. Nothing meaningfiil can emerge from such a tapestry.
  The approach of a ship from the beautiful flat darkness and cold is
  itself a miracle of high order. The animal mind asks, Where did it come
  from?
  Halloran, essentially two beings in one body, watched the kzinti
  dreadnought with two reactions. As Fixerof-Weapons, now seating himself
  in the center of Halloran's mind, the ship-a rough-textured spire with
  an X cross at the "bome-was both rescue and challenge. Fixer-of-Weapons
  had lost his status. He would have to struggle to regain his position,
  perhaps wheedle
 ion to challenge and supplant a Chief Weapons and Alien Technologies
 Officer. He hopedand Halloran prayed-that the positions on the rescue ship
 were held by one kzin, not two.
 The battleship would pick up his lifeship within an
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE Kz1N  89

 hour. In that time, Halloran adjusted the personality that would inask his
 own.
  Halloran would exist in a preprogrammed slumber, to emerge only at
  certain key points of his plan. Fixerof-Weapons would project
  continuously, aware and active, but with limitations; he would not
  challenge another kzin to physical combat, and he would flee at an
  opportune moment (if any came) if so challenged.
  Halloran did not have a kzin's shining black claws or vicious fangs. He
  could project images of these to other kzinti, but they had only a
  limited effectiveness in action. For a moment, a kzin might think himself
  slashed by Fixer-of-Weapons's claws (although Halloran did not know how
  strong the stigmata effect was with kzinti), but that moment would pass.
  Halloran did not think he could convince a kzin to die ...
  He had never done such a thing with people. Exploring those aspects of
  his abilities had been too horrifying to contemplate. If he was pushed
  to such a test, and succeeded, he would destroy himself rather than
  return to Earth. Or so he thought, now ...
  Foolishness, Fixer-of-Weapons's persona grumbled. A weapon is a weapon.
 Halloran shuddered.
  The battleship communicated with the lifeship; first difficulty. The
  coughing growl and silky dissonance of the Hero's Tongue could not be
  readily mimicked, and Halloran could not project his illusion beyond a
  few miles; he did not respond by voice, but by coded signal. The signal
  was not challenged.
  The Iczinti could not conceive of an interloper invading their fold.
  "Madness," he said as the ships closed. Humming the Haydn serenade,
  Lawrence Halloran Jr. slipped behind the scenes, and Fixer-of-Weapons
  came on center stage.
 90The Best of All Possible Wars

  The interior of the Sons Contend With Bloody Fanggsor any kzinti vessel,
  for that matter-smelled of &~ath. It aroused in a human the deepest and
  most primordial fears. Imagine a neolithic hunter, trapped in a tiger's
  cave, surrounded by the stench of big cats and dead, decaying prey-and that
  was how the behind-the-scenes Halloran felt.
  Fixer-of-Weapons salivated at the smells of food, but trembled at the same
  time.
  "You are not well?" the escorting Aide-to-Commanders asked hopefully;
  Fixer's presence on the battleship could mean much disruption. The kzin's
  thoughts were quite clear to Fixer: Why did Kfraksha-Admiral allow this one
  aboard? He smells of confinement ... and ...
  Fixer did not worry about these insights, which might be expected of a
  pitiful telepath; he would use whate~er information was available to
  re-establish his rank and position. He lifted his lip at the subordinate,
  lowest of ranks aboard the battleship, a servant and licker-ofothers'-fur.
  Aide-to-Commanders shrank back, spreading his ears and curling his thick,
  unsearred pink tail to sign4 non-aggression.
  "Do not forget yourself", Fixer reminded him. -KfrakshaAdmiral is my ally.
  He chose to rescue me."
  "So it is," Aide-to-Commanders acknowledged. He led Fixer down a steep
  corridor, with no comers for hiding would-be assailants, and straightened
  before the hatch to Kfraksha-Admiral's quarters. "I obey the instructions
  of the Dominant One."
  That the commander did not allow Fixer to groom or eat before debriefing
  signified in how little regard he was held. Any survivor of a warship lost
  to animals carried much if not all the disgrace that would adhere to a
  surviving commander.
  Kfraksha-Admiral bade him enter and growled to Aideto-Commanders that they
  would be alone. This was how
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   91

 the kzin commander maintained his position without losing respect, by
 never exhibiting weakness or fear. Loss of respect could mean constant
 challenge, once they were out of a combat zone with its restrictions. As
 a kzin without rank, Fixer might be especially volatile; perhaps deranged
 by long confinement in a tiny lifeship, he might attack the commander in
 a foolish effort to regain and then better his status with one combat. But
 Kfraksha-Admiral apparently ignored all this, spider inviting spider into
 a very attractive parlor.
  "Is your shame bearable?" Kfraksha-Admiral asked, a rhetorical question
  since Fixer was here, and not immediately contemplating suicide.
  I am not responsible for the actions of the commander of War Loot,
  Dominant One," Fixer replied.
  "Yes, but you advised Kufcha-Captain of alien technologies, did you not?"
  I now advise you. Your advantage that I am here, and able to tell you
  what the animals can do."
  Kfraksha-Admiral regarded Fixer with undisguised contempt and mild
  interest. "Animals destroyed your home. How did this happen?"
  This is why I am aboard, Fixer thought. Y~frakshaAdmiral overcomes his
  disgust to learn things that will give him an edge.
  "They did not engage War Loot or any of our sortie. There is still no
  evidence that they have armed their worlds, no signs of an industry
  preparing for manufacture of offensive weapons-"
 "They defeated you without weapons?"
  "They have laser-propulsion systems of enormous strength. You recall, in
  our first meetings, the animals used their fusion drives against our
  vessels-"
  "And allowed us to track their spoor back to their home worlds. The
  Patriarchy is grateful for such uneven exchanges. How might we balance
  this loss?"
 92The Best of All Possible Wars

  Fixer puzzled over his reluctance to tell KfrakshaAdmiral everything.
  Then: My knowledge is my life.
  "I am of no use to the fleet," Fixer said, with the slightest undertone
  of menace. He was gratified to feelbut not see-Kfraksha-Admiral tense his
  muscles. Fixer could measure the commander's resolve with ease.
  "I do not believe that," Kfraksha-Admiral said. "But it is true that if
  you are no use to me, you are of no use to anybody ... and not welcome."
  Fixer pretended to think this over, and then showed signs of submission.
  "I am without position," he said sadly. "I might as well be dead."
  "You have position as long as you are useful to me," Kfraksha-Admiral
  said. "I will allow you to groom and feed ... if you can demonstrate how
  useful you might be."
  Fixer cocked his fan-shaped ears forward in reluctant obeisance. These
  maneuvers were delicate-he could not concede too much, or
  Kfraksha-Admiral would come to believe he had no knowledge. "The humans
  must be skipping industrialization for offensive weapons. They are
  converting peaceful-"
  Kfraksha-Admiral showed irritation at that word, not commonly used by
  kzinti.
 ,.-propulsion systems into defensive weapons."
  "This contradicts reports of their weakness," KfrakshaAdmiral said. "Our
  telepaths have reported the animals are reluctant to fight."
 "They are adaptable," Fixer said.
 So much can be deduced. Is this all that you know?"
  "I learned the positions from which two of the propulsion beams were
  fired. It should be easy to calculate their present locations . . ."
  Kfraksha-Admiral spread his fingers before him, unsheathing long, black
  and highly polished claws. Now it was Fixer's turn to tense.
       THE MAN W140 WOULD BE KZIN 93

  "You are my subordinate," the commander said. "You will pass these facts
  on to me alone."
 "What is my position?" Fixer asked.
  "Fleet records of your accomplishments have been relayed to me. Your
  fitness for position is acceptable." The days when mere prowess in
  personal combat decided rank were long gone, of course; qualifications
  had to be met before challenges could be made. "You will replace the
  Alien Technologies Officer on this ship."
  "By combat?" A commander could grant permission ... which was tantamount
  to an order to fight. Another means of intimidating subordinates.
  "By my command, There will be no combat. Your presence here will not be
  disruptive, so do not become too ambitious, or you will face me ... on
  unequal terms."
 "And the present officer?"
  "I have a new position he will not be unhappy with. That is not your
  concern. Now stand and receive my mark."
  Halloran-Fixer could not anticipate what the commander intended quickly
  enough to respond with anything more than compliance. Kfraksha-Admiral
  lifted his powerful leg and swiftly, humiliatingly, peed on
  Halloran-Fixer, distinctly marking him as the commander's charge. Then
  Kfraksha-Admiral sat on a broad curving bench and regarded him coldly.
  Deeply ashamed but docile-what else could he be?Fixer studied the
  commander intently. It would not be so difficult to ... what?
 That thought was swept away even before it took shape.

  Fixer-of-Weapons had no physical post as such aboard the flagship. He
  carried a reader the size of a kzin hand slung over his shoulder-with
  some difficulty, which did not immediately concern him-and went from
  point
 94The Best of All Possible Wars

 to point on the ship to complete his tasks, which were many, and unusually
 tiring.
  The interior spaces of the Sons Contend With Bloody Fangs were strangely
  unfamiliar to him. Halloran had not had time (nor the capacity) to absorb
  all of his kzin subject's memories. He did not consciously realize he was
  giving himself a primary education in kzinti technology and naval
  architecture. His disorientation would have been an infuriating and
  goading sign of weakness to any inferior seeking his status, but he was
  marked by Kfraksha-Admiral-physically marked with the commander's odor,
  like female or a litter-and that warned aggressive subordinates away.
  They would have to combat Kfraksha-Admiral, not just Fixer.
  And Fixer was proving himself useful to KfrakshaAdmiral. This aspect of
  Halloran's mission had been carefully thought out by Colonel Early and
  the Intelligence Staff-what could humans afford to have kzinti know about
  their technology? What would Fixer logically have deduced from his
  experience aboard the War Loot?
  Kfraksha-Admiral, luckily, expected Fixer to draw out his revelations for
  maximum advantage. The small lumps of information deemed reasonable and
  safe-past locations of two Belter laser projectors that had since burned
  out their mirrors and lasing field coils, now abandoned and useless
  except as scrap---could be meted out parsimoniously.
  Fixer could limp and cavil, and nobody would find it strange. He had,
  after all, been defeated by animals and lost all status. His current
  status was bound to be temporary. Kfraksha-Admiral would coax the
  important facts from him, and then-
  So Fixer was not harassed. He studied his library, with some difficulty
  deciphering the enigmatic commas-anddots script and mathematical
  symbologies. Unconsciously,
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN  95

 he tapped the understanding of his fellows to buttress his knowledge.
  And that was how he attracted the attention of somebody far more valuable
  than he, and of even lower status-Kfraksha-Admiral's personal telepath.
  Kzinti preferred to eat alone, unless they had killed a large animal by
  common endeavor. The sight of another eating was likely to arouse
  deep-seated jealousies not conducive to good digestion; the quality of
  one's food aboard the flagship was often raised with rank, and rank was
  a smoothly ascending scale. Thus, the officers could not eat together
  safely, because there were no officers at the same level, and if there
  was no difference in the food, differences could be imagined. No. It was
  simply better to eat alone.
  This suited Fixer. He had little satisfaction from his meals. He received
  his chunks of reconstituted meatsubstitute heated to blood
  temperature--common lowstatus battle rations from the commissary officer,
  and retired to his quarters with the sealed container to open it and
  feed. His head hurt after eating the apparent raw slabs of gristle, bone
  and meager muscle; he preferred the simulated vegetable intestinal
  contents and soft organs, which were the kzinti equivalent of dessert.
  A kzin could bolt chunks the size of paired fists ... But none of it
  actually pleased him. What he did not eat, he disposed of rapidly:
  pitiful, barely chewed-fragments it would have shamed a kzin to leave
  behind. Fixer did not notice the few pills he took afterwards, from a
  pouch seemingly beneath his chest muscles.
  After receiving a foil-wrapped meal, he traversed the broad central hall
  of the dining area and encountered the worst-looking kzin he had ever
  seen. Fur matted, tail actuallv kinked in two places, expression sickly-
  sycophanti~' ears recoiled as if permanently afraid of
 96The Best of All Possible Wars

 being attacked. Telepath scrambled from Fixer's path, as might be
 expected, and then-
 Addressed him from behind.
 "We are alike, in some respects-are we not?"
  Fixer spun around and snarled furiously. One did not address a superior,
  or even an equal, from behind.
  "No anger necessary," Telepatb said, curling obeisantly, hands extended
  to show all claws sheathed. "There is an odd sound about you ... it makes
  me curious. I have not permission to read you, but you are strong. You
  send. You leak."
  Halloran-Fixer felt his fury redouble, for reasons besides the obvious
  impertinence. "You will stand clear of me and not address me, Addict,"
  he spat.
  "Not offending, but the sound is interesting, whatever it is. Does it
  come from time spent in solitude?"
  Fixer quelled his rage and bounded down the Hallor so it appeared to
  Telepath. The mind reader dropped his chin to his neck and resumed his
  halfhearted attempts to exercise and groom, his thoughts obviously
  lingering on his next session with the drug that gave him his abilities.
  Fixer could easily tell what the commander and crew were up to, if not
  what they actually thought at any given moment. But Telepath was a blank
  slate. Nothing "leaked."
  He returned to his private space, near the commandees quarters, and
  settled in for more sessions in the library. There was something that
  puzzled him greatly, and might be very important-something called a ghost
  star. The few mentions in the library files were unrevealing; whatever
  it was, it appeared to be somewhere about ten system radii outside the
  planetary orbits. It seemed that a ghost star was nothing surprising, and
  therefore not clearly explicated; this worried Fixer, for he did not know
  what a ghost star was.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   97

  Kzinti aboard spaceships underwent constant training, self-imposed and
  otherwise. There were no recreation areas as such aboard the flagship;
  there were four exercise and mock-combat rooms, however, for the four
  rough gradations of rank from executive officers to servants. When kzinti
  entered a mock-combat room, they doffed all markings of rank, wearing
  masks to disguise their facial characteristics and strong mesh gloves
  over their claws to prevent unsheathing and lethal damage. Few kzinti
  were actually killed in mock-combat exercise, but severe injury was not
  uncommon. The ship's autodocs could take care of most of it, and kzinti
  considered scars ornamental. Anonymity also prevented ordinary sparring
  from affecting rank; even if the combatants knew the other's identity,
  it could be ignored through social fiction.
  Fixer, in his unusual position of commander's charge, did not receive the
  challenges to mock-combat common among officers. But there was nothing
  in the rules, written or otherwise, that prevented subordinates from
  challenging each other, unless their officers interfered. Such combats
  were rare because most crewkzin knew their relative strengths, and who
  would be clearly outmatched.
  Telepath, the lowest-ranked and most despised Iczin aboard the flagship,
  challenged Fixer to mock-combat four day-cycles after his arrival. Fixer
  could not refuse; not even the commander's protection would have
  prevented his complete ostracization. had he done so. His existence would
  have been an insult to the whole kzinti species. A simple command not to
  fight would have spared him-but the commander did not imagine that even
  the despised Fixer would face much of a fight from Telepath. And Fixer
  could not afford to be shunned; ostensibly, he had his position to
  regain.
  So it was that Halloran faced a kzin in mock-combat. Fixer-the kzin
  persona-did not fall by the wayside,
 98The Best of All Possible Wars

 because Fixer could more easily handle the notion of combat. But Halloran
 did not remain completely in the background. For while Fixer was
 "fighting" Telepath, Halloran had to convince any observers-including
 Telepath-that he was winning.
  Fixer's advantages were several. First, both combatants could emerge
  unharmed from the fray without raising undue suspicions. Second, there
  would be no remote observers-no broadcasts of the fight.
  The major disadvantage was that of all the kzinti, a telepath should be
  most aware of having psychic tricks played on him.
  The exercise chambers were cylindrical, gravitation oriented along one
  flat surface at Kzin normal, or higher for more strenuous regimens. The
  walls were sandcolored and a constant hot dry wind blew through hidden
  vents, conditions deemed comfortable in the culture that had dominated
  Kzin when the species achieved s aceflight. The floor was sprinkled with
  a flaked fluidatsorbing material. Kzinti rules for combat were few, and
  did not include prohibitions against surprise targeting of eye-stinging
  urine. The flakes were more generally soaked with blood, however. The
  rooms were foul with the odors of fear and exertion and injury.
  Telepath was puny for a kzin. He weighed only a hundred and fifty
  kilograms and stood only two hundred and five centimeters from crown to
  toes, reduced somewhat by a compliant stoop. He was not in good shape,
  but he had little difficulty bending the smallest of the ten steel bars
  adjacent to his assigned half of the combat area-a little gesture legally
  mandated to give a referee some idea how the combatants were matched in
  sheer strength. This smallest bar was two centimeters in diameter.
  Halloran-Fixer made as if to bend the next bar up, and then
  ostentatiously re-bent it straight, hoping nobody
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   99

 would examine it closely and find the metal completely unmarked. Probably
 nobody would; kzinti were less given to idle curiosity than humans.
  Telepath screamed and leaped, arms spread wide. The image of Fixer was
  a bare ten centimeters to one side of his true position, and that allowed
  one of the kzin's feet to pass a hair's-breadth to one side of Halloran's
  head. Halloran convinced Telepath he had received a glancing blow across
  one arm. Telepath recovered somewhat sloppily, for a kzin, and sized up
  the situation.
  There were only the mandated two observers in the antechamber. This fight
  was regarded as little more than comedy, and comedy, to kzinti, was
  shameful and demeaning. The observers' attentions were not sha ly
  focused. Halloran-Fixer took advantage of that to TU'll their perceptions
  further. This allowed him to concentrate on Telepath.
  Fixer did not crouch or make any overt signs of impending attack. He
  hardly breathed. Telepath circled at the outside of the combat area,
  nonchalant, apparently faintly amused.
  Halloran had little experience with fighting. Fortunately,
  Fixer-of-Weapons had been an old hand at all kinds of combat, including
  the mortal kind that had quickly moved him up in rank while the fleet was
  in base, and much of that information had become lodged in the Fixer
  persona. Halloran waited for Telepath to make another energy~ wasting
  move.
  Kzinti combat was a matter of slight advantages. Possibly Telepath knew
  this, and sensed something not right about Fixer. Something weak ...
  But Telepath could not read Fixer's thoughts in any concentrated fashion;
  that required a great effort for the kzin, and debilitating physical
  weakness afterward. Halloran's powers were much more efficient and much
  less draining.
 100The Best of All Possible Wars

  Fixer snarled and feigned a jump. Telepath leaped to one side, but Fixer
  had not completed his attack. He stood with tail twitching furiously
  several meters from the kzin, needle teeth bared in a hideous grin.
  Telepath had good reason to be puzzled. It was rare for a threatened
  attack to be aborted, from a kzin so much larger and stronger than his
  opponent. Now the miserable kzin was truly angry, and afraid. Several
  times he rushed Fixer, but Fixer was never quite where he appeared to be.
  Several times, Halloran came near to having his head crushed by a passing
  swipe of the weak kzin's gloved hand, but managed to avoid the blow by
  centimeters. Something was goading Telepath beyond the usual emotions
  aroused by mock combat.
  "Fight, vou sexless female!" Telepath shrieked. A deeply obseene curse,
  and the observers did some of their own growling now. Telepath had done
  nothing to increase their esteem.
  Fixer used the kzin's anger to his own advantage. The fight would have
  to end quickly-he was tiring rapidly, far faster than his puny opponent.
  Fixer seemed to run to a curved wall, leaping and rebounding, crossing
  the chamber in a flash-and bypassing Telepath without a blow. Telepath
  screamed with rage and tried to remove his gloves, but they were locked,
  and only the observers had the keys.
  While Telepath was yowling fury and frustration, FixerHalloran delivered
  a bolt of suggestion that staggered the kzin, sending him to all fours
  with an apparent cuff to the jaw. The position was not as dangerous for
  a kzinthey could run more quickly on fours than erect-but Halloran-KAn's
  image loomed over the stunned Telepath and kicked downward. The observers
  did not see the maneuver precisely, and Telepath was on the floor
  writhing in pain, his ear and the side of his head swelling with
  auto-suggestion injury.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN   101

  Fixer offered his gloves to the observers and they were unlocked. He had
  not harmed Telepath, and had not received so much as a scratch himself
  Fixer had acquitted himself; he still wore Kfraksha-Admiral's stink, but
  he was not the lowest of the kzinti on Sons Contend With Bloody Fangs.

  "The humans obviously have a way of tracking our ships, yet they do not
  have the gravity polarizer. . ." Kfraksha-Admiral sat on his curved
  bench, legs raised, black-leather fingers clasped behind his thick neck,
  seeming quite casual and relaxed. 'What is our weakness, that they spy
  on us and can aim their miserable adapted weapons upon us?"
  Fixer's turmoil was not apparent. He knew the answer but of course he
  could not give it. He had to maneuver this conversation to determine if
  the commander was asking a rhetorical question, or testing him in some
  way.
 "By our drives," he suggested.
  "Yes, of course, but not by spectral signatures or flare temperatures,
  for in fact we do not use our fusion drives when we enter the system. And
  without polarizer technology, gravitational gradient warps cannot be
  detected ... short of system wide detectors, which these animals do not
  have, correct?"
 Fixer rippled his fur in agreement.
  "No. They detect not the effects of our drives, but the power sources
  themselves. It is obvious they have discovered magnetic monopoles. I have
  suspected as much for years, but now plans are taking shape . . .-
  Fixer-Halloran was relieved, and horrified, at once. This was indeed how
  kzinti ships were tracked; in fact, it was a little slow of the enemy not
  to have thought of it before. The cultural scientists back on Ceres had
  been puzzled as well; the kzinti had a science and technology more
  advanced than the human, but they seemed
 102The Best of All Possible Wars

 curiously inept at pure research. Almost as if the knowledge had been pasted
 onto a prescientific culture ...
  Every Belter prospector had monopole detection equipment; mining the
  super-massive particles was a major source of income for individual
  Belters, and for huge Belt corporations. Known monopole storage centers and
  power stations were automatically compensated for in even the cheapest
  detector. In an emergency, a detector could be used to determine position
  in the Belt-or anywhere else in the solar system-by triangulation from
  those known sources. An unknown--or kzinti-monopole source set detectors
  off throughout the solar system. And the newly-converted propulsion lasers
  could then be locked onto their targets ...
  "This much is now obvious. It explains our losses. Do you concur?"
 "This is a fact," Fixer said.
  "And how do you know it is a fact?" Kfraksha-Admiral challenged.
  "The lifeship from War Loot is not powered by monopoles. I survived.
  Animals would not distinguish monopole sources by the size of the
  vessel-they would attack all sources."
  Kfraksha-Admiral pressed his lips tight together and twitched whiskers with
  satisfaction. "Precisely so. We must have patience in our strategies, then.
  We cannot enter the system using our monopole-powered gravity polarizers.
  But there is the ghost star ... if we enter the system without monopoles,
  and without approaching the gas-giant planets, where we might be expected
  ... We can enter from an apparently empty region of space, unexpectedly,
  and destroy the animal populations of many worlds and asteroids. This
  plan's success is my sinecure. Many females, much territory-glory. We are
  moving outward now to pass around the ghost star and gain momentum."
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   103

  Fixer-Halloran again felt a chill. Truly, without the monopoles, the kzinti
  ships would be difficult to detect.
  Fixer pressed his hands together before his chest, a sign of deep respect.
  Kfraksha-Admiral nodded in condescending fashion.
  "You have proven valuable, in your own reluctant, rankless way," he
  acknowledged, staring at him with irises reduced to pinpoints in the wide
  golden eyes. "You have endured humiliation with surprising fortitude. Some,
  our more enlightened and patient warriors, might call it courage." Tl~e
  commander drew a rag soaked in some pale liquid from a bucket behind his
  bench. He threw it at Fixer, who caught it.
  The rag had been soaked in diluted acetic acid vinegar. "You may remove my
  mark," Kfraksha-Admiral said. "Henceforth, you have the status of full
  officer, on my formal staff, and you will be in charge of interpreting the
  alien technologies we capture. Your combat with Telepath ... has been
  reported to me. It was not strictly honorable, but your forbearance was
  remarkable. In part, this earns you a position."

  Fixer now had status. He could not relax his vigilance, for he would no
  longer be under the commander's protection, but he could assume the armor
  of a true billet; separate quarters, specific duties, a place in the ritual
  of the kzinti flagship. Presumably the commander would not grant permission
  for many challenges, and as a direct subordinate he would count as one of
  the commander's faction, who would retaliate for any unprovoked attack.
  The Sons Contend With Bloody Fangs had pulled its way out of the sun's
  gravity well at a prodigious fourtenths of the speed of light, faster than
  was safe within a planetary system, and was racing for the ghost star a
  hundred billion kilometers from the sun. Sol was now
 104The Best of All Possible Wars

 an anonymous point of light in the vastness of the Sagittarius arm of the
 galaxy; the outer limits of the solar system were almost as far behind.
  The commander's plans for the whiplash trip around the ghost star were
  secret to all but a few. Fixer was still not even certain what the ghost
  star was-it was not listed under that name in the libraries, and there
  was obviously a concept he was not connecting with. But it was fairly
  easy to calculate that to accomplish the orbital maneuvers the commander
  proposed, the ghost star would have to be of at least one-half solar
  mass. Nothing that size had ever been detected from Earth; it was
  therefore dark and absolutely cold. There would be no perturbed orbits
  to give it away; its distance was too great.
  So for the time being, Fixer assumed they were approaching a rendezvous
  with either a dark, dead hulk of a star, or perhaps a black hole.
  A hundred billion kilometers was still close to the solar neighborhood,
  as far as interstellar distances were concerned. That kzinti knew more
  about these regions than humans worried the sublimated Halloran. What
  other advantages would they gain? The time had come for Halloran to
  examine what he had found. With his personality split in half, and locked
  into a kzin mentality, he might easily overlook something crucial to his
  mission.
  in his quarters, with the door securely bolted, Halloran came to the
  surface. Seven days in the kzinti flagship had taken a terrible toll on
  him; in a small mirror, he saw himself almost cadaverous, his face deeply
  lined. Kzinti did not use water to groom themselves, and there were no
  taps in his private quarters-the aliens were descended from a
  pack-hunting desert carnivore, and had efficient metabolisms-so his skin
  and clothing would remain dirty. He took a medicinal towelette, used to
  treat minor scratches received during combats, and
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   105

 wiped as much of his face and hands clean as he could. The astringent
 solution in the towelette served to sharpen his wits. After so long in
 Fixer's charge, there seemed little brilliance and fire left in Halloran
 himself
  And Fixer is just not very bright, he thought sourly. Think, monkey,
  think!
 He looked old.
  "Bleep that," he murmured, and picked up the library pack. As Fixer, he
  had subliminally marked interesting passages in the kzinti records. Now
  he set out to learn what the ghost star was, and what he might expect in
  the next few hours, as they approached and parabolically orbited. A
  half-hour of inquiry, his eyes reddening under the strain of reading the
  kzinti script without Fixer's intercession, brought no substantial
  progress.
  "Ghost," lie muttered. "Specter. Spirit. Ancestors. A star known to
  ancestors? Not likely-they would have come on into the solar system and
  destroyed or enslaved us centuries ago ... what the tanj is a ghost
  star?"
  He queried the library on all concepts incorporating the words ghost,
  specter, ancestor, and other synonyms in the Heros Tongue. Another
  half-hour of concentrated and fruitless study, and he was ready to give
  up, when the projector displayed an entry. Specter Mass.
  He cued the entry. A flagged warning came up; the symbol for
  shame-and-disgrace, a Patriarchal equivalent of Most Secret.
  Fixer recoiled; Halloran had to intervene instantly to stop his hand
  before it halted the search. Curiosity was not a powerful drive for a
  kzin, and shame was a very effective deterrent.
  A basic definition flashed up. "That mass created during the first
  instants of the universe, separated from kzinti space-time and detectable
  only by weak gravitational interaction. No light or other communication
  possible between the domain ofspecter mass and kzinti space-time. "
 106The Best of All Possible Wars

 Halloran grinned for the first time in seven days.
  Now he had it-he could feel the solution coming. He cued more detail.
  "Stellar masses of specter matter have been detected, but are rare. None
  has been found in living memory. These masses, in the specter donwin,
  must be enormous, on the order of hundreds of masses of the sun--the star
  of Kzin, more massive and a little cooler than Sol'for their
  gravitational influence is on the order of .6 [base 8] Kzin suns. The
  physics of the specter domain must differ widelyfrom our own. Legends
  warn against searching for ghost stars, though details are lost or
  forbidden by the Patriarchy."
  Not a black hole or a dark star, but a star in a counteruniverse. Human
  physicists had discovered the possible existence of shadow mass in the
  late twentieth centuryHalloran remembered that much from his physics
  classes. The enormously powerful superstring theory of particles implied
  shadow mass pretty much as the kzinti entry described it. None had been
  detected ...
  Who would have thought the Earth was so near to a ghost star?
  And now, Kfraksba-Admiral was recommending what the kzinti had heretofore
  forbidden-lose approach to a ghost star to gain a gravitational
  advantage. The kzinti ships would appear, to human monopole detectors,
  to be leaving the system-retreating, although slowly. Then the fleet
  would decelerate and discard its monopoles, sending them on the same
  outward course, and swing around the ghost star, gaining speed from the
  star's angular momentum. No fusion drives would be used, so as not to
  alarm human sentries. Slowly, the fleet would swing back into the solar
  system, and within a kzinti year, attack the worlds of men. Undetected,
  unsuspected, the kzinti fleet could end the war then and there. The
  monopoles would be within retrieval distance.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN   107

  And all it would require was a little kzinti patience, a rare virtue
  indeed.
  Someone scratched softly at the ID plate on his hatch. Halloran did not
  assume the Fixer persona, but projected the Fixer image, before
  answering. The hatch opened a safe crack, and Halloran saw the baleful,
  rheumy eye of Telepath peering in.
  I have bested you already," the Fixer image growled. "You wish to
  challenge for a shameful rematch?" Not something Fixer need grant in any
  case, now that his status was established.
  "I have a problem which I must soon bring to the attention of
  Kfraksha-Admiral," Telepath said, with the edge of a despicable whimper.
 "Why come to me?"
  "You are the problem. I hear sounds from you. I remember things from you.
  And I have dreams in which you appear, but not as you are now ...
  sometimes I am you. I am the lowest, but I am important to this fleet,
  especially with the death of War Loot's Telepath. I am the last Telepath
  in the fleet. My health is important-"
 "Yes, Yes! What do you want?"
 "Have you been taking the telepath drug?"
 "No."

 I can tell ... you speak truth, yet you hide something."
  The kzin could not now deeply read Halloran without making an effort, but
  Halloran was "leaking." just as he had never been able to quell his
  "intuition," he could not stop this basic hemorrhage of mental contents.
  The kzin's drug-weakened mind was there to receive, perhaps more
  vulnerable because the subconscious trickle of sensation and memory was
  alien to it.
  "I hide nothing. Go away," the Fixer-image demanded harshly.
 108The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Questions first. What is an 'Esterhazy? What are these sounds I hear,
  and what is a 'Haydn'? Why do I feel emotions which have no names?"
  The kzin's pronunciation was not precise, but it was close enough. "I do
  not know. Go away."
  Halloran began to close the door, but Telepath wailed and stuck his
  leathery digits into the crack. Halloran instinctively stopped the hatch
  to prevent damage. A kzin would not have ...
  "I cannot see Kfraksha-Admiral. I am the lowest ... but I feel danger!
  We are approaching very great danger. My shields are weakening and my
  sensitivity increases even with lower doses of the drug ... Do you know
  where we are going? I can feel this danger deep, in a place my addiction
  has only lightly touched ... Others feel it too. There is restlessness.
  I must report what I feel! Tell the commander-"
  Cringing, Halloran pressed the lever and the door continued to close.
  Telepath screamed and pulled out his digits in time to avoid losing more
  than a tip and one sheathed claw.
  That did it. Halloran began to shake uncontrollably. Sobbing, he buried
  his face in his hands. Death seemed very immediate, and pain, and
  brutality. He had stepped into the lion's den. The lions were closing in,
  and he was weakening. He had never faced anything so horrible before. The
  kzinti were insane. They had no softer feelings, nothing but war and
  destruction and conquest ...
  And yet, within him there were fragments of Fixerof-Weapons to tell him
  differently. There was courage, incredible strength, great vitality.
  "Not enough," he whispered, removing his face from his hands. Not enough
  to redeem them, certainly, and not enough to make him feel any less
  revulsion. If he could, he would wipe all kzinti out of existence. If he
  could just expand his mind enough, reach out across
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   109

 time and space to the distant home-world of kzin, touch them with a
 deadliness ...
  The main problem with a talent like Halloran's was hubris. Aspiring to
  god-like ascendancy over others, even kzinti. That way lay more certain
  madness.
  A kzin winildn't think that way, Halloran knew. A Lin would scream and leap
  upon a tool of power like that. "Kzin have it easier," he muttered.
  Time to marshal his resources. How long could he stay alive on the kzinti
  flagship?
  If he assumed the Fixer persona, no more than three days. They would still
  be rounding the ghost star ...
  If he somehow managed to take control of the ship, and could be Halloran
  all the time, he might last much longer. And to what end?
  To bring the Sons Contend With Bloody Fangs back to human space? That would
  be useful, but not terribly important-the kzinti would have discarded their
  gravity polarizers. Human engineers had already studied the hulk of War
  Loot, not substantially different from Sons Contend.
  But he wanted to survive. On that Halloran and FixerHalloran were agreed.
  He could feel survival as a clean, metallic necessity, cutting him off from
  all other considerations. The Belter pilots and their initiation ... Coming
  to an understanding of sorts with his father. Early's wish-list. What he
  knew about kzinti ...
  That could be transmitted back. He did not need to survive to deliver that.
  But such a transmission would take time, a debriefing of weeks would be
  invaluable.
 Survival.
 Simple life.
 To win.
  Thorough shit or not, Halloran valued his miserable life.
 110The Best of All Possible Wars

  Perhaps I'm weak, like Telepath. Sympathetic. Particularly towards myself.
  But the summing up was clear and unavoidable. The best thing lie could do
  would be to find some way to inactivate at least this ship, and perhaps the
  whole kzinti fleet. Grandiose scheme. At the very top of Early's wishlist.
  All else by the wayside.
  And he could not do it by going on a rampage. He had to be smarter than the
  kzinti; he had to show how humans, with all their love of life and
  self-sympathy, could beat the self-confident, savage invaders.
  No more being Fixer. Time to use Fixer as a front, and be a complete, fully
  aware Halloran.

  Telepath whimpered in his sleep. There was no one near to hear him in this
  corridor; disgust could be as effective as status and fear in securing
  privacy.
  Hands were lifting him. Huge hands, tearing him away from Mother's side.
  His own hands were tiny, so tiny as he clung with all four limbs to
  Mother's fur.
  She was growling, screaming at the males with the Y-shaped poles who pinned
  her to the wicker mats, lashing out at them as they laughed and dodged.
  Hate and fury stank through the dark air of the hut. "Maaaa!" he screamed.
  "Maaaa!"
  The hands bore him up, crushed him against a muscular side that smelled of
  leather and metal and kzin-tosh, male kzin.
  They will eat me, they will eat me! cried instinct. He lashed out with
  needle-sharp baby claws, and the booming voice above him laughed and swore,
  holding the wriggling bundle out at arm's length.
 "This one has spirit," the Voice said.
  "Puny,-' another replied dismissively. "I will not rear it. Send it to
  the crkhe. "
 They carried him out into the bright sunlight, and
 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN      111

 he blinked against the pain of it. Fangs loomed above him, and he hissed and
 spat; a hand pushed meat into his mouth. It was good, warm and bloody; he
 tore loose chunks and bolted them, ears still folded down. From the other
 enclosures came the growls and screams of females frightened by the scent of
 loss, and behind him his mother gave one howl of grief after another.

 Telepath half-woke, grunting and starting, pink batears flaring wide as he
 took in the familiar subliminal noises of pumps and ventilators.

 He was laughing, walking across the quadrangle. Faces turned toward him

 -nakedfaces?

 Mouths turning to round 0 shapes of shock.

 -Flat nwuths? Flat teeth?

 Students and teachers were turning toward him, and he knew they saw the
 headmaster, buck-naked and priapically erect. He laughed and waved again,
 thinking how Old Man Velasquez would explain this

 Telepath struggled. Something struck him on the nose and he started upright,
 pink tongue reflexively washing at the source of the welcome, welcome pain.
 The horror of the nightmare slipped away, too alien to comprehend with the
 waking mind.

 "Silence, sthondat-sucker!" Third Gunner snarled, aiming a kick that thudded
 drumlike on Telepath's ribs. Another hamess-buckle was in one hand, ready to
 throw. "Stop screaming in your sleep!"

 Telepath widened his ears and flattened his fur in propitiation as he
 crouched; Third Gunner was not a great intellect, but he was enormous and
 touchy even for a young kzin. After a moment the hulking shape turned and
 padded off down the corridor to his own doss, grumbling and twitching his
 whiskers. The smaller kzin sank down again to his thin pallet, curling into
 a fetal ball and covering his nose with his hands, wrapping
 112The Best of All Possible Wars

 his tail around the whole bundle of misery. He quivered, his matted fur
 wrinkling in odd patterns, and forced his eyes to close.
  I must sleep, he thought. His fingers twitched toward the pouch with his
  drag, but that only made things worse. I must sleep: my health is important
  to thefleet. Unless he was rested he could not read minds on command.
  Without that, he was useless and therefore dead, and Telepath did not want
  to die.
  But if he slept, he dreamed. For the last four sleeps the dreams of his
  kittenhood had been almost welcome. Eerie combinations of sound plucked at
  the comers of his mind as he dozed, as precise as mathematics but carrying
  overtones of feelings that were not his-
  He jerked awake again. Mother, he thought, through a haze of fatigue. I
  want my mother
  The alienness of the dreams no longer frightened him so much.
  What was really terrifying was the feeling he was beginning to understand
  them ...

  Halloran flexed and raised his hands, crouching and growling.
  Technician's-Assistant stepped aside at the junction of the two corridors,
  but Fire-ControlTechnician retracted his ears and snarled, dropping his
  lower jaw toward his chest. Aide-to-Commanders had gone down on his belly,
  crawling aside. Beside the disguised human Chief-Operations-Officer bulked
  out his fur and responded in kind.
  Sure looks different without Fixer, Halloran thought as he sidled around
  the confrontation.
  The kzinti were almost muzzle-to-muzzle, roaring at each other in tones
  that set the metal around them to vibrating in sympathy; thin black lips
  curled back from wet half-inch fangs, and the ruffled fur turned their
  bodies into bristling sausage shapes. The black-leather
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN  113

 shapes of their four-fingered hands were almost skeletal, the long claws
 shining like curves of liquid jet. Dim orange-red light made Halloran squint
 and peer. The walls here in this section of officer country were covered
 with holographic murals; a necessity, since kzinti were very vulnerable to
 sensory deprivation. Twisted thorny orange vegetation crawled across
 shattered rock under a lowering sky the color of powdered brickdust, and in
 the foreground two Kzinti had overturned something that looked like a giant
 spiked turtle with a bone club for a tail. They were burying their muzzles
 in its belly, ripping out long stretches of intestine.
  Abruptly, the two high-ranking kzin stepped back and let their fur fall
  into normal position, walking past each other as if nothing had happened.
  Nothing did, a ghost of Fixer said at the back of Halloran's head; the thin
  psychic voice was mildly puzzled. Normal courtesy. Passing by without
  playing at challenge would be an insult, showing contempt for one not
  worthy of interest. Real challenge would be against regulations, now.
  Chief-Operations-Officer scratched at the ID plate on the commander's door,
  releasing Kfraksha-Adn-tiral's coded scent. A muffled growl answered.
  Kfraksha-Admiral was seated at his desk, worrying the flesh off a heavy
  bone held down with his hands. A long shred of tendon came off as he
  snapped his head back and forth, and his jaws made a wet clop sound as he
  bolted it.
 "Is all proceeding according to plan?" he asked.
  "Yes, Dominant One," Chief-Operations-Officer said humbly.
  "Then why are you taking up my valuable time?" Kfraksha-Admiral screamed,
  extendina his claws.
  "Abasement," Chief-Operations-Officer said. He flattened to the floor in
  formal mode; the others joined
114 The Best of All Possible Wars

 him. "The jettisoning of the monopoles and gravity polarizer components has
 proceeded according to your plans. There are problems."
 "Describe them."
  "A much higher than normal rate of replacement for all solid-state
  electronic components, Kfraksha-Admiral," the engineer said. "Computers and
  control systems particularly. Increasing as a function of our approach to
  the ghost star. Also personnel problems."
  Kfraksha-Admiral's whiskers and fur moved in patterns that meant lively
  curiosity; discipline was the problem any Kzin commander would anticipate,
  although perhaps not so soon.
 "Mutiny?" he said almost eagerly.
  "No. Increased rates of impromptu dueling, sometimes against regulations.
  Allegations of murderous intent unsupported by evidence. Superstitions.
  Several cases of catatonia and insanity leading to liquidation by
  superiors. Suicides. Also rumors."
  "Hrrrr!" Kfraksha-Admiral said. Suicide was an admission of cowardice, and
  very rare.
 Time tofish or be bait, Halloran decided.
  Gently, he probed at the consciousness of the kzin, feeling the
  three-things-at-once sensation of indecision. Kfraksha-Admiral knew
  something of why the Patriarchy forbade mention of phenomenon; because the
  Conservors of the Ancestral Past couldn't figure out what was involved.
  Inexplicable and repeated bad luck, usually; the kzin was feeling his fur
  try to bristle. Kzinti believed in luck, as firmly as they believed in
  games theory. Eternal shame for Kfraksha-Admiral if he turned back now. His
  cunning suggested aborting the mission; an unwary male would never have
  become a fleet commander. Gut feeling warred with it; even for a kzin,
  Kfraksha-Admiral was aggressive; otherwise he could never have achieved or
  held his position.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   115

  Shame, Halloran whispered, ever so gently. It was not difficult. Easier
  than it had ever been before, and now he feltjustified.
  Eternal disgrace for retreating, his mind intruded softly. Two years of
  futility already. Defeat by planteaters. Sickening images of unpointed
  grinding teeth chewing roots. Endless challenges. A commander turned
  cautious had a line of potential rivals light-years long, waiting for
  stand-down from Active Status. Kzin were extremely territorial; modem kzin
  had transferred the instinct from physical position to rank.
  Glory if we win. More glory for great dangers overcome. Conquest Hero
  Kfraksha-Admiral-no, Kfraksha-Tchee, a full name, unimaginable wealth,
  planetary systems of slaves with a fully industrialized society. Many sons.
  Generations to worship my memory.
  The commander's ears unfolded as he relaxed, decisions made. "This is a
  perilous course. Notify Flashing Claws"-a Swift Hunter-class courier,
  lightly armed but lavishly equipped with drive and fuel-"to stand by on
  constant datalink." The Patriarchy would know what h ed. "The fleet will
  proceed as planned. Slings ot formation, with Sons Contend With Bloody
  Fangs occupying the innermost trajectory."
  That would put the flagship at the point of the roughly conical formation
  the fleet was to assume; the troopships with their loads of infantry would
  be at the rear. "Redouble training schedules. Increase rations." Wellfed
  kzin were more amenable to discipline. And"Rumors of what?"
  "That we approach the Darkstar of III-Omen, Dominant One."
  Kfraksha-Admiral leaned forward, his claws prickling at the files of
  printout on his desk. "That was confidential information!" He glared
  steadily at Chief-OperationsOfficer, extreme discourtesy among carnivores.
  The
 116The Best of All Possible Wars

 subordinate extended hands and ears, with an aura of sullenness.
  "I have told no one of the nature of the object we approach," he said. Few
  kzinti would trouble to prod and poke for information not immediately
  useful, either. "The ship and squadron commanders have been informed; so
  have the senior staff."
  "Hrrr. Chirrru. You-" a jerk of the tail towards Aideto-Commanders. "Fetch
  me Telepath."

  Halloran slumped down on the mat in his quarters, head cradled in his
  hands, fighting to control his nausea. Murphy, don't tell me I'm developing
  an allergy to kzin, he thought, holding his shaking hands out before him.
  The mottled spots were probably some deficiency disease, or his immune
  system might be giving up under the strain of ingesting all these
  not-quite-earthlike proteins. He belched acid, swallowed past a painfully
  dry throat, remembering his last meeting with his father. A kzin ship was
  like the real Arizona desert, and it was sucking the moisture out of his
  tissues, no matter how much he drank. A dry cold, though. It held down the
  soupy smell of dried rancid sweat that surrounded him; that had nearly
  given him away half a dozen times.
  A sharp pain thrilled up one finger. Halloran looked down and found he had
  been absently stropping nonexistent claws on the panel of corklike material
  set next to the pallet. A broken fingernail was bent back halfway. He
  prodded it back into place, shuddering, tied one of the antiseptic pads
  around it and secured it with a strip of cloth before he lowered himself
  with painful slowness to his back. Slow salt-heavy tears filled the comers
  of his eyes and ran painfully down the chapped skin of his face.
  It was easier to be Fixer. Fixer did not hurt. Fixer was not lonely. Fixer
  did not feel guilt; shame, perhaps, but never guilt.
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   117

  Fixer doesn't exist. I am Lawrence Halloran, Jr. He closed his eyes and
  tried to let his breathing sink into a regular rhythm. It was difficult for
  more reasons than the pain; every time he began to drop off, he would jerk
  awake again with unreasoning dread. Not of the nightmares, just dread of
  something.
  Intuition. Halloran had always believed in intuition. Or maybe just the
  trickle of fear from the crew, but he should not be that sensitive, even
  with fatigue and weakness wearing down his shields. His talent should be
  weaker, not stronger.
  Enough. "My status is that of a complete shit, but my health is important
  to the mission," he mumbled sardonically to himself. Sleep was like
  falling-
  -and the others were chasing him again, through the corridors of the
  crikhe. Pain shot in under his ribs as he bounded along four-footed, and
  his tongue lolled dry and grainy. They were all bigger than him, and there
  were a double handful of them! Bright light stabbed at his eyes as he ran
  out into the exercise yard, up the tumbled rocks of the pile in the center,
  gritty ocher sandstone under his hands and feet. Nowhere to run but the
  highest ...
  Fear cut through his fatigue as he came erect on the central spire. He was
  above them! The high-status kits would think he was challenging theml
  Squalls of rage confirmed it as the orange-and-spotted tide boiled out of
  the doorway and into the vast quadrangle of scrub and sand. Tails went
  rigid, claws raked toward him; he stood and screamed back, but he could
  hear the quaver in it, and the impulse to grovel and spread his ears was
  almost irresistible. Hate flowed over him with the scent of burning ginger,
  varied only by the individual smells of the other children. Rocks flew
  around him as they poured up the miniature crags; something struck him over
  one eye. Vision blurred as
 118The Best of All Possible Wars

 the nictitating membranes swept down, and blood poured over one. The smell
 of it was like death, but the others screeched louder as they caught the
 waft.
  Hands and feet gripped him as he slumped down on the hard rock, clawing
  and yanking hair and lifting, and then he was flying. Instinct rotated
  his head down, but he was already too stunned to get his hands and feet
  well under him; he landed sprawling across an edge of sandstone and felt
  ribs crack. Then the others were on him, mauling, and he curled into a
  protective ball but two of them had his tail, they were stretching it out
  and raising rocks in their free hands and crack and crack-
  Halloran woke, shuddering and wincing at pain in an organ he did not
  possess. Several corridors away, Telepath screamed until the ratings
  dossed near him lost all patience and broke open an arms locker to get
  a stunner.

  "Dreams? Explain yourself, kshat," Kfraksha-Admiral growled.
  Telepath ventured a nervous lick of his nose, eyes darting around, too
  genuinely terrified to resent being called the kzin equivalent of a
  rabbit.
  "Nothing. I said nothing of dreams," he said, then shrieked as the
  commander's claws raked along the side of his muzzle.
 "You dare to contradict me?"
 "I abase mysel-"
  "Silence! You distinctly said 'dreams' when I asked you to determine the
  leakage of secret information."
  "Leaks. First Fixer-of-Weapons was leaking. He is strong. He leaks. I run
  from him but I cannot hide in sleep. Such shame. Now more are leaking.
  The officers dream of the Ghost Star. Ancestors who died without honor
  haunt it ... their hands reach up to drag us down to nameless rot. One
  feels it. All feel it-"
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN  119

  "Silence! Silence!" Kfraksha-Admiral roared, striking open-handed. Even
  then he retained enough control not to use 'his claws; this thing was the
  last Telepath in the fleet, after all, even if insanity was reducing its
  usefulness.
  And even such a sorry excuse for a kzin shouldn't be much harmed by being
  beaten unCODSCiOUS.

  "You find time to groom?" Kfraksha-Admiral asked sullenly.
  Finagle, Halloran swore inwardly, drawing the Fixer persona more tightly
  around him. The last sleep-cycle had seen a drastic deterioration in
  everyone's grooming, except his memorized projection. The commander's pelt
  was not quite matted; it would be a long time before he looked as miserable
  as Telepath-Finagle alone knew what Telepath looked like now, he seemed to
  have vanished-but he was definitely scruffy. The entire brid,e crew looked
  peaked, and several were absent, their places taken by younger,
  less-scarred understudies. Some of those understudies had new bandages,
  evidence that their superiors' usefulness had deteriorated to the point
  where the commander would allow self-promotion. The human's talent told him
  the dark cavern of the command deck smelled of fear and throttled rage and
  bewilderment; the skin crawled down his spine as he sensed it.
  Kzinti did not respond well to frustration. They also did not expect
  answers to rhetorical questions.
  Kfraksha-Admiral turned to Chrung-FleetCommunications Officer. "Summarize."
 "Hero's Lair still does not report," that kzin said dully.
  That was the first of the troop-transports, going in on a trajectory that
  would leave them "behind" the cruisers, dreadnoughts, and stingship
  carriers when the fleet finally made its out-of-elliptic slingshot approach
 120The Best of All Possible Wars

 to Earth. Kfraksha-Admiral had calculated that Earth was probably the
 softest major human target, and less likely to be alert. Go in undetected,
 take out major defenses and space-industrial centers, land the surface-
 troops; the witless hordes of humankind's fifteen billions would be
 hostages against counterattack.
  If things go well, Halloran thought, easing a delicate tendril into the
  commander's consciousness. Murphy rules the kzin, as well as humans.
  Wearily: When do things ever go well?
  -and the long silky grass blew in the dry cool wind, that was infinitely
  clean and empty. His Sire and the other grown males were grouped around
  the carcass, replete, lapping at drinks in shallow, beautifully fashioned
  silver cups. He and the other kits were round-stomached and content,
  play-sparring lazily, and he lay on his back batting at the bright-winged
  insect that hovered over his nose, until Sire put a hand on his chest and
  leaned over to rasp a roughly loving tongue across his cars-
  "It is well, it is well," Kfraksha-Admiral crooned softly, almost
  inaudibly. Then he came to himself with a start, looking around as heads
  turned toward him.
  Finagle, I set him Off on a memory-Jugue! Halloran thought, feeling the
  kzin's panic and rising anger, the tinge of suspicion beneath that.
  "All must admire Kfraksha-Admiral's strategic sense," Halloran-Fixer said
  hastily. "Light losses, for a strategic gain of the size this operation
  promises."
  Kfraksha-Admiral signed curt assent, turning his attention from the
  worthless sycophant. Behind Fixer's mask, Halloran's hurnan face
  contorted in a savage grin. Manipulating Kfraksha-Admiral's subconscious
  was more fun than haunting the other kzin. Evenfor a ratcat, he's a
  son-of-a ... pussy, I suppose. Singleminded, too. Relatively easy to keep
  from wondering what was causing 0 this-I wish I knew-and tightly, tightly
  focus on
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN   121

 getting through the next few hours, Closest approach soon.
 And it was all so easy. He was unstoppable ...
  Scabs broke and he tasted the salt of blood. I'm not going to make it.
  Ile ground his jaws and felt the loosening teeth wobble in their sockets.
  Death was a bitterness, no glory in it, only this foul decay. Maybe I
  shouldn't make it. Im too dangerous. His face had been pockmarked with
  open sores, the last time he looked. Maybe that was how he looked inside.
  So easy, sucking the kzinti crews down into a cycle of waking nightmare.
  As if they were doing it to themselves. Fixer howled laughter from within
  his soul.

  "I have the information by the throat, but I still do not understand,"
  Physicist said, staring around wildly. He was making the chiruu-chiruu
  sounds of kzinti distress. Dealer-With-Very-Snwll-and-Large was abetter
  translation of his name/title. "I do not understand!"
  Most of the bridge equipment was closed down. Ventilation still
  functioned, internal fields, all based on simple feedback systems.
  Computers, weapons, communications, all had grown too erratic to trust.
  A few lasers still linked the functioning units of the fleet.
  Outside, the stars shone with jeering brightness. Of the Ghost Star there
  was no trace; no visible light, no occlusion of the background ... and
  instruments more sophisticated had given out hours ago. Many of the
  bridge crew still stayed at their posts, but their scent had soured; the
  steel wtsai knives at their belts attracted fingers like unconscious
  lures.
 "Explain," Kfraksha-Admiral rasped.
  "The values, the records just say that physical law in the shadow -matter
  realm is unlike kzinti timespace ... and there is crossover this close!
  The effect increases exponentially as we approach the center of mass; we
 122The Best of All Possible Wars

 must be within the radius the object occupies in the other continuum. The
 cosmological constants are varying. Quantum effects. The U/R threshold of
 quantum probability functions itself is increasing, that is why all
 electronic equipment becomes unreliable-probability cascades are
 approaching the macrocosmic level."
  Kfraksha-Admiral's tail was quivering-rigid, and he panted until thin
  threads of spittle drooled down from the comers of his mouth.
  "Then we shall win! We are nearly at point of closest approach. Our
  course is purely ballistic. Systems will regain their integrity as we
  recede from the area of singularity."
  Murphy wins again, Halloran thought wearily, slumping back against the
  metal wall. His body was sbaking, and he felt a warm trickle down one
  leg. He's right. The irony of it was enough to make him laugh, except
  that that would have hurt too much. Halloran had done the noble thing.
  He had put everything into controlling Kfraksha-Admiral, blinding him to
  the voices of prudence ...
 And the bleeping ratcat was right after all.
  His shields frayed as the human despaired. Frayed more strongly than he
  had ever felt, even drunk or coining, until he felt/was
  Kfraksha-Admiral's ferocious triumph, Physicist's jumble of shifting
  equations, Telepath's hand pressing the ampule of his last drug capsule
  against his throat in massive overdose, why have the k-zinti
  disintegrated like this-
  Halloran would never have understood it. He lacked the knowledge of
  physics-the ARM had spent centuries discouraging that-but Physicist was
  next to him, and the data-link was strong. No kzinti could have
  understood it; they were simply not introspective enough. HalloranFixer
  knew, with the whole-argument suddenness of revelation; knew as a
  composite creature that had
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KzIN  123

experienced the inwardness of Kzin and Man together. The conscious brain is a
 computer, but one of a very special kind. Not anything like a digital
 system; that was one reason why true Artificial Intelligence had taken so
 long to achieve, and had proven so worthless once found. Consciousness does
 not operate on mathematical algorithms, with their prefixed structures. It
 is a quantum process, indeterminate in the most literal sense. Thoughts
 became conscious-decision was taken, will exercisedwhen the nervous system
 amplified them past the onegraviton threshold level. So was insight, a
 direct contact with the paramathernatical frame of reality.
  They couldn't know, Halloran realized. Kzinti physics was excellent but
  their biological sciences primitive by human standards.
  And I know what's driving them crazy, he realized. Telepathy was another
  threshold effect. Any conscious creature possessed some ability. The Ghost
  Star was amplifying it to a terrifying level, even as it disabled the
  computers by turning their off/on synapses to off and on. Humans might be
  able to endure it; Man is a gregarious species.
  Not the kzinti. Not those hard, stoic, isolated killer souls. Forever
  guarded, forever wary, disgusted by the very thought of such an involuntary
  sharing ... whose only glimpse of telepathy was creatures like Telepath.
  Utter horror, to feel the boundaries of their personalities fraying,
  merging, becoming not-self.
  Halloran knew what he had to do. It's the right thing. Fixer-of-Weapons
  stirred exultantly in his tomb of flesh. Die like a Hero! he
  battle-screeched.
  Letting go was like thinning out, like dying, like being free for the first
  time in all his life. Halloran's awareness flared out, free of the
  constraints of distance, touching lightly at the raw newly-forged
  connections between thousands of minds in the Ghost Sun's grip. I get to be
 124The Best of All Possible Wars

 omnipotent just before the end, he thought in some distant corner. To his
 involuntary audience: MEET EACH OTHER.
  The shock of the steel was almost irrelevant, the reflex that wrenched
  hum around to Telepath automatic. Undeceived at last, the kzin's
  drug-dilated eyes met the human's. Halloran slumped forward, opening his
  mouth, but there was no sound or breath as
 -he-
 "Get out of my dreams!"
 -the human-
 -fell-
 -released-
  "Shit," Halloran murmured. His heels drummed on the deck. Mom.

  The roar from Colonel Buford Early's office was enough to bring his
  aide-de-camp's head through the door. One glance at his Earther superior
  was enough to send it back through the hatch.
  Early swore again, more quietly but with a scatological breadth that
  showed both his inventiveness and his age; it had been many generations
  since some of those AngloSaxon monosyllables had been in common use.
  Then he played the audio again; without correction, but listening
  carefully for the rhythm of the phrasing under the accent imposed by a
  vocal system and palate very unlike that of Homo sapiens sapiens:
  11 -so you see--it sounded more like zo uru tzee"it's not really relevant
  whether I'm Halloran or whether he's dead and I'm a kzinti with
  delusions. Halloran's ... memories were more used to having an alien in
  his head than Telepath's were, poor bleeping bastard. The Fleet won't be
  giving you any trouble, the few that are still alive will be pretty
  thoroughly insane.
 "On the other hand," the harsh nonhuman voice
       THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN  125

 continued, "remembering what happened to Fixer I really don't think it would
 be all that advisable to come back. And you know what? I've decided that I
 really don't owe any of you that much. Died for the cause already, haven't
 V'
  A rasping sound, something between a growl and a purr: kzinti laughter.
  "I'm seeing a lot of things more clearly now. Amazing what a different set
  of nerves and hormones can do. My talent's almost as strong now as it was
  ... before, and I've got a lot less in the way of inhibitions. It's the
  Patriarchy that ought to be worried, but of course they'll never know."
  Then a hesitation: "Tell my Sire ... tell Dad I died a Hero, would you,
  Colonel?"
 o EPILOGUE

  The kzin finished grooming his pelt to a lustrous shine before he
  followed Medical-Technician to the deepsleep chamber of the Swift Hunter
  courier Flashing Claws. His face was expressionless as the cover lowered
  above him, and then his ears wrinkled with glee; there would be nobody
  to see until they arrived in the Alpha Centauri system a decade from now.
  The Patriarchy had never had a Telepath who earned a full name before.
 Too risky! Telepath wailed.
 Kshat, Fixer thought with contempt.
  Shut up both of you, Halloran replied. Or I'll start thinking about
  salads again. All of them understood the grin that showed his/their
  fangs.
  The Patriarchy had never had one like Halloran before, either.

 126
IN THE HALL OF THE
MOUNTAIN KING

Jerry Pournelle and
S.M. Stirling

 Copyright 0 1992 by Jerry Pournelle & S.M. Stirling
  PROLOGUE

  Durvash the tnuctipun knew he was dying. The thought did not bother hirn
  overmuch-he was a warrior of a peculiar and desperate kind and had never
  expected to survive the War-but the consciousness of failure was far worse
  than the wound along his side.
  Breath rasped harsh between his fangs. Thin fringed lips drew back from
  them, flecked with purple blood from his injured airsac. Unbending will
  kept all fourteen digits splayed on the rough rock; the light gravity of
  this world helped, as well. Cold wind hooted down from the heights,
  plucking at him until he came to a crack that was deep enough for a leg and
  an arm; the long flexible fingers on both wound into irregularities,
  anchoring him. He turned his head back down into the valley and closed both
  visible-light eyes, opening the third in the center of his forehead and
  straining against the dark into the depths of the valley. Yes. Multiple
  heatsources in the thrintun-size range, and there were no large endothermic
  animals on this world. Nothing but thrintun and their slaves and foodyeast
  in the oceans and huge bandersnatch worms to convert it into protein.
 Light-headed, Durvash giggled at that. There had been

               129
 130The Best of All Possible Wars

 bandersnatch on this world, until the supposedly nonsentieiit worms had
 all turned on their thrint masters one day. just as the sunflowers that
 guarded Slaver estates had all focused their beams inward. A thousand
 other surprises had happened that day; two centuries before Durvasb was
 born, at the beinnincy of' the War. The Slavers had never suspected, never
 suspected that the tnuctipun engineers had devised a barrier against their
 telepathic hypnosis, never suspected that the tnuctipun fleet that
 vanished into space when the Slavers found their homeworld would return
 one day. Thrint were fewer now.
  So are tnuctipun, lie thought, sobering; it did not do to depend on
  Slaver stupidity anymore. Most of the very stupid ones had died early in
  the conflict, along with a dozen thrintun slave species, The survivors
  were desperate. The information be had weaseled out of the base on this
  world was proof of that.
  Durvash continued scanning, straining his eye up into the lower
  electromagnetic spectra. Over a dozen thrintun were toiling up the slopes
  below him. They had slave trackers-a species of borderline sapience but
  very sensitive noses-and hand weapons, and a powered sled with limited
  flight capabilities. He drew his sidearm, a round ball of energy with a
  handle, and whispered to it. The too] writhed and settled into a
  pistol-sbape; be spoke instructions and an aiming-grid opened out above
  it. The map of the valley showed geological fault lines, but he would
  have to be very careful.
  A word marked a spot on the map. "Twenty nanoseconds," he said, and
  turned to Jam his head against the rock and squeeze all three eyes shut.
  Holding the weapon behind him he pulled the trigger. It would fire only
  for the specified time, OD the specified spot ... whuump. CRACK. Hot air
  blasted at him, slamming
     IN ~rl-IE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING131

 him back and forth, until broken shards of bone in his thorax gnawed at
 the edges of his breathing-sac. Automatic reflex clamped his nostril shut
 and made him want to curl into a ball, but tnuctipun had evolved as
 arboreal carnivores on a world of very active geology. They had a
 well-founded instinct about hanging on tight when the ground shook. Then
 rock groaned all around him, loud enough almost to drown out the sound of
 a falling mountainside across the valley, megatons of mass avalanching
 down on the slaver and the thrint hunters.
  Total matter-energy conversion is a very active thing, even if only for
  twenty nanoseconds in a limited space.
  Instinct kept his digits clamped tight on rock and weapon. When he woke
  again, he thought it was night for a moment. Then he realized it was only
  blackness before his eyes, and the pain began. It came and went in waves,
  in time to the thundering in his resonator membranes; his neck hurt froin
  the loudness of it. Durvash spat blood and phlegm and growled deep in his
  throat. He crawled up the rock, crawled and crawled until be left a broad
  (lark smear on the stone, fresh trail for the thrint hunters that would
  follow. He -almost missed the cover of'his hidehole.
  Opening it was more pain, the pain of full consciousness to tap out the
  code sequence. By the time he reached the end of the tunnel bored through
  the mountain and sank into the control chamber of the tiny spaceship, he
  was whimpering for his mother. He made it, though, and slapped a palm
  down on the controls. Medical sensors sedated him and began the process
  of healing as best they could; other machines activated remote eyes and
  prepared to lift off as soon as practical.
  I made it, he knew, as pain lifted and darkness drifted down.
  Compensators whined as the ship lifted. We can stop Suicide Night.
 132The Best of All Possible Wars

  Halfway around the planet a single unwinking eye looked down on a
  display. A hand like a three-fingered mechanical grab touched controls.
  "Launch a God fist at these coordinates," the thrint officer rasped, his
  tendrils clenched tight to his mouth in determination.
  "Master-" the three-armed slave technician said in agitation. A Godfist
  was a heavy bombardment weapon, a small spaceship in itself with a
  high-level computer, and well-armed for self-defense. The warhead held
  nearly a kilogram of antimatter. After it landed there would be very
  little left of the continent.
  OBEY, the thrint commanded. The Power clamped down brutally; the Slaver
  could feel the technicians acute desire to be elsewhere.
  I wish I were elsewhere too, the thrint thought bitterly, watching the
  God fist lift on the remote screens. I wish I were at the racetrack or
  with a female. I wish I were small and back home with Mother
  "What does it matter?" he said to the air. "We're all going to die
  anyway." In about twenty years; the garrison here was to withdraw and
  leave only the foodyeastsupervisor quite soon. Dubious if they would make
  it to the next thrint-held system, anyway. The Power was of little use
  in a space battle against shielded tnuctipun vessels. "At least this
  powerloss-sucking tnuctipun spy will die before us."
 As it turned out, he was wrong.
  CHA11YrER ONE

  Mixed crowd tonight, Harold thought, as he watched Suuomalisen's broad
  and dissatisfied back push through the crowd and the beaded curtain over
  the entrance. Sweat stained the fat man's white linen suit, and a haze
  of smoke hung below the ceiling as the fresher system fought overstrain.
  The screened booths along the walls and the tables around the sunken
  dance-floor were crowded, figures writhing there to the musicomp's
  Meddlehoffer beat, a three-deep mob along the long brass-railed bar. Blue
  uniforms of the United Nations Space Navy, gray-green of the Free
  Wunderland forces, gaudy-glitzy dress of civilian hangers-on and the new
  civilian elite of ex-guerrillas and war profiteers grown rich on
  contracts and confiscated collabo properties. Drinking, eating, talking,
  doing business ranging from the romantic to the economic, or
  combinations; and most were smoking as well. Some of the xenosophont
  customers would be uncomfortable in the extreme; Homo sapiens sapiens is
  almost unique in its ability to tolerate tobacco.
  Tough, lie decided. Outside the holosign would be floating before the
  brick: HAROLD'S TERRAN BAR:

               133
 134The Best of All Possible Wars

 A WORLD ON ITS OWN. Below that in lower-case print: humans only. The fat man
 had chosen to ignore that in his brief spell as quasi-owner, and Harold
 agreed with the decision. The sign had been a small raised finger to the
 kzinti during the occupation years; now that humans ruled the Alpha Centauri
 system again, anyone who could pay was welcome. There were even a
 depressed-looking pair of kzin in a booth off at the far coiner, the
 hiss-spit-snarl of the Hero's Tongue coming faintly through their privacy
 screen. That was the only table not crowded, but quarter-ton felinoid
 carnivores did not make for brash intrusion.
  But it's a human hangout, and if the aliens don't like it, they can go
  elsewhere, he decided.
  "Glad to see the last of him, boss," the waitress said, laying a platter
  and a stein in front of him. "I'd rather work for a kzin."
  "Good thing you didn't have to, then," Harold said, a grin creasing his
  basset-hound features between the jug ears. Suuomalisen had bought under
  the impressioncorrect-that Harold was on the run from the collaborationist
  government, right towards the end of the kzinti occupation. He had also
  been under the impressionfalse-that he was buying a controlling interest;
  in fact, the fine print had left real control with a consortium of
  employees. He had been glad to resell back to the original owner, and at a
  tasty profit for Harold.
  Akvavit, beer chaser, and plate of grilled grumblies with dipping sauce
  called; he added a cigarette and decided the evening was nearly complete.
  "Completely complete," he murmured, as his wife joined him; he stood and
  bowed over a hand.
  "What's complete?" she said. Ingrid Schotter-Yarthkin was tall,
  Belter-slim; the strip-cut of her hair looked exotic above the evening gown
  she wore to oversee the backroom gambling operation.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING135

 "Life, sweetheart."
  "At seventy-three?" she said; Wunderland years, slightly shorter than
  Terran. She had been only two years younger than lie when they were growing
  up in the old Wunderland before the ratcat invasion. Now, timedilation and
  interstellar cold sleep had left her less than half his biological age.
  "Middle-aged spread already?"
  "I'm spreading myself thin, personally," Claude Montferrat-Palme said,
  sliding in to join them.
  Harold grunted. The ex-policeman was thin, with the elongated build and
  mobile ears of a purebred Wunderland Herrenmann. He also wore the
  asymmetric beard favored by the old aristocracy.
  "Seems sort of strange to be back to private life," Harold said musingly.
  Claude shuddered. "Count it lucky we weren't put before a court," he said.
 "Speak for yourself.-
  Claude winced slightly; he had been police chief of Munchen under the
  kzinti occupation. Resister before Wunderland surrendered to the invaders,
  then a genuine collaborator; someone had to hold society together, to get
  whatever was possible from the kzin. Earth was losing the war. But then-
  Then Ingrid came back, with the Belter captain, and Claude's world came
  apart. His help to the resistance had been effective, and timely enough to
  save him from a firing squad. Not timely enough to save his job as police
  commissioner, of course. Harold was tarred with the edge of the same brush;
  anyone who made money under the occupation was suspect in these new
  puritanical days, as were the aristocrats who had perforce cooperated with
  the alien invaders. There was irony for you ... especially considering how
  the commons had groveled to the kzin, and worked to keep their war
  factories going during the invasions of Sol System. Double irony for
 136The Best of All Possible Wars

 Harold, since he was a Herrenmann's bastard and so never really accepted
 by his father's kindred. That might have changed if folk knew exactly what
 Harold and Ingrid and that Sol-Belter Jonah Matthieson had done out in the
 Serpent Swarm.
  It would be too an exaggeration to say that the three of them-well, they
  three plus Jonah Matthieson-had won the war; but it wouldn't be too large
  an expansion of the truth to say that without them the war would have
  been lost.
  "Heroes are not without honor," Claude said. "Save in their own
  countries. Perhaps we should write a book to tell our true story."
  "Sure," Harold said. "That would really make that ARM bastard happy.
  Right now he's happy, but-"
  Claude's knowing grin stopped him. "Yes, of course. No books." He
  shrugged. "So we know, but no one else does."
  And at that General Early had been tempted to make all four of them
  vanish, no matter their service to the UN. There would have been no
  trials. Freedom or a quiet disappearance, and for some reason-perhaps
  Early really had some human emotions-they'd been turned loose with their
  memories more or less intact.
  They all frowned; Harold thoughtfully, looking down at the wineglass he
  rolled between his palms.
  ,,I don't like it," Ingrid said. "Oh, I don't miss the fame-more trouble
  than it's worth, we'd have to beat off publicity-seekers and vibrobrains
  with clubs. I don't like General Buford Early-remember, I worked for him
  back in Sol System"-Ingrid had escaped the original kzin attack on Alpha
  Centauri and made the twentyyear trip back to Sol in suspended
  animation--and I don't like the ARM getting a foothold here. What did our
  ancestors come here for, if not to get away from them?"
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING137

  Both men nodded agreement. In theory, the ARM were the technological
  police of the United Nations, charged with keeping track of new
  developments and controlling those that menaced social peace. That turned
  out to be all new technology~ and the ARM had grown until it more-or-less
  set UN policy. For three centuries they had kept Sol System locked in
  pacifistic stasis, to the point where even the memory of conflict was
  fading and a minor scuffle got people sent to the psychists for 11
  repair." That placid changelessness and the growing sameness of life in
  the overcrowded, over-regulated solar system had been a strong force
  behind the interstellar exodus.
  The ARM had kept Solar humanity from making ready after the first kzinti
  warship attacked a human vessel, right up to the arrival of the First
  Fleet from conquered Alpha Centauri. The operators of the big
  launch-lasers on Mercury had had to virtually mutiny to fight back, even
  when the kzin battlecruisers started beaming asteroid habitats.
  "I don't like the way Early's so cozy with the new government," Harold
  growled.
  "In the long run, luck goes only to the efficient," Claude said, and the
  others nodded again, because it wasn't hard to guess his train of
  thought.
  The war was ended by pure luck: the weird aliens who sold the
  faster-than-light spacedrive to the human colonists on We Made It had
  really won the war for Sol. The kzin Fifth Fleet would have crushed all
  resistance, if there had been time for it to launch from Alpha Centauri
  and cover the 4.3 light-years at .8 c. Chuut-Riit, the last kzin
  Governor; had been a strategic genius; even more rare in his species, he
  never attacked until he was ready. Fortunately for humanity, that Chuut-
  Riit hadn't lived to send that fleet.
 it had been Buford Early's idea to send in an assassin
 138The Best of All Possible Wars

 team with the scoopship Yamamoto's raid as a cover. Jonah, and Ingrid, and
 an intelligent ship that had gone insane. A mad scheme, one that shouldn't
 have worked, but it was all Earth could try-and it had worked. Was General
 Early a military genius, or incredibly lucky?
  Now the hyperdrive would open the universe to Man. The problem was that
  it eliminated the moat of distance; the hyperwave, the communications
  version of the device, gave contact with Earth in mere hours. Cultures
  grown alien in centuries of isolation were thrown together ... and
  serious interstellar politics became possible once more, and ARM General
  Buford Early was fight in the middle of it all.
  "I thoroughly agree," Claude said. "He's got Markham under his thumb, and
  a number of others. It's already unwise to cross him."
 "As Jonah found out," Ingrid sighed.
  Harold felt a prickle of irritation. True, Ingrid bad chosen him-when
  both Claude and the Sol-Belter were very much available-but he didn't
  like to be reminded of it. Even less he didn't want to be reminded that
  she and Jonah had been lovers as well as teammates. It hadn't helped that
  the younger man refused A help from them, later.
  She shook her head. "Poor Jonah. He should not have been so ... so
  brusque with General Early. Buford is older than the Long Peace, and he
  can be ... uncivilized."
  CHAPTER TWO

  Jonah Matthieson belched and settled his back against the granite of the
  plinth. The long sunset of Wunderland was well tinder way. Tall clouds
  hung hot-gold nearly to the zenith of the pale blue sky~ where the dome
  of night was darkening. Along the western horizon bands of purple shaded
  down to crimson and salmon pink. War had done that, the Yanwmoto's raid
  two years ago pounding the northern pole with kinetic-energy missiles at
  near light speed, then the fighting with the Crashlander armada later,
  which had included a fair number of highyield weapons on kzinti holdouts.
  There was a lot of dust in the atmosphere. Wunderland is a small planet,
  half Earth's diameter and much less dense, a super-Mars; the
  gravitational gradient was small, and the air extended proportionately
  farther out. Hence there was a lot of atmosphere for it to fill.
  And a wonderful sunset for one mustered-out stingship pilot to sit and
  savor, particularly if he was drunk enough. Unfortunately the bottle was
  empty.
  A sudden spasm of rage sent it flying, out to crash among the other
  debris along the front of the Ritterhaus. The ancient government house
  had been a last strongpoint

               139
 140The Best of All Possible Wars

 for the kzinti garrison in Munchen. Scaffolding covered the front of the
 mellow stone, but the work went slowly while more essential repairs were
 attended to. Much Centauran industry had been converted to war production
 during the occupation, and what survived was now producing for the United
 Nations Space Navy and Wunderland's own growing forces.
  Jonah lurched erect, mouth working against the foul taste, blinking gritty
  eyes. For a moment the sensation reminded him-
 "Oh, Finagle, I hurt.
  They had come from Earth, Jonah and Ingrid and the artificial intelligence
  ship Catskinner, and the ship's computer had found something that shouldn't
  have been there. A ship that had floated in the Belt for so long that it
  had accreted enough dust to become an asteroid. A ship held unchanging in
  stasis, unchanging for billions of years, until it was ~wAened. Not just
  the ship. The Master.
 Jonah shuddered.
  That had been one of the times the thrint's mindcontrol had slipped. It had
  been busy, keeping control of all the minds of the Free Wunderland
  flotilla, trying to find out what had gone on during the several billion
  years it had lain in timeless stasis.
  Eyes blurring, burning, skin hanging loose and gray and old around the
  wrists of bleeding hands, speckled with ground-in dirt.
  Thrint tended to forget to tell their slaves to remember personal
  maintenance; they were not a very bright species. What humans would call an
  IQ of 80 was about average for Thrintun, and Dnivtopun hadn't been a genius
  by Slaver standards. That had been almost the worst of the subconscious
  humiliation. The Master had been sostupid-and under the Power you couldn't
  help but try to change that, to rack your brains for helpful solutions.
  Help the Master!
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING141

  Jonah had been the one to crack the problem of making a new amplifier
  helmet to increase the psionic powers of the revenant Slaver. That would
  have made Dnivtopun master of the Alpha Centauri system and every human
  and kzin living there. Made him ruler of a new Slaver empire, because
  there had been fertile thrint females and young in the ship, the ship
  encased in its stasis field and the asteroid that had accreted about it
  over the thousands of millennia.
  He moaned and pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. Yes, he'd
  broken free for an instant at the end, enough to struggle with Markham.
  Ulf ReichsteinMarkham, who had liked the telepathic hypnosis the Slaver
  imposed. The psychists had erased Markham's memories of that; now he was
  a hero, space-guerrilla kzin-killing Resistance fighter and stalwart of
  the Provisional Government. The psychists hadn't been nearly as thorough
  with Jonah Matthieson, one-time Terran Belter, ex-combat pilot in the
  UNSN, assassin of Chuut-Riit. They'd just given him a strong block about
  the secret aspects of the affair, and turned him loose. He was supposed
  to recover fully in time, too. Not soon enough to have his job back, of
  course. No one wanted an unstable combat pilot. They'd give him his rank,
  but he'd be a paper shuffler, a useless man in a useless job. So he'd
  asked to go home. Belter prospectors were slightly mad anyway. And he
  learned that a hyperdrive transport back to Sol was out of the question,
  and there wasn't even a place for him in cold sleep aboard a slowship.
  Shuffle paper or get lost. Of course they'd hinted there was one other
  possibility, one he'd hated even more than shuffling paper.
  He'd been bitter about that. That had led to more trouble ...
  A man was walking by, with the brisk step of someone with a purpose and
  somewhere to go.
 142The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Gut Herr, spare some money to feed a veteran?" Jonah asked. He despised
  himself each time he did this, but it was the price of the oblivion he
  craved.
  "Lieber Her7- Gott," the man's voice rasped. Wunderland was like that,
  conservative: they even swore by God instead of Finagle. It had been
  settled by North European plutocrats uneasy with the way Earth was heading
  under the UN and the ARM. "You again! This is the third time today!"
  Startled, Jonah looked up. The face was unfamiliar, clenched and hostile
  under a wide-brimined straw hat. The man's suit was offensively white and
  clean, a linen bush-jacket. Some well-to-do outbacker in town on business.
  "Sorry, sir," Jonah said, backing up slightly. "HonestI didn't look at your
  face, just your hands and the money. Please, I won't hit on you again, I
  promise."
  "Here." A solid gold-alloy coin, another Wunderlander anachronism. "And
  here, another. To keep your memory fresh. Do not bother me again, or the
  polezi I will call. Frowning: "How did a combat veteran come to this?"
  Jonah ground the coins together in his fist, almost tempted to throw them
  after the retreating back of the spindly low-gravity. Because the bloody
  ARM is punishing me! he screarned mentally. Because I spoke out! Not
  anything treasonable, no secrets, no attempt to evade the blocks in his
  mind. just the truth, that they were still holding back technological
  secrets-had eve~ while Earth faced defeat at kzinti hands-that they were
  conspiring to put the whole human race back into stasis, the way they had
  in the three centuries of the Long Peace, before the kzinti came. That the
  ARM had secret links, secret organizations on all the human-settled worlds.
  Buford Early, Prehistoric Man, hasfrozen me out. The ARM general probably
  thought he was giving a gentle warning, tugging on his clandestine contacts
       IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING143

 until every regular employment was closed to Matthieson. So that
 Matthieson would come crawling back, eventually.
  Early was at least two centuries old, probably more. Old enough to
  remember when military history was taught in the schools, not forbidden
  as pornography. Possibly old enough to havefought against other humans
  in a war. He was very patient ... and he had hinted that Jonah would make
  a good recruit for the ARM, if he altered his attitudes. Perhaps even for
  something more secret than the ARM, the thing hinted at by the
  collaboration with the oyabun crimelords here in the Alpha Centauri
  system. Jonah had threatened to reveal that.
  Go right ahead, Lieutenant, Buford had said, laughing. It creased his
  carved-ebony face, gave you some idea of how ancient he really was, how
  little was left of humanity in him. Laughter in the gravel voice: It's
  been done before. Whole books published about it. Nobody believes the
  books, and then they somehow don't get reprinted or copied.
  "Finagle eat my eyes if I'll crawl to you, you bleeping tyrant," Jonah
  whispered softly to himself.
  He looked down at the coins in his hand; a five-krona and a ten. Enough
  to eat on for a couple of weeks, if you didn't mind sleeping outside in
  the mild subtropical nights. Of course, that made it more likely someone
  would kick your head in and rob you, in the areas where they let vagrants
  settle. Another figure was crossing the square, a woman this time, in
  rough but serviceable overalls and a heavy strakkaker in a holster on one
  hip.
  "Ma'am?" Jonah asked. "Spare some eating money for a veteran down on his
  luck?"
  She stopped, looking him up and down shrewdly. Stocky and middle-aged,
  pushing seventy, with rims of black under her fingernails. Not one of the
  tall slim mobile-eared aristocrats of the Nineteen Families, the
 144The Best of All Possible Wars

 ones who had first settled Wunderland. A commoner, with a hint of a nasal
 accent to her Wunderlander that suggested the German-Balt-Dutch-Danish
 hybrid was not her native tongue.
 "Pilot?" she said skeptically.
  "I was, yes," Jonah said, bracing erect. He felt a slight prickle of
  surprise when she read off the unit and section tabs still woven into the
  grimy synthetic of his undersuit.
 "Then you'll know systems ... atmosphere training?"
 "Of course.'
  "We'll see." The questions stabbed out, quick and knowledgeable. "All
  right," she said at last. "I won't give you a fermig for a handout, but I
  could have a job for you.
  Hope was more painful than hunger or hangover. 'Who do I have to kill?" he
  said.
  She raised her brows, then showed teeth. "Ach, you joke. Good, spirit you
  have."
  She held out a belt unit, and he laid a palm on it as hope flickered out.
  There would be a trace on it from the net, General Early would have seen to
  that. There had been other prospects.
  "Hmm," she grunted. "Well, a good record would not have you squatting in
  the ruins, smelling . . ." She wrinkled her nose and seemed to consider.
  "Here." She pulled out a printer and keyed it, then handed him the sheet it
  extruded, together with a credit chip. -1 am Heldja Eladsson, project
  manager for Skognara Minerals, a Suuomalisen company.
  "If you show up at the listed address in two days, there will be work. I am
  short several hands; skilled labor is scarce, and my contract will not
  wait. The work is hard but the pay is good. There's enough money in the
  chip to keep you blind drunk for a week, if that's your problem. And enough
  for a backcountry kit, working clothes and such, if you want the job. Be
  there or not, as you please."
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING145

  She turned on her heel and left. Alpha Centauri had set, but the
  eye-straining point source that was Beta was still aloft, and the moon.
  "I won't spend the chip on booze," he said to himself "But by Murphy's
  ghost, I'm going to celebrate with the coins that smug-faced farmer gave
  me."
  The question of where to do it remained. Then his eyes narrowed
  defiantly. Somewhere to clean up first, then-yes, then he'd hit Harold's
  Terran Bar. It would be good to sit down and order. Damned if he would
  have taken Harold Yarthkin's charity, though. Not if he were starving.
  The chances were he'd be the only Terran there, anyway.
  CHAPTER THREE

  Minister the Honorable Ulf Reichstein-Markham regarded the Terran with
  suspicion. The office of the Minister for War of the Provisional
  Government was as austere as the man himself, a stark stone rectangle on
  the top floor of the Ritterhaus. Its only luxuries were size and the
  sweeping view of the Founder's Memorial and Hans-Jorge Square; for the
  rest it held a severely practical desk and retrieval system, a cot for
  occasional sleep, and a few knickknacks. The dried ear of a kzin warrior,
  a picture of Markham's mother-who had the same bleakly handsome,
  hatchet-faced Herrenmann looks with a steel-trap jaw-and a model of the
  Nietzsche, Markham's ship during most of his years as a leader of
  Resistance guerrillas in the Serpent Swarm, the asteroid belt around
  Alpha Centauri. Markham himself was a young man, only a little over
  thirty-five; blond asymmetric beard and wiry close-cropped hair, tall
  lean body held ramrod-tight in his plain gray uniform.
  "Why, exactly, do youArish to block further renovation of the Munchen
  Scholarium?" he said, in his pedantic Wunderlander-flavored English. It
  held less of that guttural undertone than it had a year ago.

               146
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING147

  General Buford Early, UN Space Navy, lounged back in the chair and drew
  on his cheroot. He looked to be in late middle age, perhaps eighty or
  ninety, a thickbodied black manMth massive shoulders and arms and a
  rumpled blue undress uniform. The look was a finely crafted artifact.
  "Duplication of effort," he said. "Earth and We Made It are producing
  technological innovations as quickly as interstellar industry can
  assimilate them-faster than the industries of Wunderland and the Serpent
  Swarm can assimilate them. Much cheaper to send data and high-end
  equipment directly here, now that we have the hyperdrive, and hyperwave
  communications. You're our forward base for the push into kzinti space;
  the war's going to last another couple of years at least, possibly a
  decade, depending on how many systems we have to take before the kzin cry
  uncle."
  Markham's brow furrowed for a moment, then caught the meaning behind the
  unfamiliar idiom.
 "The assault on Hssin went well," he pointed out.
  That was the nearest kzin-held system, a dim red dwarf with a
  nonterrestrial planet; the assault that took the Alpha Centauri system
  had been mounted from there. UN superluminal warships and transports had
  ferried Wunderlander troops in for the attack. Early could read Markham's
  momentary, slightly dreamy expression well. Schadenfreude, sadistic
  delight in another's misfortune. Hammerblows from space, utterly
  unexpected, wrecking the ground defenses and what small warships were
  deployed at Hssin. Then the landing craft floating down on gravity
  polarizer drive, hunting through the shattered habitats and cracking them
  one by one. Hssin had unbreathable air, and it had been constructed as
  a maintenance base more than a fortress.
  "True," Early nodded. "And that's just what Wunderlanders should
  concentrate their efforts on-
   148The Best of All Possible Wars

 direct military efforts. Times have changed; it doesn't take decades to
 travel between Sol and Alpha Centauri any more. With the Outsider's
 Gift"-the hyperdrive had been sold to the human colonists of We Made It
 by aliens so alien they made kzinti look familiar-"star systems don't have
 to be so self-sufficient anymore."
  Markham's frown deepened. "Wunderland is an independent state and not
  signatory to the United Nations treaties," he pointed out acerbically.
  Early made a soothing gesture, spreading his hands. The fingers moved in
  a rhythmic pattern. Markham's eyes followed them, the pupils growing
  wider until they almost swallowed the last gray rim of the iris.
  "You really don't care much about the Scholarium, do you?" the Terran
  said soothingly.
  Markham nodded, his head moving slowly up and down as if pulled on a
  string.
  "True. It vas of no use to us during the occupation, und now makes
  endless trouble about necessary measures." His accent had grown a little
  thicker.
  "There are so many other calls on resources. And it really is politically
  troublesome."
  Another nod. "Pressing for early elections. Schweinerie! What does
  nose-counting matter? Ve soldiers haf the understanding of Vunderland's
  problems. The riots against the Landholders must be put down! Too many
  of my colleagues prejudices against their social superiors haff."
  -The alliance with the UN is important. We have to stand by our allies
  while the war is on, after all."
  This time Markham seemed to frown slightly, his head jerking as if it
  tried to escape some confinement. Early moved his fingers again and again
  in the rhythmic dance, until the Wunderlander's face grew calm once more.
  "True. For ze present."
 "So you'll deny their application for additional funds.-
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING149

 ... ja." Early snapped his fingers, and Markham started.
  "And if you have no further matters to discuss, Herr General?" lie said,
  impatiently keying the system on his desk.
  "Thank you for your time, sir," Early replied, standing and saluting.

  "You got what you wanted?" the man who called himself Shigehero Hirose
  said, as they walked out the guarded front entrance of the Ritterhaus.
  The mosaic murals were under repair, their marble and iridescent glass
  tesserae still ripped and stained by the close-quarter fighting that had
  retaken the building. It would have been safer to use heavy weapons from
  a distance, but the Wunderlanders had been willing to pay in blood to
  keep the structure intact. Here the Founders had landed; here the
  Nineteen Families had taken the Oath. Early shook his head slightly at
  that; too much love of tradition and custom, even now; too much sense of
  connection to the past. The ARM would have to deal with that. That sort
  of thinking made people uncomfortably independent. Isolated anomic
  individuals were much easier to deal with, and also more likely to accept
  suitably slanted versions of past, present, and future.
  There was still a slight scent of scorch in the lobby's air, and an even
  fainter one of old blood. The volunteer repair crews were cleaning each
  section by hand with vibrosweeps and soft brushes before they began
  adding new material.
  "Most of what we wanted," Early said, with deliberate emphasis.
  Hirose was the oyabun of his clan, and a man of some weight on this
  planet. The organization had grown during the lawless occupation years,
  and they were putting their accumulated wealth and power into shrewd
  investments
 150The Best of All Possible Wars

 now. Nevertheless, he bowed his head slightly as he answered:
  "We, of course. Still, did not your psychists plant sufficient key
  commands last year?"
  "We had to be careful. Markham was unstable, of course"-no wonder, after
  the resurrected thrint had used him as an organic waldo mechanism for
  weeks on end--and besides, he'd be no use if we altered his psyche too
  much. We were counting on his subconscious craving for an authority
  figure, but evidently that's not as vulnerable as we thought. And be's
  getting more and more steamed about the political situation here, the
  antiaristocratic reaction. Ironic."
 "Which in turn is favorable to us," Hirose said.
  "Oh, in the long run, yes. Nothing more susceptible to secret
  manipulation than democracy."
  He sighed; in many ways, the Long Peace back on Earth had been more
  restful. A successful end to the long clandestine struggle, with an
  official agency, the ARM, openly aHowed to close down disrupting
  technology. There had been fierce struggles within the Brotherhood over
  releasing the hoarded knowledge, any of it, even in the face of the kzin
  invasion. Necessary, of course; but the hyperdrive was another
  complicating factor. Now the other colonized systems were no longer
  merely dumpinggrounds for malcontents, safely insulated by unimaginable
  distance. They were only a hyperwave call away, and each one was a
  potentially destabilizing factor.
 He sighed. Perhaps the struggle was futile ... Never.
  "There is another factor I'd like you to check into," he went on.
  "Montferrat and his friends, and Matthieson. They know entirely too
  much."
  "An isolated group," Hirose said dismissively. "Matthieson is
  disintegrating, and alienated from the others."
 "Perhaps; but knowledge is always dangerous. Why
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC151

 else do we spend most of our time suppressing it? And-he
 paused--there's a ... synchronicity to that crew. They're the sort of
 people things happen around; threatening things." "As you wish, Elder
 Brother," Hirose said. "Indeed."
  CHAPTER FOUR

  "My nose is dry," Large-Son of Chotrz-Shaa said, leaning forward to lap at
  the heated single-malt: I'm worried. "We are impoverished beyond hope."
  His brother Spots-Son made a meeow-ur of sardonic amusement. and poured
  some cream from the pitcher into his saucer of Glen Rorksbergen. Thick
  Jersey mixed sluggishly with the hot amber fluid as he stirred it with an
  extended claw. Both the young kzin males were somewhat drunk, and neither
  was feeling cheerful in his cups.
  "Which is why you order fifty-year whiskey and grouper," he said, gesturing
  at the table. The two-meter fish was a mess of clean-picked bones on the
  platter; he picked tip the head and crunched it for the brains, salty and
  delicious.
  Large-Son flattened his batwing ears and wrinkled his upper lip to expose
  long wet dagger-teeth. "You eat your share, hairball- make r-who-neve r-m
  atu red." Spots growled around the mouthful; he had never entirely lost the
  juvenile mottles in his orange pelt. Dueling scars and batwing ears at his
  belt showed how he usually dealt with those who reminded him of it.

               152
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC153

 "And the price of a meal is nothing compared to what we owe.
  Spots-Son flared his facial pelt in the equivalent of a shrug. Kzinti
  rarely lie; it is beneath a warrior's honor, and in any case few of them
  can control the characteristic scent of falsehood.
  "Truth," Spots said. "My liver is chill with worry; we are poor beyond
  redemption. But if we must die, at least let us do it full and soothed."
  A shape brushed past the shimmer of the privacy screen. "Owe? Poor?"
  They both wheeled, grinning and folding their ears into combat-position.
  Long claws slid out of four-digit hands like knives at the tips of black
  leather gloves. A human had spoken, mangling the Hero's Tongue with his
  monkey palate. During the kzinti occupation, a human would have had his
  tongue removed for so insulting the language of the Heroic Race.
 "You intrude," Spots-Son said coldly in Wunderlander.
  "This is a public booth," the man pointed out. -And the only one not
  full. Besides, we all seem to have something in common."
  That was an insult. The fur lay flat on their muzzles, and they grinned
  wider, threads of saliva failing from thin carnivore lips.
  "Cease to intrude, monkey," Large-Son said; this time he used the Hero's
  Tongue, in the Menacing Tense.
  'We're all warriors, for one thing," the human continued, smelling
  ofreckless self-confidence.
  Both kzin relaxed, blinking and studying the monkey. He was a tall male,
  with a strip of dark head-fur; the clothes he wore were uniform and also
  thermally adjustable padding for wear under ground-combat armor. They
  blinked again, noting the ribbons and unitmarkings, looked at each other.
 He speaks truth, Spots-Son signaled with a twitch of
 154The Best of All Possible Wars

 eyebrows. Both of them had been junior engineering officers in an
 underground installation before the human counterattack on the Alpha
 Centauri system; both had been knocked out with stungas toward the end.
 The human was actually more of a warrior than either of them; their
 defense battery might or might not have made a kill during the tag-end of
 atmospheric combat, but this monkey had beaten kzinti fighters at close
 quarters. The pips on his sleeve were so many dried kzin ears dangling
 from a coup belt. It was permissible to talk to him, althoulh not
 agreeable.
  The human smiled in his turn, although he kept his teeth covered.
  "Besides, we're all broke, too. My name is Jonah Matthieson, ex-Pilot,
  ex-Captain, United Nations Space Navy. Let me order the next round of
  drinks."

  ". . . and so we inherit the care of our dams, our Sire's other wives,
  now ours, and our siblings and half-siblings," Spots-Son said morosely
  some hours later, upending the whiskey decanter over his dish. "Honor
  demands it."
  Harold's was half-empty now; a waiter came quickly enough when the long
  orange-furred arm waved the crystal in the air, setting out fresh liquor
  and cream. Spots-Son slopped the amber fluid into his bowl and into
  Jonah's glass. Large-Son was lying with his muzzle in his dish, tongue
  protruding slightly as he snored. Thin black lips flopped against his
  fangs, and his eyes were nearly shut.
  "Kzinti females take much care," Spots continued, lowering his muzzle.
  Despite his care it went too far into the heated drink as he nearly
  toppled, making him sneeze and slap at his nose. "And much feeding. The
  properties have been confiscated by the military government-all the fine
  ranchlands and huntinggrounds our Sire possessed, all except the house.
  Where once we feasted on blood-dripping fresh beef and
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING155

 screaming zianyas, now our families must trade heirlooms for synthetic
 protein. Soon we will have no alternative but honorable suicide.-
  "Thas-that's a shame," Jonah said. "Yeah, after th' war the fighters get
  nothin' and the politicians get rich, like always." He hiccuped and drank.
  "Goddam UN Space Navy doesn't need no loudmouths who think for themselves,
  either. Say, what did you say you did before the war?"
  "I," Spots said with slow care and some pride, "was a Senior Weapons System
  Repairworker. And my sibling, too."
  Jonah blinked owlishly. "Reminds me." He fumbled a sheet of printout from
  a pocket. "Lookit this. Decided it was a good deal so I'd come in here an'
  spend my last krona. Here.-
  He spread the crumpled paper on the damp surface of the table. The kzin
  craned to look; it was in the spiky fourteen-point gothic script most
  commonly used for public announcements on Wunderland. Printed notices were
  common; during the occupation the kzin overlords had restricted human use
  of the information net, and since then wartime damage had kept facilities
  scarce.
  Technical personnel wanted, he read,jor heavy salvage operation. Categories
  of skills were listed. Heavy work, some danger, high pay. Suuomalisen
  Contracting, vid. 97-777-4321A Munchen.
  11 Urrrowra," Spots said mournfully. "Such would be suitable-if we were not
  kzinti. Surely none will hire us. No, suicide is our fate-we must cut our
  throats with our own wtsai and immolate our households. Woe! Woe for a
  dishonored death in poverty, among furless omnivores! No shrine will
  enclose our bones and ashes; only eating-grass will cover our graves.
  Perhaps KdaptPreacher is right, and the God has a hairless face!"
 Large-Son whimpered in half-conscious agreement
 156The Best of All Possible Wars

 and slapped his hands over his eyes to blank out the horrible vision of
 the heretic's new creed, that God had created Man in His own image.
  "Naw," Jonah said. "I talked to the boss, she don't care anything but you
  can do the job. Or wouldn't have hired me, with a black mark next to my
  discharge. C'mon-bring the bottle. Talk to her tomorrow."
  "You are right!" Spots bellowed, standing to his full two meters and a
  half of massive, orange-furred height. His naked pink tail lashed. "We
  will fight against debt and empty-accountness. We leap and rip the throat
  of circumstance. We will conquer!"
  From the other side of the long room beads rustled as a tall
  black-skinned human stuck his head through the curtain. He was dressed
  in archaic white tie and tuxedo, but there was a fully functional
  military-grade stunner in his fist. Behind the bar several other
  employees reached down and came up with shockrods as guests' heads turned
  toward the booth.
  "Shhhhh!" Jonah said, tugging recklessly at the felinoid alien's fur.
  "The bouncers."
  "Rrrrr. True." There was no dignity in being stunned and thrown out in
  the gutter. "Where shall we go? Our quarters are far outside Munchen, and
  transport for kzin costs much." Sleeping outside would not be very wise,
  given the number of exterminationist fanatics ready to attack a helpless
  kzin.
  "C'mon. I know a doss where they don't care 'bout anything but your coin,
  and it's cheap."
  They weaved their way to the door, Spots half-carrying his brother and
  Jonah lifting the unconscious kzin's tail with exaggerated care.
  CHAPTER FIVE

  ... still worth lookin, oh, yes," the old man said.
  Jonah yawned and looked over at him. The two kzin were unrolling their
  pallets up a level in the framework; the human had a stack of blankets and
  a pillow instead, A natural fiber in the rather primitive way of
  Wunderland, and all smelling dubious and looking worse. It must be even
  more difficult for the felinoids, with their sensitive noses.
  "Look at 'er this way," the man was saying. "You take hafnium-"
  It was hard to estimate his age; he could be as young as seventy or as old
  as one-fifty, depending on how much medical carc lie had been able to
  afford during the occupation.
  ,,-good useful industrial metal; or gold, likewise, and we use it as
  monetary backing. Usually don't pay to mine it anywhere but in the Swarm,
  in normal times. But there ain't been any normal times, not since the
  pussies came, no sirree. So people've been out in the jotuns for a dog's
  age now, finding deposits. Don't pay to bring in heavy equipment; deposits
  are rich but sinall. You can make yourself rich that way, and that's not
  counting

               157
 158The Best of All Possible Wars

 salvage on all the equipment the pussies abandoned out there, all very
 salable these days. I'd go myself, don't you doubt it, go again like a
 shot."
  "Hey," Jonah called. "You sound like you've done that before; what're you
  doing here?"
  The great room was noisy with the sounds of humans settling down to
  sleep, snores, snatches of drunken song. There were still tens of
  thousands of displaced from the war years.
  "Made ine a fortune, oh, yes, more than one," the old man said. His
  wrinkled-apple face looked over at Jonah, eyes twinkling. "Lost'em all.
  Some the government took, and I spent the others going back and looking
  for a bigger strike. Most people get into that game don't know where to
  stop. Get thirty thousand crowns worth, they want sixty. Get sixty, spend
  it trying to find half a million. Stands to reason, of course; that's why
  the heavy metals are so valuable. Value of 'em includes all the time and
  labor and money spent by those who don't find anything, you see.
  "Wouldn't be like that with me," Jonah said, unrolling the blankets.
  Finagle, but Fin tired of being poor, he thought. Odd; poverty had never
  corne up before he got to Alpha Centauri. Before then he'd been a Navy
  pilot, or a rockjack asteroid prospector. The Navy fed you, and rockjacks
  generally made enough to get by certainly (luring the war, with industry
  sucking in all the materials it could find. "Just enough to set me up.
  Software business." He had a first-rate Solarian education in it, and the
  locals were behind. "That's all I'd want."
  "Likely so, stranger, likely so," the old man said. "Well, don't signify,
  does it?"

  "Finagle!" Jonah swore, as the beam jerked backward towards him. He
  heaved at the bight of control line. "Get it, Spots!"
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING159

  "Hrrrrr," Spots growled, and caught the end of it. His pelt laid itself
  flat under the harness, and the long steel balk slowed and then touched
  gently on the junctionpoint. A little less power in the stubby plump-cat
  limbs and they would both have been crushed against the uprights of the
  frame.
 " S I ack offl. " Jonah called down.
  Large-Son flapped his ears in amusement thirty meters below and turned the
  control rheostat of the winch. The woven-wire cable slacked, and together
  man and kzin guided the end of the beam into its slot Jonah clamped the
  sonic melder's leads to the comers and stepped back onto the scaffolding.
 "Sound on the line," he called, and keyed his belt unit.
  That flashed the alarm and began the process of sintering the beam into a
  single homogenous unit with the rest of the frame; it worked by vibrational
  generation of a heat-interface, and Spots winced and crouched beside him,
  hands clamped firmly over furled ears. The human took the opportunity to
  flip up his sight goggles and take a mouthful of water from his canteen;
  when he noticed the kzin's dangling tongue he poured some into a saucer the
  felinoid had clipped to his harness. Around them the complex geometries of
  the retrieval rig were growing into a latticework around the hill. Humans
  and the odd alien-there was a kdatlyno, and a couple of unbelievably agile
  five-armed jotoki, and the brothers Kzinamaratsov, as he had named them in
  a private joke. Beyond was a flat terrain of swamp, lividgreen Terrestrial
  reeds and mangrove, olive-green palmlike things native to Wunderland.
  He slapped at his neck; it was hot here, right on the equator. The bugs
  were native, but they would cheerfully bite humans, or kzinti if they could
  get through the fur and thick hide. The brothers were suffering more than
  he. Their species shed excess heat through tongue and
 160The Best of All Possible Wars

 nose and the palms of hands and feet, more than enough on savagely dry
 Kzin. Difficult in this steambath, although the kzinti's high natural
 body-temperature and the fight gravity of Wunderland helped a little.
 Jonah shook his head. He had been fighting kzin for most of his adult
 life: in space back in Sol System, by sabotage, and even hand-to-hand in
 a hunting preserve when he'd been sent in as a clandestine operative. Now
 he was working with a couple of them, and they turned out to be a pretty
 good team. Stronger than humans by far, which was valuable on this
 archaeological relic of a project-the contractor was too cheap to rent
 much of what little modem equipment could be spared for civilian
 projects-and quicker. Their abilities were well balanced by his superior
 hands and better head for heights; kzinti had evolved on a world of 1.5
 gravities, climbing low hills rather than trees. They were not quite as
 good with their fingers as humans, and a long vertical drop made them
 nervous.
 "More water?" he offered the other.
  No, Spots signaled with a twitch of his ruff, scratching vigorously a
  moment later. Then, aloud: "Is that not the Contractor Human?"
  "It is, by Finagle's ghost," Jonah muttered. "Hey, Biggie! We're coming
  down!"
  Jonah did so with a graceless rush down the cat-walks; he had always been
  athletic for a Belter, and the last two months had left him in the best
  condition he had ever been, but he was still a child of zero-G. The kzin
  followed with oil-smooth grace, and they dropped in front of the project
  supervisor. Fairly soon the contract would be over ...
  "Looks like it'll be finished soon," Jonah said amiably. "Should be, with
  the extra time we've been putting in."
  "And the bonuses you'll be getting, don't forget that," she replied,
  wiping at her face with a stained neckerchief.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING161

  "Yeah, they sound real good on the screen-the problem is, we haven't seen
  anything deposited to our accounts. "
  Heldja made an impatient gesture, then smiledcarefully, because the two
  kzin were looming behind Jonah like oil-streaked walls of orange fur. Their
  teeth were very white, and all were showing.
  "What vould you with money be doing here?" she said reasonably, waving a
  hand. There were pressmet huts standing on the dredged island; beyond the
  six-meter reeds of the swamp began, stretching beyond sight. Tens of
  thousands of square kilometers of them, and the closest thing to humanity
  in there was wild pigs gone feral, fighting it out with the tigripards.
  "Except to gamble and lose it? I ride the float of your money-all the
  hands' money-this is true, because it furnishes working capital; but the
  bonuses more than make up for it. Transfer will be made as soon as the
  hovercraft gets back to Munchen."
  CHAPTER SLX

 "No, 1b," Tyra Nordbo said, loweriniz her rifle.
 "Fire!" the young man said.
 "No!"
  One of the prisoners looked up from his slump; tears rolled slowly down
  through the dirt on his cheeks and the thin wispy adolescent beard. His
  lips moved soundlessly.
 "Squad-fire!"
  The magrifles gave their whispering grunt, and the five prisoners toppled
  into the graves they had spent the last half-hour digging. Behind, the
  villagers gave a murmur, halfway between shock and approval; they were
  Amish, men in dark suits and women in long black skirts. The half-ruined
  houses of the farmtown beyond were slipping into shadow as Alpha Centauri
  set; the moon was up, and Beta, leaving it just too dark to tell a black
  thread from a white. The air smelled of death and of moist turned earth
  from the graves, and from the plowed fields beyond, purple-black rolling
  hiHs amid the yellow of reaped grain and the dusty green of pasture.
  Orchards and vineyards spotted the land, and small lakes behind dams.
  Woodlots were the deep green of Terran oak and

               162
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING163

 the orange-green of Kzin, tall frondlike growths in Wunderland's reddish
 ocher. Westward the last sunlight touched the glaciers and crags of the
 Jotuns, floating like a mirage seen through glass. The mountains were close,
 the dense forest of the foothills less than a day's walk away.
  It was hard to imagine war had passed this way, until you saw the graves.
  Many fresh ones in the churchyard, and these five outside it, along the
  graveled main street. The other soldiers in the squad lowered their weapons
  and turned to watch the exchange between brother and sister.
  Tyra Nordbo was 180 centimeters, as tall as her brother, but she lacked the
  ordinary low-gravity lankiness of Wunderlanders; she was robust and
  full-bosomed, and strikingly athletic for a girl of eighteen. Her brother
  was only four years older and much alike in his highcheeked, snub-nosed
  looks. There was a hardness to his face that she lacked, although she
  matched the anger when he swung to confront her.
  "Karl, Yungblut," he snapped over his shoulder, "bury them. Kekkonen, get
  the dogs back to the van." He raised his voice to the villagers. "You
  people, return to your homes. justice has been done."
  The black-clad farmers stirred and settled their hats and turned back to
  their houses.
  "Justice, IV' Tyra said, her voice full of quiet fury. She slung her rifle
  and reached to tear off the Provisional Gendarmerie badge sewn to the arm
  of her bush jacket. It landed at Ibs feet with a quiet plop of dust. Her
  holoprinted ID card followed it.
  "Those were bandits!" Ib said, jerking his head at the graves where earth
  fell shovelful by shovelful.
  "Thieves, murderers, and rapists," Tyra said, nodding jerkily. The sight
  was not too bad; the prefrag penetrators were highly lethal but did not
  mangle flesh much. She
 164The Best of All Possible Wars

 had seen much worse, working in an aid station for the underground army,
 during the street fighting in Munchen at Liberation. "They deserved to
 die-after a fair trial."
  The Amish here were strict in their pacifist faith, and had made little
  resistance when the gang moved in; the investigation had been ugly
  hearing. This part of the Jotun foothills had been guerrilla country
  during the last days of the occupation, full of folk on the run from the
  collaborationist police, from the forced-labor gangs, or simply from
  spreading poverty and chaos. Not all of them had gone back to the
  lowlands when peace came, to the sort of badly-paid hard work that was
  available. Many had turned to raiding, and were difficult to catch. The
  Wunderlander armed forces were stretched thin, and most of their efforts
  bad to go to the fighting farther into the kzinti sphere, as the human
  fleets pressed the aliens back.
  "They were guilty," she went on. "They still deserved a trial, and it
  wouldn't have taken any effort at all to carry them back to Arhus," she
  went on bitterly. Her eyes stung, and she blinked back anger and grief.
  I will not cry.
 "General Markham-"
  "You and your precious Ulf Reichstein-Markham. He's as bad as a kzin!"
  she snapped. Some of the other troopers scowled at that. Ulf Markham had
  been among the fiercest of the space-based Resistance fighters in the
  Serpent Swarm, and he had a considerable following in the military.
  "Compared to a real hero, like Jonah Mattbieson, or- Enough. I quit. My
  pay's in arrears"everyone's was-"so I'll take the horse and rifle in
  lieu. Goodbye."
  "Stop-" Ib called to her back. "You're running away, running away like
  Father did!"
  "Don't you ever mention Father like that again," she said coldly, forcing
  her hand away from the weapon slung
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING165

 at her back. Her hands were mechanical as she unhitched the horse and
 vaulted into the saddle, an easy feat on Wunderland.
  His voice followed her as she cantered out into the failing night.

  And so the Commission leaves us only the homejarm, the Teufelberg forest,
  and the Kraki, of the properties, Tyra Nordbo read, tilting the paper
  towards the firelight. The letter took on the tones of her mother's
  voice, deliberately cheerful and utterly sad, as it had been ever since
  Dada left. Was taken away on that crazy astrophysical expedition by the
  kzin, Yiao-Captain. But this is more than enough to keep all of us here
  busy. It is a relief not to have the management Of so much else, and we
  must remember how many others are wanting even for bread.
  She started to crumple the printout in one hand, then carefully smoothed
  it out and folded it, tucking it back into the saddlebags and leaning
  back against the saddle. in the clearing on the other side of the fire
  her horse reached down and took another mouthful of grass, the rich
  kerush sound followed by wet munching and the slight jingle of the hobble
  chain. Her new dog Garm looked up and thumped his tail on the grass, the
  firelight ruddy on the Irish Setter-mostly Setter-hairs of his coat.
  Elsewhere the flicker caught at grass, trees, bushes, the overhanging
  rock of the ~liff bAind her and the gnarled trunk and branches of an oak
  that grew out of the sandstone ten meters above her head. Overhead the
  stars were many and very bright; in the far distance a tigripard
  squalled, and the horse threw up its head for a moment in alarm. Nowhere
  in the wilderness about her was there a hint of Man-save that the tree
  and the grass, woman and horse and dog were all of the soft and blood and
  bone of Sol.
 166The Best of All Possible Wars

  "So," she whispered to herself "It is not enough that we are stripped of
  our honor, they must make us paupers as well."
 Not quite paupers, she admitted.
  That had been among the first things her father taught her; not to lie,
  first and foremost not to lie to herself. They would be quite comfortably
  off-, the home farm was several thousand hectares, the timber concession
  would be profitable enough now that the economy was recovering, and the
  pelagic-harvester Hrolf Kraki was a sturdy old craft. The household staff
  were all old retainers, loyal to Mutti, and very competent. It's not the
  money, she knew; it was a matter of pride. The Nordbos had been the first
  humans to settle Skognara District, back when the Nineteen Families
  arrived. They had been pioneers, ecological engineers adapting Terran
  life to a biosphere not meant for it and a planet not much like Earth;
  their guides, helpers, kindly landfathers to the ones who came after and
  settled in as tenantsin-chief, subtenants, workers.
  It was not the loss of the lands and factories and mines; in practice the
  family had merely levied a small percentage in return for governing, a
  thankless privilege these past two generations. But Gerning and Skognara
  belonged to the Nordbos, they had made them with blood and sweat and the
  bones of their dead. For the Commission to take the rights away was to
  spit on the memories. Of Friedreich Nordbo, who had sponsored a
  tenth-share of the First Fleet, of Ulrike Nordbo, who discovered how to
  put Terran nitrogen-fixing soft bacteria in fruitful symbiosis with the
  native equivalents, of Sigurd Nordbo, who lost his life fighting to save
  a stranded schoolbus during the Great Flood. Of her aunt Siglide Nordbo,
  who bad piloted her singleship right up to the moment it rammed a kzinti
  assault transport during the invasion.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING167

  And of Peter Nordbo, who had stood like a rock between the folk of Skognara
  and the conquerors' demands, every day that he was able. Who was ten years
  gone, shanghaied into space because he told a kzin who was half a friend of
  an astronomical curiosity, leaving a wife who had no choice but to yield
  more than he had, as conditions grew worse. Condemned for a traitor in
  absentia, by a court that thought it was merciful ... and Muth was all
  alone now in the big silent house on the headland at Kor-hess, looking out
  over the waves. Few friends had been willing to visit, much less speak in
  her defense.
  "Dada-nuinn," Tyra whispered, laying her head on her knees and weeping
  aloud, because there was nobody to hear. That was what she had cried out
  when he left. There had been no words he could say to a child of eight ...
  Presently Garm came, creeping on his stomach and whining at her distress,
  sticking his anxious cold nose against her face; she clutched him and
  sobbed until there was no more.
  When she was functional again she took the coffee pot off the heater
  coil-the fire was for comfort, and predators-and poured herself a cup. The
  other letter was still sealed; she had nearly discarded it, until the
  return address caught her eye. Claude Montferrat-Palme, a Herrenmann of
  ambiguous reputation. Frowning, she pressed her thumb to the sea] to
  deactivate the privacy lock and then opened it.
  "Dear Fra Nordbo," she read. "A possible juncture of interests-"

  "Yes, there are workings in the mountains," the old villager said.
  At least, that was what Tyra thought he had said. These backwoodsmen had
  been up in the high country for the better part of two centuries, pioneers
  before the kzinti
 168The Best of All Possible Wars

 came and isolated by choice and necessity since. Their dialect was so
 archaic it was almost Pletterdeutz, without the simplified grammar and many
 of the loan-words from the Baltic and Scandinavian languages that
 characterized modern Wunderlander. Back further in the jotuns were tiny
 enclaves even more cut off, remnants of the ethnic separatists who had come
 with the third through seventh slowship fleets from Sol System.
  "What sort of workings?" she said, slowly. Her own accent was Skognaran,
  more influenced by Swedish and Norse than the central dialect of Munchen;
  modified by a Herrenmann-class education, of course. The Nordbos were
  formerly of the Freunchen clan, one of the Nineteen Families. Formerly.
  Luckily, these primitives were out of touch with the news; they barely
  comprehended that the alien conquerors were gone.
  "Ja, many sorts, Fra Nordbo," the old man said deferentially.
  The von Gelitz family had owned these lands-still did, pending the Reform
  Commission's findings-but that ownership had always been purely
  theoretical, except for a hunting lodge or two. Nobody but the Ecological
  Service ever paid much official attention to this area, and they had gotten
  careless during the occupation. There was an old manor house outside Neu
  Friborg's common fields, but it had been ruins for the better part of a
  century. He had called them the "old herr's place."
  Old, she thought with a shiver, looking at the man. They were getting by on
  home remedies here, and what knowledge their healer could drag out of an
  ancient first-aid program. The wrinkles, wispy white hair, liver spots ...
  this man might be no more than seventy or eighty, barely middle-aged with
  decent medicine. Markham should spend less on his precious fleet-the UN
  Navy isfighting the war now-and more on people and places like this!
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING169

  Apart from premature aging and the odd cripple, it was not too bad as
  backeountry towns in the Jotuns went. Built of white-plastered fieldstone
  and homemade tile, around a central square with the mayor's office, the
  nationalpolezi station-long disused-and the Reformed Catholic church.
  There was a central fountain, and plenty of shade from eucalyptus and
  pepper and featherfrond trees. They were sitting under an awning outside
  the little gasthaus, watching the sleepy traffic of midafternoon:
  bullock-carts and burros bringing in firewood or vegetables, a girl
  switching along a milch cow, tow-haired children in shorts tumbling
  through the dust in some running, shouting game. A rattletrap hovertruck
  went by in a cloud of grit, and a waitress went about watering the
  flowers that hung from the arches behind them in earthenware pots.
  That was all there was to see: the town and its fourhundred-odd
  inhabitants, the cluster of orchards and fields around it in the little
  pocket of arable land, and wilderness beyond-mostly scrubby, in the
  immediate vicinity, but you could find anything from native jungle to
  forest to desert in a few days'journey. All about the peaks of the Jotuns
  reared in scree and talus and glacier; half a continent of mountains,
  taller than Earth's Himalayas and much wider. Wunderland had intermittent
  plate tectonics, but when they were active they were active, and the
  light gravity reduced the power of erosive forces. These were the oldest
  mountains on the planet, and not the highest by any means.
  The old man finished fanning himself with his straw hat and continued:
  "Jade, of course. No mines, but from the high mountain rivers; that is
  how we paid our tribute to the kzin. We are not ignorant knuzen here, Fra
  Nordbo!"
  There was a pathetic pride to that; a hovertruck had come once a month
  from the lowlands, until the final
 170The Best of All Possible Wars

 disruption at liberation. Tyra felt a slight stinging in her eyes. Once even
 the most isolated settlement had been linked to Munchen, with
 virtual-schools and instant emergency services ...
  "Then, sometimes hunters come through; hunting for tigripard hides,
  quetzbird feathers. Or prospectors. There is gold, hafnium ... when I was
  a small boy, scholars also from the Scholarium in Munchen."
 "Scholars?" she said, pricking up her ears.
  "Yes; they said little-this was just after the War, you understand, people
  were suspicious then-but there were rumors of formations that could not be
  accounted for. But they found nothing, and had to return to Munchen when so
  much of the Scholarium was closed by the government." The collaborationist
  authorities had other priorities than education; their own profits,
  primarily. "And-but your supplies, they have arrived!" He rose and left,
  bowing and murmuring good wishes.
  Another hovertruck pulled into the square; big and gleaming by contrast
  with the single ancient relic the village of Neu Friborg owned, although
  shabby enough by Munchen standards, much less Earth's. The man who stepped
  down from it was tall, 190 centimeters at least; his black hair was worn in
  a shag cut, although she knew he had kept it in a military-style crop while
  he was Police Chief of Munchen. Chief for the collaborationists, and
  notoriously corrupt even by the gang's standards. Claude Montferrat-Palme,
  of the Sydow clan. He wore expensive outbacker clothes, leather boots and
  grey usth I th * ket and breeches, with a holstered strakkaker, and a eret.
  A small, nearly clipped black mustache lay on his upper lip, and his mouth
  quirked in a slight smile.
  "Fra Nordbo,- he said, bowing formally over her hand with a click of heels.
 -Fro Palme," she replied, inclining her head with equal
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING171

 formality. A server bustled up with steins of the local beer.
 "Prosit," he said.
  "Skaal," she replied. "Now that the amenities are over, could you tell
  me exactly what you had in mind?"
  Her voice held a chilly correctness; he seemed to recognize the tone, and
  smiled wryly.
  "Fra Nordbo, I'm very strongly reminded of your father."
  "You knew him?" she said, with a raised eyebrow. "Perhaps you will claim
  to have been his friend, next?"
  He surprised her by letting the smile grow into a deep laugh. "Quite the
  contrary," he said, shaking his head. "He treated me with the most frigid
  politesse, as be fitted an honorable Landholder forced to deal with
  noxious collaborationist scum."
  She relaxed slightly. "He couldn't have known you were involved with the
  Resistance," she said.
  "Ach, at the time I wasn't," he replied frankly. "I was a
  collaborationist at that point. My conversion came later; people do
  change. As some claim your father did, later."
  "That is a lie!" she said. More calmly: "My father was an astrophysicist,
  it was his ... hobby, since he had to govern Skognara from a sense of
  duty. How was he to know the enemy would think a inere energy-anomaly a
  thing of potential military importance? The kzinYiao-Captain-foreed him
  to accompany them on the expedition.-
  "From which he has never returned, and hence cannot defend himself And
  the Commission has been in no charitable mood."
  Tyra's blond head drooped slightly. "I know," she said quietly. "Ib ...
  my brother and 1, we have discussed resigning the Nordbos from the
  Freunchen clan."
  "Advisable, but it may make little difference. Unless I've lost my
  political feelers-and I haven't-the
 172The Best of All Possible Wars

 Reformers are going to strip the Nineteen Families of everything but
 ceremonial power. And from all but their strictly private property, as
 well."
  Tyra nodded jerkily, feeling the hair stir on her neck as her ears laid
  back. That mutation was a mark of her heritage, of the old breed that had
  won this planet for humankind.
  "It is unjust! Men like my father did everything they could to shield-"
  She shrugged and fell silent again, taking a mouthful of the beer.
  "Granted, but most of the kzin are gone, and a great deal of repressed
  hatred has to have a target." He turned one hand up in a spare gesture.
  "Even our dear Grand Admiral Ulf Reichstein- Markham has been able to do
  little to halt the growth of anti-Families feeling. Which means we of the
  Families-as individuals-had better look to our own interests."
  Tyra looked down into her mug. Montferrat laughed again.
  "How tactful you are for one so young, Fra Nordbo. I have a reputation
  for looking after my own interests, do I not? Old Sock is the nickname
  now; because I fit on either foot, having changed sides at just the right
  moment. Unfortunately, most of my accumulated wealth went on securing my
  vindication."
  He nodded dryly at her startled glance. "Yes, our great and good
  government of liberation is very nearly as corrupt as the
  collaborationists they hunt down so vigorously. Not Markham; his vice is
  power, not wealth. A little too nakedly apparent, however, and I doubt
  he will retain much of it past the elections, when the junta steps down.
  Which it will, given that the UN Space Navy is overseeing the process ...
  but I digress."
  "Ja, Herr," Tyra said. "You spoke of a matter of mutual interest?"
 "Indeed." He took out a slim gold cigarette case,
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING173

 opening it at her nod and selecting a brown cigarillo. His gaze sought the
 mountains as he took a meditative puff. "After you mentioned rumors of
 something ... strange in these mountains."
  "I was a student at the Scholarium before the liberation, and afterwards a
  little. Before my brother ... Well, he greatly admires Admiral Markham."
  "Of whom you no longer think highly, and who is notoriously unfond of
  myself, thus showing his bad taste," Montferrat said suavely. "Yes. Thank
  you for the information on that little atrocity; by the way; it may come in
  useful as a stick for the Admiral's spokes." He frowned slightly, looking
  at the glowing tip of the cigarillo.
  "I don't believe in fate, but there's a ... synchronicity to events,
  sometimes. Your father vanished, seeking an artifact of inexplicable
  characteristics, near this system. You come across evidence of another here
  in these mountains. And I--
 Tyra made an inquiring sound.
  "Well, let us say that this is the third instance," Montferrat went on.
  "More would be unsafe for you to know; it has to do with General Markham,
  and his SolSystem patrons the ARM. It would certainly be unsafe for me to
  be openly involved in any such search."
  " You implied that you would be commissioning a search?" Tyra said.
  "No. Searchers. Who will be looking, but not specific-ally for that. It is
  necessary that someone guard these unaware guardians; and since this
  presents me with an opportunity to do a lovely lady a service-"
  He smiled gallantly; Tyra retained her look of stony politeness. Montferrat
  sighed.
  "As you will." A puff made the cigarillo a crimson ember for a moment.
  "First I must tell you a story, about a man named Jonah, and some friends
  he has made recently. Unusual friends-"
  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The hovercraft that carried the outgoing shift back to the Munchen docks
  was an antique. Not only would the design be completely obsolete once
  gravity polarizers were available for ordinary civilian work; it had been
  built before the kzinti frontier world of Hssin had decided to send a
  probing fleet to investigate the prornising electromagnetic traffic from
  Alpha Centauri. That was nearly sixty Terran years ago, fifty
  Wunderlander, and it had soldiered on ever since, carrying cargo and
  passengers up and down the Donau river and out into the sheltered waters
  of Spitzer Bay. It was simplicity itself, a flat rectangle of light-metal
  alloy with a control cabin at the right front corner and ducted fans on
  pivots at the rear. Other fans pumped air into the plenum chamber
  beneath, held in by skirts of tough synthmesh; power came from
  molecular-distortion batteries.
  Jonah and the kzinti squatted on their bedrolls in the center of the
  cargo bay, with the hunched backs of the other workers and the waist-high
  bulwarks at the edge between them and the spray cast up by the river.
  Spots hatcd to get his pelt wet, spitting and snarling under his breath,
  while Bigs endured stolidly. The human rolled

               174
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING175

 a cigarette of tetifelshag, ignoring the felinoids'urrows of protest. They
 were well up into the settled areas now. Thinly settled, but the banks of
 the middle Donau had been where humans first came to Wunderland. The
 floodplain and benchland were mostly cleared, or in planted woodlots;
 farther back from the floodplain the old Herrenmann estates stood, bowered
 in gardens, whitewashed stone and tile roofs. Many were broken and
 abandoned, during the occupation, by kzin nobles who had seized a good deal
 of this country for their own, or by anticollaborationist mobs after the
 liberation. They passed robot combines gathering rice, blocks of orange
 grove fragrant with cream-white flowers, herds of beefalo and kzinti
 zitragor under the watch of mounted herdsmen. Villages were planted among
 small farms, many of them worked by hand; machinery had gotten very scarce
 while the kzinti were masters.
  The hovercraft slowed as traffic thickened on the river, strings of barges,
  hydrofoils, pleasure craft: with their colored sails t~aut in the stiff
  southerly breeze. The steel spire of St. Joachim's Cathedral blazed in the
  light of Alpha, with Beta high in the sky as well. Farther north there were
  parks along the waterside, with palm groves and frangipani, but the section
  the hovercraft edged toward was workaday and bustling, sparkling with
  welding torches as the old wrecked autocranes were replaced with temporary
  steel frames; in the meantime stevedores sweated to haul rope pulleys.
  Jonah flicked the butt of his cigarette into the water like a minor meteor
  undergoing reentry.
 "Nice to be affluent," he said cheerfully.
  Bigs made an indescribable sound and turned away from the irritating human,
  lying flat on the decking with his chin extended. Spots waggled his ears in
  the kzin equivalent of an ironic chuckle.
 Three thousand krona each," he said dryly. "The
 176The Best of All Possible Wars

 prospect heats my liver-I truly feel one of Heaven's Admirals. This for
 thirty diurnal periods of laboring like a slave in a swamp and improvising
 machinery out of muck and junk. There is fungus growing on my fur. I may
 never be able to eat fish again."
 "Let's collect, then," Jonah answered.
  They heaved themselves erect under the burden of their kitbags and
  shouldered their way to the bows as the big vehicle ran up on a concrete
  landing ramp and sank to the surface. It was easy enough, although the
  cargo well was crowded; nobody on Wunderland was going to jostle a kzin,
  liberation or no. Legal prosecution would be cold comfort after you fell
  to the ground in several pieces. The surf-noise of voices sounded tinny
  after the long hours of engine roar.
  "Fra Eldasson," Jonah called. The contractor was slipping out of the
  control cabin and walking up the ramp. "Finagle dammit, wait for us!"
  She turned, frowning, then smiled without showing her teeth as she saw
  the three of them wading through the crowd toward her.
 "Problem you haf?" she said brusquely.
  "I thought you were going to pay us as soon as we got back to Munchen,"
  Jonah said.
  "Certainly," she replied, glancing out of the corner of her eyes at the
  two towering orange figures behind him. They grinned at her. "I've told
  everyone"-a hand waved at the others disembarking--credit chips or
  account transfers will be made at the opening of bank hours tomorrow. It
  is Sunday, you know."
  Jonah blinked in bewilderment for a moment, then realized what she meant.
  Wunderland was a very conservative place; about what you would expect
  from a settlement founded by North European plutocrats in the late
  twenty-first century. Even now they still observed religious holidays.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING177

  "May we eat it if it attempts to snatch away our gain/ prey?" Bigs snarled
  in the Hero's Tongue: in the Menacing Tense, at that.
  "Shut up,- Jonah whispered; Bigs was uncivilized, even for a kzin. "A lot
  of people around here understand that language-do you want to start a riot,
  talking about eating a human?" Far too many had been eaten; compulsory
  holocasts of kzinti hunting parties chasing down political prisoners had
  been a staple of the occupation.
  Tanjit, I was the quarry for a kzinti hunting party, he reminded himself.
  Me and Ingrid. He pushed the memory out of his mind; thinking about Ingrid
  was too painful. Besides, the kzin hunting him had died.
  From Eldasson's narrowed eyes and slight smile, he suspected that she had
  understood. Tanjit. If there's a disturbance, she might really try to stiff
  us. Kzinti were not popular with the courts, understandably enoughalthough
  Jonah's war record would help. It was not everyone who had assassinated a
  Planetary Governor like Chuut-Riit.
  "Look, Fra Eldasson, we're broke until we get paidwe don't even have enough
  to buy a drink," he said reasonably.
  "ja. Hinnim. Here"-She took him by the arm and lead him to one side, behind
  a wrecked crane. The thick synthetic bars had frayed out into tangled fiber
  fragments; heavy beam -rifle hit, from the look of it. Composites did not
  weather, so it might have been from last year, or from the street-fighting
  fifty years ago when the kzin landed.
  "Here's four hundred in cash," she said. "Don't let any of the others know,
  or everyone will be about me like grisflies. Meet me at Suuomalisen's Sauna
  later tonight, and I'll transfer the rest for you and your two ratcats."
 "All right."
 -Hrraer."
 178The Best of All Possible Wars

  "I thank E'ldasson for the drink and the meat," Spots said, "but the
  delay is irksome. We will have much to set at rialits in our households;
  our younger siblings are still immature, of shrunken liver and
  rattlepate."
  Bi(,,s wrinkled his upper lip in agreement and stropped his claws on the
  table. Shavings of tekdar curled back, crearny yellow beneath the darker
  patina of the surface.
  Jonah nodded. They were in one of the quieter rooms of the Sauna, which
  despite its narne was an entertainment center of varied attractions, some
  shocking even to him; the tamer floor shows were interesting, but of
  course wasted on non-humans. The kzinti had eaten on their ovm-no human
  felt comfortable with a feeding kzin, and the felinoids detested the
  smell of what men ate-but had returned to wait with him.
  "Yeah; I'm anxious to get the credit deposited myself," he said. And
  you're not bad coutpany fior ratcats, but you're not half as pretty as
  what I have in tnind, he thought: it had been a long month in the swamps.
  "Eldasson had better show up soon."
 "Eldasson?" a voice said.
  Jonah looked up, slightly surprised. A man who associated with kzinti got
  used to being ignored, or left to his own thoughts, whichever way you
  preferred to look at it. The speaker was a thickset man for a
  Wunderlander, with a blue-jowled stubble of beard and a grubby turban;
  frorn one of the little ethnic enclaves that hun,,, on even here in
  Munchen. The light from the stained-glass overhead lamps flickered across
  his olive skin.
 "She owes you money?" the man went on.
 "A fair bit," Jonah replied.
  The other man giggled and lifted his drink; the steel bracelets on his
  wrist tinkled.
  "Then you had better have a written contract," he said. "Notarized.-
       IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING179

  "Notarized?" Jonah said in alarm. "We've got the contracts, right here."
  He tapped his belt-unit. "With mods for bonuses and overtime."
  "A personal recording?" the turbaned man said scornfully. "How long have
  you been on Wunderland, flatlander?"
  Jonah bristled and ran a reflexive hand down his SolBelter strip of hair;
  his great-great-grandmother had been the last of his family to be born
  on Earth.
  "Sorry-] knew by your accent you were Sol-system," the other said,
  raising a placating hand. "I just wanted to warn you; Eldasson and
  Sutiomalisen are like that"he held up two fingers, twined about each
  other--and they're botli crooked as a kzin's hind leg. You'd better be
  ready to sue for that money. 11
  A gingery scent filled the air; the stranger backed off in alarm, as the
  two kzin stood and grinned, lines of slaver falling frorn their thin
  black lips. The same thought had occurred to Jonah; a kzin was not likely
  to receive much justice from the Wunderland junta's courts, these days.
 "Let's go hunting," he said.
 "Hraareow. "

  Munchen was the biggest city Jonah had ever traveled: over a quarter of
  a million people. There were many times that in the Belt, but not even
  Gibraltar Base had as much in one habitat. Of course, much of Earth was
  one huge city-over eighteen billion, an impossible number-but be had been
  born to the Belt and the war against the Kzin. The other problern was
  that it wasn't a habitat at all; it was uncontained, sprawling with the
  disregard for distances of a thinly settled planet and a people who had
  been wealthy enough to give most families their own aircar. The open
  space above still made him a little nervous; he pretended it was the blue
 180The Best of All Possible Wars

 dome of a bubbleworld, one of the larger farming ones with a high spin.
 Luckily, it was unlikely that Eldasson was in the residential neighborhoods,
 or the slums that had grown up during the occupation. Nor was she at the
 address Public info listed as her home, which had turned out to be a
 townhouse with several loud, extremely xenophobic-or at least
 anti-kzinti--dogs.
  -Hrunge k'tze hvrafo tui," Bigs said; he stopped, opened his mouth and wet
  his nose with his tongue. "Tui, tza!"
  I think I scent the prey, Jonah translated mentally. He let the length of
  skeelwood he was carrying up the sleeve of his overall drop until the tip
  rested on his fingers. The prey is here.
  The nightspot they were staking out was a few hundred meters behind them,
  around a slight curve in the treelined road. It was a converted house, and
  the buildings here stood well apart; hedges lined the outer lawns, making
  the turf roadway a glimmer of green-black under the glowglobes. The summer
  night was quiet and dark, the moon and Beta both down and the stars little
  dimmed by city lights; the smell of dew was stronger than that of men's
  engines. Feet came walking, several pair. Then he saw them. Eldasson right
  enough, but dressed in a fancy outfit of black embroidered tunic and
  ballooning indigo trousers. A dark woman in a tight shipsuit to one side of
  her, arm in arm, talking and laughing. Another behind them, tall even for
  a Wunderlander but thickbuilt, almost a giant, shaggy ash-blond hair ...
  "Fra Eldasson," Jonah said, stepping into the pool of light under one of
  the globes that hung from the treebrancbes; they were biologicals, hitched
  into the tree's sap system. "How pleasant to meet you."
  He could sense the kzinti spreading out behind him. Not hear them-their
  padded feet were soundless on the grass-but a whisper of movement, a hint
  of sour-
       IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC181

 ginger scent. Kzin anger: it sent the hair on his own backbone to bristling
 as conditioned reflex said danger. His smile was grim. Danger in truth, but
 not to him.
  Eldasson stopped, blinking at him. 'What are you doing here?" she snapped.
  Her companions looked at Jonah, then recoiled slightly at the sudden
  looming appearance of Spots and Bigs. The tall blond rumbled a challenge;
  the two women crouched slightly, spreading to either side.
  Finagle, Jonah thought. These aren't flatlanders. I miscalculated. Even
  after decades of war between Man and Kzin, most Earthers were still
  culturally conditioned against violence. That had never gone as far on
  Wunderland, and there had been little law here for humans while the kzinti
  ruled. Nobody who prospered in those years was likely to be a pacifist.
  Jonah tapped his belt unit, for emphasis and for a record of what followed.
  "We got a little tired of waiting for you to show up with our money, Fra
  Eldasson," he said calmly. "We'd like it now, if you please."
  "You'll get it as soon as the transfer to me clears," she said. The voice
  was flat and wary; her right hand was behind her back.
  Calm settled on Jonah, a comforting familiarity. The feeling of being
  completely immersed in reality and completely detached at the same time,
  what the adepts who trained him for war had said was the closest he would
  ever approach satori. For the first time in a year, the wounds within his
  mind ceased to itch.
 "Not good enough. We want it now."
  "No! Now get out of this neighborhood; you're not welcome here."
  Bigs spoke; his Wunderlander was more thickly accented than his sibling's
  and distorted by anger as well:
 182The Best of All Possible Wars

  'Why do you think you can cheat a Hero and live, tnonkey?"
  "Ali, a racial slur," Eldasson said, smiling tightly. "Jilla, von Sydow,
  remember that." To the kzin: "Go ch'rowl your Patriarch, ratcat. "
  Bigs screamed and leaped. Everything seemed to move very slowly after
  that. Jonah dove forward and down, the yawara-stick snapping out into his
  hand, then sweeping toward Eldasson's wrist as it came out with the
  chunky shape of a military-grade stunner. She was throwing herself
  backward; the wood met the synthetic of the weapon instead of flesh, and
  there was a high karking buzz before the stunner flew off into darkness.
  Bigs's leap turned from fluid perfection into a ballistic arch, and his
  body met the earth with a thud that shook through Jonah's body. The human
  came up coiling off his hands, one long leg pistoning out into Eldasson's
  stomach.
  That hurt. She was wearing impact armor, memoryplastic that stiffened
  under rapid stress. The heelstrike still sent her back winded and
  wheezing against the hedge. Spots came on in a hunching four-footed rush,
  like a giant orange weasel; the blond giant roared and swept out a
  chopping cut with a Gurkha knife. They circled, eight claws against a
  knife. The kzin was limping as he turned, dark-red blood running down one
  columnar thigh, naked pink tail held out rigidly to sweep around as a
  weapon in itself The man had been wearing armor too; it showed through
  the rents in his tunic, glittering where the claws had scraped. Bigs was
  stirring and muttering, no longer a mute limp pile of orange fur. Only
  the edge of the beam could have clipped him.
  Enough. The woman in the skinsuit came for Jonah, hands stripping two
  black-plastic rods out of sheaths along her thighs, each baton a meter
  long. Shockrods; the touch would bring utter pain, possible brain damage
     IN ~rHE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING183

 or even death in the wrong place. She had delicate Oriental features,
 lynx-calm, and the movements were unmistakable. Well, Nipponjin were
 common in the Alpha Centauri system too, out in the Serpent Swarm. He
 lunged, using the length of arm and leg, the point of his yawara punching
 out for her throat.
 This is uncivilized. Maybe the ARM were right.
  The hard wood clacked on plastic as both rods came around, one smashing
  at the stick, the second driving for his elbow with bone-breaking force.
  He let the force of the blow help him pivot the stick to block the second
  rod. Clack. Faint brushing contact against his left arm. Pain! A datum,
  nothing more. Pain did not hurt; paying attention to it hurt. Snap-kick
  to the inside of her knee, darnage done but she rolled forward with the
  fall and backflipped, coming up crouching with the rods before her in an
  X, guard position.
  Eldasson was straightening up, whooping for breath. Her hand snapped out
  a flat black lozenge and clenched; a shimmering appeared in the air
  before it, and a toothgritting whine. Jonah knew what that was; ratchet
  knife, a wire blade stiffened and set trembling thousands of times a
  second by a magnetic field. it would slash through tissue and bone as if
  they were jelly.
  Thingsjust became more serious, he thought, feeling his testicles trying
  to draw themselves up into his abdomen.
  He rushed toward the woman with the shockrods, bringing his yawara down
  in a straight overarm blow. It smacked into the X, and she slid the
  shockrods down toward his hand. Jonah accepted it, accepted the sudden
  agony that froze his lungs and sent shimmers of random light across his
  pupils. His other hand flashed up to her wrists and he bore forward with
  his full weight and strength. They went over backward; he landed with a
  knee in her stomach, and the rods came down across
 184The Best of All Possible Wars

 her throat. The face beneath him convulsed, the galvanic reaction tossing
 him aside before she slumped into unconsciousness. Wheezing with pain he
 shoulder-rolled erect, both arms trembling as he brought them back to
 guard position.
  Eldasson was on her feet and shuffling toward him, the ratchet knife
  extended. Behind her the big human and Spots were still circling. It
  could only have been thirty seconds or so. She lunged at him, the blade
  invisible in the dimness, but he could hear it keening malevolently.
  Jonah twisted aside desperately, felt something like a hot thread stroke
  along his side. He tried for a kick and snatched the foot back when the
  knife moved down, backing and feeling at the cut along his side. Not too
  deep, he realized with a hot surge of relief-, only enough to break the
  skin. Blood flowed down his flank and soaked into his coverall around the
  waistband. He retreated a little faster, looking around for something to
  use.
 Then Bigs rose in the shadows by the sidewalk.
  "Look behind you," Jonah suggested helpfully, flexing his arms to try and
  work the feeling back into them. Eldasson snorted contempt and bored in,
  holding the ratchet knife before her like a ribbon saber and lunging as
  he skipped away. She was breathing more normally now, and the twin red
  spots on her cheekbones might have been anger as much as the aftereffects
  of being gut-kicked. A grunt of triumph as he dodged to the side and went
  down on the pavement; the ratchet knife went up for a slash, night air
  peeling back from its buzzing wire edge. There was a yawp of sound; the
  woman's eyes rolled up in their sockets, and the knife went silent as
  fingers released it. She crumpled bonelessly to the ground, her head
  going thock on the asphalt.
  Bigs clipped the stunner to his belt. Spots unlocked his jaws from the
  knife-man's right shoulder and threw
     IN rHE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING185

 him a dozen paces to crumple bonelessly on the soft turf of a lawn. Jonah
 swept up the ratchet knife and flipped the hilt in his band, the
 molecur-distortion battery making it heavy even in the .61-G field of
 Wunderland. The contractor's eyes were open; Bigs had taken time to reset
 the stunner's field to light. That meant that Wasson could feel and see,
 although not move the main voluntary muscles. The Sol-Belter drove his heel
 into her ribs with judiciously calculated force.
 "Paytime, Fra Eldasson," he said. "Payback time."
  Her lips worked, trying to spit at him. Bigs picked her up by the back of
  her tunic and shook her at arm's length, as effortlessly as he might have
  a rag doll. When he was finished he brought her close and smiled in her
  face, tongue dangling and carnivore breath hot.
 "How ... how much?" she croaked.
  "Just what you owe us," Jonah said. "Not one fennig more ... in money."

  General Buford Early looked a little less out of place in Munchen than he
  did in his native Sol System, these days; men as black as he were rare on
  Wunderland, and mostly from the Krio enclaves. They were even rarer in the
  polyglot genetic stew of Earth. That was not true at the time of his birth.
  He had been born while there were still distinct human sub-races, a fact he
  took some care to disguise. Not least by keeping a careful ear for the
  changes in language, and by muting the inhuman gracefulness learned through
  the centuries. Other things he hid more deeply; but the power he held from
  his rank in the UN Space Navy, from his role in the ARM, and from his own
  force of personality, he did not bother to conceal. Heldja Eldasson looked
  a little intimidated, sitting across the wide oak desk in the upper offices
  of the Ritterhaus, once more headquarters of Wunderland's government.
 186The Best of All Possible Wars

  "What else could I do?" she said sullenly. The autodoc had healed the worst
  of her injuries, but she had not been allowed enough time to clear up the
  bruises that marked her faceAith red and blue splotches. "The ratcatlover
  had his tame kzin grin at me until I transferred the funds and
  authenticated the contract. "
  "You could have gone to the police," he pointed out, lighting a cigar. That
  was also more common here on Wunderland than on Earth, among the many
  archaisms he found rather pleasant.
  "Tenfelheim! They had the contracts-and would the police believe me, with
  my record? I wouldn't have chanced stiffing them, if you hadn't suggested
  it."
  He stared at her for a moment, and she dropped her eyes before the steady
  yellowish glare of his.
 "Excellency," she finished sullenly.
  "It should have occurred to you that-" Early stopped. That I have influence
  with the courts, and the police. Both quite true, although not to the
  extent he would on Earth. There, opponents of the ARM-or the Brotherhood,
  if they were unlucky enough to learn of its existence-could be ignored so
  completely that they found nobody even acknowledged their existence any
  longer. Harsher measures were rarely necessary; overt fear was a crude
  tool. The Secret Reign had survived the centuries by manipulating men, not
  by trying to rule them directly. It was already far older than any mere
  state in the year Buford Early was born ...
  "Never mind," he continued. "You'll be compensated for your loss." Loss of
  stolen money, he thought ironically. "And keep me informed of anything to
  do with Matthieson. Understood?"
 "Jawul," she replied.
  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jonah pulled his head out of the fountain and shook it; the two kzin
  looked up from tending their wounds and complained with yeowls as drops
  hit their fur. The human restrained an impulse to grin at them; from the
  way they were wagging their ears back at him, they felt the same way.
  "Well, we're rich," he said. "Comparatively speaking. Rich in spirit,
  too-I never did like being cheated." And this time I got to do something
  about it, he added silently. Finagle, but I feel good! Better than he had
  in a year. Better than he had since the psychists released him and Early
  began his campaign of persecution.
  Bigs grunt-snarled. Spots answered aloud: "We have fought side by side,"
  he said. His whiskers drooped. "Although there will be little enough left
  of this money when our debts are paid and supplies laid in for our
  households."
  "Considering that you were contemplating suicide the night I met you,
  that's not bad,- Jonah observed dryly, turning and sitting on the cornice
  of the fountain. "How much will you have left?"
 "If we pay no more than the most pressing of our

               187
 188The Best of All Possible Wars

 debts Spots turned and consulted with his sibling in the Hero's Tongue;
 kzin felt uneasy with a language as verbal as English. "A thousand each."
  "Hmmm. The idea is to let money make money," Jonah replied. "You ought
  to invest it."
  Bigs folded his ears in anger, and the pelt laid itself flat on his face,
  sculpting against the massive bones. Spots lifted his upper lip and let
  his tail twitch in derision.
  "If we had the skill, we would not have the opportunity. Business-who
  would do business of that sort with a kzin?"
  "Well, I-- Jonah snapped his fingers. "Wait a minute! Remember that
  dosshouse we stayed at, the night I told you about the job?"
 "I would rather forget," Spots said.
  "Vermin," Bigs rasped. "Human-specific vermin at that. If the Fanged God
  is humorous, they will die from ingesting kzin blood."
  "No, the old man I talked to-he'd been on prospecting expeditions into
  the Jotuns."
  Spots had bent his head to lap at the water in the fountain; now he
  raised it, hands still braced on the rim, long pink washcloth-sized
  tongue lapping at his jowls and whiskers.
  "You are altruistic, for a monk-for a human," he said suspiciously.
  "Tanj," Jonah replied. "There Ain't No justice. You two are out of luck
  because your side lost the war; I'm in bad odor with ... hmmm, an
  influential patriarch, let's say. And we've just pounded on some people
  who, if not respectable, are certainly established citizens of Munchen.
  Reason and health both say we should get out of town. If nothing else,
  living's cheaper in the countryside. The Jotuns are pretty wild; we could
  hunt most of our food."
 That brought the kzinti heads up, both of them. The
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING189

 aliens stared at him with their huge round lion-colored eyes for a moment,
 then looked at each other.

  "I've got three thousand, you've got thirty-five hundred, our two friends
  here have a thousand apiece. No, that's not enough. Mm-hm. Need about twice
  that."
  The old man's name was Hans Shwartz, and he had been perfectly willing to
  discuss an expedition. His honesty was reassuring, if depressing.
  "Why so much?" Jonah asked. "I've done rockjack work, back in the Sol-Belt,
  but this is planetside-the air's free."
  'ja, but nothing else is," Hans said. "Look. You've got animals--no sense
  in trying to take ground vehicles, it's too rough in there-and you've got
  personal supplies, you ve got weapons-"
 "Weapons?"
  "Bandits. Worse now than during the war. Weapons, then there's detector
  equipment. Southern Jotuns have funny geography, difficult-that's why it's
  worthwhile going in there. Scattered pockets of high-yield stuff; doesn't
  pay for large-scale mining, even these days."
  Jonah nodded, and the two kzin flared their nostrils in agreement. The
  Serpent Swarm had been stripped of experienced rockjacks; they made the
  best stingship fighter-pilots, and the Alpha Centauran space-navy had
  inherited plenty of shipbuilding capacity from the occupation. Thousands of
  small strike craft built in Tiamat and the other space fabrication plants
  were riding in UN carriers deeper and deeper into kzinti space. Even so,
  the natural superiority of asteroid mining was only somewhat diminished.
  There would have been little or no mining and industry on the surface of
  Wunderland but for the kzinti. Kzin had been in its late Iron Age when the
  Jotok arrived and brought with them the full panoply of fusion power and
  gravity polarizers. The
 190The Best of All Possible Wars

 polarizer made surface-to-orbit travel fantastically cheap, and with fusion
 power pollution had never been a problem either.
  "Ja, lot of stuff we'd need to make it worthwhile going. I'm willing to
  invest my savings, but not lose themwhy do you think I'm sleeping in
  flophouses with three thousand krona in the bank? The return would be worth
  it, but only if we're properly equipped."
  Jonah rubbed at his jaw; the stubble was bristly, and he reminded himself
  to pick up some depilatory, now that he could afford it.
 "What prey is in prospect?" Bigs said.
  Shwartz understood the idiom; he seemed to have had some experience with
  kzin. Enough to know basic etiquette like not staring, at least.
  "Depends, Ck-zintar." Warrior, in the Hero's Tongue; a derivative of
  k--intosh, male. "Possibly, nothing at all! That's the risk. Have to go way
  outback; anything near a road or shipline's been surveyed to hell and back.
  Take in filter mcmbranes, then build a hydraulic system if we discover
  anything. Pack it out. Only the heavy metals and rare earths worth enough.
  With luck, oh, maybe ten, twenty thousand krona cach-profit, that is, after
  expenses. Depends on when you want to stop, of course."
  "Twenty thousand sounds fine to me," Jonah said. About the price of a
  rockjack's singleship, in normal times. More than enough for independence,
  if he managed carefully; passage back to Sol System, if he wanted it.
  "Excuse us for a minute?"
  'Ja," the old man said mildly, stuffing his pipe and turning away to sit
  quietly on his cot, blowing smoke rings at the grimy ceiling of the
  dosshouse.
  Jonah and the kzin brothers huddled in a comer; the half-ton of sentient
  flesh made a barrier as good as any privacy screen.
 "Sounds like the best prospect going," he murmured.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING191

  "Yes," Spots said. lie took a comp from his belt and tapped at the
  screen; a kzin military model, rather chunky, marked in the
  dots-and-commas of the aliens' script. "That would repurchase enough land
  to sustain our households. With an independent base, we could contract
  work to rneet our cash-flow problems."
  "I am tempted," Bigs cut in; they both looked at him in surprise.
  "Myliversteams with thejuices of anticipation. With enough wealth, we
  need no longer associate so much with humans." His ears folded away and
  he ducked his muzzle. "No offense, Jonah-Matthieson. You hardly seem like
  a i-nonkey-"
  "None taken," Jonah said dryly. Actually, he's quite reasonable ... for
  a pussy, he thought, using the old UN Space Navy slang for the felinoids.
  That wasflatter~y. Accepting defeat violated kzin instincts as
  fundamental to thein as sex was to a human. Walking among aliens who did
  not recognize kzinti dominance without lashing out at them took enormous
  strength of will.
  "Hrrrr." Spots closed his eyes to a slit; the pink tip of his tongue
  protruded slightly. "How are we to raise the additional capital?" He
  brightened, unfurling ears. "A raid! We will-"
  Jonah groaned; Bigs was grinning with enthusiasm ... aggressive ei ith
  usiasm. How had these two survived since the liberation? Badly, he knew.
 "No, no-do you want to end up in prison?"
  That made them both wince. Kzinti were more vulnerable to sensory
  deprivation than humans; they were a cruel race, but rarely imprisoned
  their victims except as a temporary holding measure. Kzin imprisoned for
  long periods usually suicided by beating their own brains out against a
  wall, or died in raving insanity if restrained.
  "No, we'll have to go with what the old coot had in mind," Jonah
  concluded.
 192The Best of All Possible Wars

  Huge round amber-colored eyes blinked at him. "But he said he did not have
  access to sufficient funds," Spots pointed out reasonably, licking his nose
  and sniffling. Puzzlement: I snifffor your reasoning.
  It was amazing how much you learned about kzinti, working with them for a
  month or two. Back in Sol System, nobody had known squat about the aliens,
  except that they kept attacking---even when they shouldn't. Now he knew
  kzin body language; he -also knew their economic system was primitive to
  the point of absurdity. Not surprising, when a bunch of feudal-pastoral
  savages were hired as mercenaries by a star-faring race, given specialized
  educations, and then revolted and overthrew their employers. That had
  happened a long, long, long time ago, long enough to be quasi-legend among
  the kzin. They had never developed much sophistication, though; nor a real
  civilization.
  What they had done was to freeze their own development. The kzin became a
  space-faring power long before they understood what that meant; and with
  space travel came access to genetic -alteration techniques. The kzin used
  those, both on their captives and on themselves. The plan was to make them
  better; but better to the Race of Heroes meant to be even more primitive,
  even more dedicated to the Fanged God, even more loyal to the Patriarch.
  Civilization breeds for rationality; but the kzin used gene mechanics to
  build in proof against that.
  While they were at it, they altered their social customs, then changed
  their genes so the new customs would be stable. The result was a race of
  barbarians, culturally well below the level of the Holy Roman Empire,
  roaming through space in wars of conquest and slavery.
  Fortunately they had -also changed their genes to make themselves more
  Heroic; and to a kzin, Heroes were rarely subtle and never deceptive.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING193

  Heroes don't lie, and they don't steal. It should be enough, Jonah thought.
  So--
  "He'll have a backer in mind," Jonah said. "A beneaththe-grass patriarch.
  A silent partner." Explaining the concept took a few minutes. "Otherwise he
  wouldn't have talked to us at all."
 The huge kzinti heads turned toward each other.
 "We need him," Spots said. "Badly."
 "Truth," Bigs replied morosely.
  Each of them solemnly bared the skin on the inside of a wrist and scratched
  a red line with one Claw, then stared at him expectantly.
  Oh, Finagle, the human thought. "Can I use a knife?" he said aloud.

  -1 won't take money from Harold Yarthkin," Jonah said bluntly.
  He stared narrow-eyed at the lean Herrenmann face across the table, with
  its arrogant asymmetric double spike of beard. The room was large, elegant,
  and airy in the manner of Old Munchen, on the third story of a townhouse
  overlooking the Donau and the gardens along its banks. Almost as elegant as
  Claude Montferrat-Palme in his tweeds and suede, looking for all the world
  like a squire just in from riding over the home farm. He lounged back in
  the tall carved-oak chair, framed against the bright sunlight and the
  wisteria and wrought iron of the balcony behind him. His smile was lazy and
  relaxed.
  -Oh, I assure you, there's no money of his in this. We're ... close, but
  not bosom companions, if you know what I mean."
  Ingrid, Jonah's mind supplied. An old and tangled rivalry; resolved now,
  but the scratches must linger. His were about healed, but he hadn't spent
  forty years brooding on them.
 194The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Although he probably would back you up. You did save both their lives,
  there at the end."
  Jonah felt a cold shudder ripple his skin, but the sensation was fading.
  There are no more thrint, he told himself None at all, except for the Sea
  Statue in the UN museum, and that was safely bottled in a stasis field
  until the primal monobloc recondensed. After an instant the sensation
  went away. A year ago the memory attacks had been overwhelming; now they
  were just very, very unpleasant. Progress, of a sort.
  "Not interested," he said flatly. For one thing, our dearfiriend Harold
  might have left me herefor the pussies, if it wouldn't have made him look
  bad in front of Ingrid. Harold Yarthkin was a hero of sorts; Jonah knew
  the breed, from the inside. As ruthless as a kzin, when be was crossed
  or almighty Principle was at stake.
 "But as I said, it's my money."
  "Why are you spending your time on this penny-ante stuff, then?" Jonah
  asked. His nod took in the room, the old paintings and wood shining with
  generations of labor and wax.
  "I'm not as rich as all that," Montferrat said to Jonah's skeptical
  eyebrow. "Contrary to rumor, most of the money 1, hmmm, disassociated
  from official channels during the occupation didn't stick. Much of the
  remainder went after the liberation-my vindication wasn't an automatic
  matter, you see. Too many ambiguous actions. And I'm not exactly in good
  odor with the new government. The ARM doesn't like any of us who were
  involved in ... that business, you know. Therefore the most lucrative
  investments, like buying up confiscated estates, are barred to me. But
  yes, backing an expedition like yours isn't all that good a bet. I've
  funded a number, and no more than broken even.-
 "Why bother?-
 "For some reason, the Provisional Government--our
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING195

 acquaintance Markham, and General Early-doesn't really want exploration in
 that quarter. Among the many other things they dislike. just to put a spoke
 in their wheels is satisfaction enough for me, so long as it doesn't cost
 money. And besides, perhaps the horse will learn to sing."
  Jonah shrugged off the reference and sat in thought for a moment.
  "Accepted," he said, and leaned forward to press his palin to the recorder.

  ". . . and that, my dear, was how Jonah Matthieson came to be prospecting
  in these hills," Montferrat finished.
  Night had fallen during the tale, and the outdoor patio was lit by the dim
  light of the town's glowstrips. Insectoids fluttered around them, things
  the size of a palm with wings in swirling patterns of indigo and crimson;
  they smelled of burnt cinnamon and made a sound as of glass chimes. Tyra
  took a cigarette and leaned forward to accept the man's offer of a light;
  she leaned back and blew a meditative puff at the stars before answering
  him.
  "You certainly don't believe in letting the left hand know what the right
  does, do you, Herr MontferratPah-ne. Claude.-
  His grin was raffish and his expression boyishly frank. "No," he said. "But
  I'll tell you everything.
 She raised a brow.
  ". . . that I think you need to know. I'm still uncertain of
  Jonah-tincertain of what the psychists did to him. I need someone to watch
  him; to report back to me, if there's any sign he's not what he pretends to
  be. And unobtrusively check up on any attempt to sabotage his expedition.
  You're the perfect choice, young and obscure ... and Jonah is likely to
  trust you, if that's necessary.
 196The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Well and good, and I can use the employment," Tyra said, giving him a
  level stare. "But what are your purposes here, myn Ilerr?"
  "Money." After a moment he continued: "For a reason. I've got political
  plans. Not so much ambitions-with my history I'll never hold office-but I
  have candidates in mind. Harry, for one ... I intend, in the long run, to
  put a glitch in Herrenmann Reichstein-Markham's program; he'd make a very
  bad caudillo, and I think he's got ambitions in that direction." Tyra
  nodded grimly. "Beyond that, I want to get the ARM out of Wunderlander
  politics-a long-term project-and ease the transition to democracy.
  "Not," he went on with a slight grimace, "the form of government I'd have
  chosen, but we have little choice in the matter, do we'? In any case, I
  need money, and I need information, which is power. This business is just
  one gambit in a very complicated game."
  "I've never been called a pawn so graciously before," Tyra said, rising and
  extending her hand. The older aristocrat clicked heels and bent over it.
  "Consider it a deal, Claude."
  CHAPTER NINE

  The convoy was crowded and slow as it ground up the switchbacks of the
  mountain road. Hovercraft had a greasy instability in rocky terrain like
  this, setting Jonah's teeth on edge. The speed was disconcerting, too.
  InsectSlow, in one sense, compared to the singleships and fighter
  stingcraft he had piloted in the War, but you could not see velocity in
  space. Uncomfortably fast in relation to the ground; he kept expecting
  a collisionalarm to sound. He ignored the sensation, as he ignored the
  now-fainiliar scent of kzin, and scrolled through the maps instead, The
  flatbed around them was crowded, with farmers and travelers and mothers
  nursing their squalling young, and a cage full of shoats that turned
  hysterical every time the wind shifted and they scented Bigs and Spots.
  The kzin were sleeping; they could do that eighteen hours a day when
  there was nothing else to occupy their time.
  Hans tapped the screen. "No sense in looking anywhere near here, like I
  said," he went on. "Surveyors found it all, and then when it got worth
  taking the contractors took it all out, twenty, thirty years ago. We'll
  buy some animals in Gelitzberg and-"

               197
 198The Best of All Possible Wars

  An alarm did go off, up in the lead truck. Almost at once an explosion
  followed, and a slow tide of dirt and rock came down the hillslope to their
  right, with jerking trees riding atop it like surfboarders on a wave. The
  autogun on the truck pivoted with smooth robotic quickness and its multiple
  barrels fired with a noise like yapping dogs, streaks of light stabbing out
  at other lines of fire reaching down from the scrubby hillside. Magenta
  globes burst where the seeker missiles died, but more lived to smash their
  liquid-metal bolts into engines; then the guard truck took the avalanche
  broadside and went spinning down the slope to vanish in a searing actinic
  glare as its power core ruptured. Molecular distortion batteries could not
  explode, strictly speaking, but they contained a lot of energy.
  By that time Jonah had already rolled off the flatbed and dived for the
  roadside bush; he had seen boarding actions during the war, and had trained
  hard in gravity. He landed belly-down and eeled his way into the thick
  reddish-brown native scrub, ignoring the thorns that ripped at his exposed
  hands and face. To his surprise, Hans was not far away and moving rather
  more quietly. The response of the two kzin was not surprising at all; they
  went over the heads of their human companions and up the hillside in a
  series of bounding leaps, then vanished into cover with an appalling
  suddenness.
  Jonah licked at the sweat on his upper lip and took up the trigger slack on
  his magrifle. It was a cheap used model, and the holo sight that sprang
  into existence over the breech quivered slightly and never reached the
  promised x40 magnification. it was still much better than nothing, and lie
  used it to scan the upper slope carefully, starting close and working back.
  The bandits were visible in short snatches, working their way cautiously
  toward the wrecked convoy. Fire still crackled overhead from passengers and
  guards; the bandits
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING199

 returned it with careful selectivity, not wanting to damage their loot more
 than was needful. One face showed through a gap between rocks for an
 instant, a heavy pug countenance with brown stubble and a gold tooth.
  If they had seeker missiles, they've probably got a good jamnwr, Jonah
  thought. No help to be expected anytime soon.
  "Here goes," he whispered softly, laid the sightingbead on a blurred shape
  screened by bush, and stroked at the trigger.
  His rifle was set for high-subsonic; the slug gave a sharp pfut and the
  weapon bumped gently at his shoulder. The bandit folded and dropped
  backward, screaming loud enough to be heard over a thousand meters. One of
  the weaknesses of impact armor; when there was enough kinetic energy behind
  the projectile, the suddenly-rigid surface could pulp square meters of your
  body surface. Very painful, if not fatal.
  Hans was firing too, accurate and slow. Jonah snapshot, raking the slope
  and clenching his teeth against the knowledge that they would be scanning
  for him, with better sensors than an overage rifle sight. They had heavy
  weapons, too.
  Another scream, this time one of kzin triumph, inhumanly loud and Pierce;
  instincts that remembered tiger and sabertooth raised hairs under the
  sweat-wet fabric of his jacket. A human body soared out and tumbled down
  the hillside, limp in death. Seconds later, a globe of flame rose from
  nearby, the discharge of a tripod-mounted beamer's power cell. Another
  heavy beamer cut loose, but this time directed back upslope at the bandits.
  Jonah's sights showed Bigs holding it like a hand weapon, screaming with
  gape-yawed jo~ as he hosed down the hillside. Bush flamed, and men ran
  through it burning. Jonah shot, shifted aimpoint, shot again, as much in
  mercy as anything else. When he
 200The Best of All Possible Wars

 shifted to wide-angle view for a scan, he saw a swarthyfaced bandit in the
 remnants of military kit rallying the gang, then leading them in a swift
 retreat over the hill.
  And the two kzin pursuing. "Conte back!" he screamed incredulously. Hans
  looked at him; the humans shrugged, and began to follow.

  Horses did not like kzin. That, it seemed, was an immutable fact of life.
  Hans watched the last of them go bucking off across the dusty square of Neu
  Friborg with a philosophical air.
  'Waste of time, horses, anyway," he said. "Die on you, like as not. Draw
  tigripards. Mules are what we need; mules for the gear, and we can walk.
  Kitties'd have to walk anyhow, too heavy for horses."
  "I eat herbivores, I do not perch upon them," Bigs said, and stalked off to
  curl up on a rock and sulk.
  "Will these ... mules be more sensible?" Spots asked dubiously.
  The stock pens had been set up for the day, collapsible metal frames old
  enough to be rickety; most of the work animals being offered for sale had
  been stunned into docility by the heat. High summer in the southern Jotuns
  was no joke, with both suns up and this lowish altitude. Jonah fanned
  himself with his straw hat, wiped sweat from his face and looked dubiously
  at the collection of bony animals who turned their long ears towards him.
  It was probably imagination, the look of malicious anticipation ... and
  planets have lousy cliniate control systen-~s, he added to himself. His
  underwear was chafing, and he was raw under his gunbelt. The pens stank
  with a hot, dry smell and buzzed with flies, Terran and the six-winged
  Wunderlander equivalents.
  "I haven't had much to do with animals," he said dubiously. Except to eat
  them sometimes, and he preferred his meat prepared so its origin wasn't too
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING201

 obvious. In space you ate rodent, mostly, anyway, or decently synthesized
 protein. It made him slightly queasy, the thought of eating something with
 eyes that size and a large head.
  "You'll learn," Hans said, running his hands expertly down the legs of
  one animal. "Won't do," he added to the owner, in outbacker dialect.
  "Galls. Let's see Cother one.
  "Yep, you'll learn," he continued to Jonah. "Unless you want to carry
  three hundred kilos of gear yourself."
 "I see your point," Jonah replied.
  The mule stretched out its neck at Spots and gave a deafening bray with
  aggressive overtones. The kzin's fur bottled, and he hissed back at the
  mule, which blinked and fell silent. From the way its eyes rolled, it was
  keeping a wary watch on the big carnivore ...
  "Thiss'un'll do," Hans told the owner. "And the other five. "
  The grizzled farmer nodded and whistled for the town registrar, who came
  over with a readout pistol and scanned the barcodes laser-marked into the
  mules'necks.
  "Set down," she said, tucking the instrument into a holster in her
  skirts. "New system, just back on linehaven't had a computer link like
  this since way back in the occupation." She gave Spots a hard glare; that
  was extremely bad manners by kzinti standards, but the felinoid stared
  over her head.
  Poor bleeping pussy must have had a lot of practice at that, Jonah
  thought with some compassion. Stares and jostling and tobacco smoke; life
  was not easy for kzin under human rule. On the other hand, we don't
  enslave or eat thein, so inatters are rather more than even.
  "Might as well get started," Hans concluded, after slapping palms with
  the farmer. "You fellas need to learn how to do up a pack saddle. Got to
  be balanced, or you'll
 202The Best of All Possible Wars

 get saddle galls and then we'll be stuck without enough transport to carry
 our gear. Couldn't have that. All right, first lesson."
  He handed one of the wood-and-leather frames to Spots, together with a
  blanket. "Fold the blanket, then put the saddle firmly across."

  Spots picked up the gear in his stubby-fingered fourdigit hands,
  conscious of the village loafers and small children watching him. So
  conscious that he did not realize what the mule's laid-back ears meant,
  and the way it turned its head to fix him with one distanceestimating
  eye. The kick was swift even by kzinti standards, and precisely aimed.
  Spots made a whistling sound as lie flew back, folding around his middle.
  The onlookers laughed; he fought back to all fours. His back arched, fur
  bottled out, ears folded away in combat mode, and his tail stood out like
  a pink column behind him. He was beyond lashing it, in his rage, and his
  lower jaw sank down on his breast in the killing gape as he whooped for
  breath. Adrenaline surge and lack of oxygen sent grayacross his eyes and
  narrowed his vision down to a tunnel. When a human moved at the corner
  of it, he whirled and began the upward gutting stroke with barred claws.
  The motion froze. it was the human Jonah, and he stood calmly in the
  position of respectful-nonaggression, with no smell of fear. His teeth
  were decently concealed. Slowly, slowly, willpower beat down the aching
  need to kill and the rage-shame of mockery. The loafers had tumbled
  backward at the blurring-swift kzin leap that left Spots back on his
  feet, though some of the children had cried out in delight as at a
  wonder. Spots's pelt sank back toward normal, and he forced his ears to
  unfold, his tail to relax. Jonah bent and picked up the saddle and its
  blanket pad.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING203

  "Shall we do this together?" he said in an even voice. "I wouldn't care
  to be kicked by that thing, myself-I don't have cartilage armor across
  my middle the way you Heroes do."
  Stiffly, Spots's ears waggled; the equivalent of a forced smile. "Mine
  is not in very good condition, at the moment. I] ow shall we approach?"
  "One on either side," Jonah said. "We shouldn't give him a target."

 "Hrraaaeeeeeeee!" Bigs shrieked and leapt.
  The gagrumpher froze for a fatal instant, its six legs tensed and head
  whipping backward, then spurted forward in a desperate bound. Spots rose
  out of the underbrush almost at its feet and lunged for the exposed
  throat, fastening himself with clawed hands and feet to the big animal
  and sinking his fangs into its throat. Blood bubbled between his teeth,
  hot and salty and spicy across his tongue, but he concentrated on
  squeezing his jaws shut. Air wheezed through the punctured windpipe and
  he gave a grunt of triumph as it closed beneath the bonecracking pressure
  of his grip. Suffocation killed the prey, when you got a good
  throat-hold. The animal collapsed by the forelegs, then went over on its
  side with a thump as Bigs arrived and threw his massive form against its
  hindquarters. A few seconds more and it kicked and died.
  They crouched for a moment, panting, forepaw-hands on the warn i body.
  The soft night echoed to the throbbing killseream of triumph, and then
  they settled down to the enjoyable task of butchering and eating. Spots
  cuffed affectionately at his sibling as they ripped open the body cavity
  and squabbled over hearts-gagrumphers had two, one major and one
  secondary, like most Wunderland higher life-forms-and liver. It was a big
  beast, twice the weight of an adult male kzin, half a human ton, but
 204The Best of All Possible Wars

 they made an appreciable dint in it, before feeling replete enough to pile
 the remainder in torn-off segments of hide; it would be fresh enough to eat
 for a couple of days. With the chore done they could lie at leisure,
 cracking bones for marrow with rocks and the hilts of their wtsai-knives,
 nibbling at treats of organ and tripe, grooming the blood and bits out of
 each other's fur.
  "It is well, it is well," Bigs crooned, working over the hard-to-reach
  places at the back of his sibling's neck. It was amazing where the blood
  got to, when you stuck your head into the prey's abdominal cavity.
  "It is well", Spots confirmed, yawning cavernously. "If I never eat
  synthetic protein again, it will be far too soon. Nothing is lacking but
  ice cream, or some bourbon with milk."
  "Your pride-mate provides," Bigs announced, unshnging a canteen and two
  flat dishes that collapsed against it. "The bourbon, at least."
  A throaty purr resounded from both throats. This is how the Fanged God
  meant kzinti to live, Spots thought. The night was bright to their sight,
  full of interesting scents; a gratifying hush of terror was only gradually
  wearing off, as the native life reacted to the roar of hunting kzin.
  It was how kzin had lived, for scores of scores of millennia, on the
  savannahs and in the Jun0es of Kzin itself. The scent of his brother was
  rich andcomforting with their common blood. So had young warriors lived in
  the wandering years, cast out by their fathers and the home pride. They
  grouped together in the wastelands, brothers and half-brothers and cousins,
  growing strong in comradeship and skill, until they could raid the settled
  bands for females of their own--or even displace their fathers and become
  lords in their own right. From those bonds sprang the pride and the clan,
  foundations of kzinti culture. So had the Heroic Race
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING205

 lived through the long slow rise to sentience, through all the endless
 hunting time. Before iron and fire, before the first ranches. Long, long
 before the jotold came from space, with their two-edged gifts of
 technology and education to hire orange-furred mercenaries.
  "I scent a path that might have been," Spots mused, over a second drink.
  "If the jotok had never come to Kzin-home, would we ever have been more
  than wandering hunters, with castle-dwelling ranchers as the height of
  our civilization? My liver trembles with ambiguity-perhaps that would
  have been best?"
  "And miss the Endless Hunt?" his more conventional sibling retorted. "The
  flesh of these excellent gagrumphers?"
  "The Endless Hunt is endless time spent in spaceships and habitats,
  living on synthetic meat, never feelingAind in your fur," Spots replied.
  They had both done tours of duty offplanet during the war, and served
  longer in fortresses on the surface that might as well have been
  battlecraft. "And living among aliens."
  "The Fanged God created them to serve us," Bigs said reasonably, rolling
  onto his back in the gesture of relaxed trust and looking at Spots
  upside-down. "Thus freeing the Heroes for the honorable path of war."
  So said the Conservors of the Patriarchal Past," Spots said, with a
  sardonic wave of his bat-wing ears. "You will note that there are few of
  them around. We lost this war."
  Bigs's posture grew slightly rigid. "My nose is dry with worry," he said,
  in an attempt at lightness. "Our impoverished but noble line is about to
  be disgraced with a Kdaptist."
  "Lick your nose, kshat-hunter; I do not yet imagine that God created Man
  in His image. Kdapt-Preacher I have seen; he is of great liver, but
  rattlebrain as a kit. As a kzinrett. His experiences in the war. . ."
 206The Best of All Possible Wars

  Bigs nodded wisely. "Yet I will not challenge him clawto-Claw," he said.
  Spots snorted, lips flapping against his teeth; the selfproclaimed
  prophet had made many converts among the remaining kzinti in the Alpha
  Centauri system. It was soothing to the self-esteem to blame defeat on
  God, Who was the ultimate Victor in every life. He had made even more
  with an uninterrupted series of personal victories in death-duels; his
  belt was like a dried-flesh kilt with the ear trophies he had garnered
  since proclaiming his mission. Luckily, he had also proclaimed his
  intention of voyaging to Kzin itself and trying to convert the Patriarch.
  The Riit would deal with him in due course, one assumed.
 "Yet still, we lost."
  'We have. suffered a setback," Bigs replied stubbornly, scratching his
  belly. "It was unfair-the Outsiders intervened."
  Spots twitched tail. The mysterious Outsiders had sold the hyperdrive to
  the human colonists of We Made It; it was still a matter of furious
  controversy among the Wunderland survivors whether the Fifth Fleet so
  painfully accumulated by the late, great Chuut-Riit would have
  overwhelmed the human homeworld. Neither species would have stumbled on
  the hyperdrive themselves, he thought, despite knowing some such thing
  had been made by the ancient thrint and tnuctipun. it was so ...
  unlikely.
 "Unfair," Bigs repeated.
  "As the great Kztarr-Shuru said, fairness is the conc t of those whose
  leap rams their nose into a stone wZ1. They open their eyes and complain.
  Four fleets were destroyed by the monkeys," Spots said meditatively,
  likewise scratching. The salt of blood made for a pleasantly itching
  skin; his belly was drum-tight with fresh meat he had killed with his own
  teeth and claws,
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING207

 an intensely satisfying feeling. "Even when they had no tradition of war.
 I have studied them."
  "Too much, my brother," Bigs said, rolling over onto his stomach to talk
  seriously. "Even as you speak too much with the Jonah-monkey."
  "The Jonah-monkey is a warrior," Spots said sharply. "He has saved our
  honor ... not to mention our lives."
  "For its own monkey purposes," Bigs grumbled, holding down a legbone with
  both hands and gnawing. The tough bone grated and chipped beneath his
  fangs. "Remember, in the end, there can be only Dominance toward such as
  it."
  Spots rose and stretched, one limb at a time, his tongue curling pinkly.
  "When we are not paupers living on enemy territory . . ." he said, and
  rippled his fur in a shrug at the sharp scent of annoyance from his
  sibling. It faded; it was difficult for any young kzintosh to maintain
  anger on a full belly after a kill. "We should return to their camp. As
  Jonah said, the old one will have difficulty setting a decent pace-he
  needs his rest."
  -Hrrraweo. journeying with humans! Their cremated meats . . ."
  Spots joined in the shudder "Yet we may hunt-we have not eaten so well
  since the war ended."
  "Truth." Bigs looked around at the minor scavengers, already congregating
  for the scraps. "Yet in my inmost liver, I feel we are now such as
  these."
  With a sigh, they slid off into the friendly night, back toward the human
  campfire.
  CHAPTER TEN

  "ID cards? We don'need no ID cards! We donneed no stinkin' ID cards! "
  The bandit chief struck his fist on the table and snarled; the jugs of
  drink jumped, and one flask of sake fell. The porcelain was ancient and
  priceless, an heirloom from Earth; one of the black-clad attendants had
  crossed the room to catch it before it had time to travel half the distance
  to the floor. Scalding-hot rice wine cascaded across his wrists and
  forearms, but there was no tremor in them as he set it reverently back in
  place, bowed, and stepped smoothly to his guard position along the wall.
  Shigehero Hirose spared him the indignity of sending him to the autodoc;
  repairs could be made at any time, but an opportunity to demonstrate true
  loyalty-and to accumulate girl-was more rare.
  The bandit, Gruederman, lost some of his bluster. Hirose thought that was
  merely from the guard's speed, not from the true depths of disciplined
  obedience it showed; but any lesson learned by a barbarian was an
  improvement. "Herr Gruederman," the Nipponjin said. "I have gone to some
  trouble to secure false identities for you and your group as members of the
  Provisional

               208
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING209

Gendarmerie. I am sure you will find them very useful." Gruederman threw
 himself back in the chair, taking up his bottled beer and gulping at it.
 Hirose hid a cold distaste behind his bland smile. The other man was short
 and thickset, bouncy- muscular, which was something; many Wunderlanders
 who did no manual labor were obscenely flabby. Humanity had had only a few
 centuries to adapt to the .61 gravity, and millions to develop a
 physiology suited to 1.0. But for the rest he was a slobbering pig, not
 even bothering to depilate-Hirose suppressed a shudder at the sheer
 hairiness of gaijinwith great bands of sweat darkening his khald tunic
 under the armpits and at the neck. Granted, the hotel room was hot, even
 with the ceiling fan. But ...
  He wrinkled his nose. Gruederman didn't wash very often, either, and he
  had the rank body odor of a redmeat eater.
  "More guns is what we need, more equipment," he was saying. "Not stinkin'
  ID. Why can't you get us guns? You slants fence what we take, you've got
  to have good contacts."
  "Our contacts are our concern," Hirose said quietly. 'We have provided
  a valuable service; you may purchase weapons elsewhere with the valuata
  we supply." And we are not going to make you so much of a menace that the
  Provisional Government looks too closely, which would happen ifwe
  provided you with the equipment you desire. "In return, we ask only that
  you do an occasional favor. . ."
  Gruederinan frowned.'Ja, no problem, we boot some bead. Who you want
  done?"
  Hirose pushed the holos across the table and sipped delicately at his
  sake.
  "Lieber Herr Gott!" Gruederman swore, taking another swig of beer.
  "Rateats!"
  "The humans are the crucial targets," the oyabun said quietly.
 210The Best of All Possible Wars

  "I know these fuckers! They were on the convoy to Neu Friborg last week.
  Shot us up! You say they're goin' into the jotuns?" Hirose inclined his
  head. "No problem, we boot their heads good."
 "Excellent," Hirose. said, nodding.
  Gruedernian belched hugely, pushed back his chair and swaggered to the
  door. "We boot them good." The bandit hitched at his belt and went out
  without boAing. The oyabun walked quickly to the window and flung it open;
  without needing orders, the others began to clean the room and ht incense.
  The things I dofor the Secret Rule, be thought ironically. Orfor fear (f
  the Secret Rule. Once your family was in the Brotherhood, there was no such
  thing as resignation. That was how the world had been knit together, back
  on Earth; slowly, but A so surely. "Until Holy Blood fills Holy Grail . .
  . " fie quoted to himself And now, it seei ned, the extra-solar colonies
  would go the same way. He sighed; it had been pleasant, the degree of
  autonomy four and a half light-years interposed between Earth and Alpha
  Centauri. Virtual independence, the way it must have been on Earth before
  Nippon was opened to the West, when the Eastern Way families had received
  their orders from the Elders only once or twice in a generation. All things
  came to an end, though; the kzinti had come, the hyperdrive had followed,
  and now the universe had shrunk drastically once more.
  It was useless to think of resistance. Even more so to think of rebellion,
  or exposing the Brotherhood; it had been exposed a dozen times, and it did
  not nuitter. In more than one century investigators had managed to publish
  books with most of the details of the Brotherhood, its origin, many of the
  membership, even some of the signs of the Craft. They hadn't mattered. The
  books were not believed. They were buried under a mountain of
  disinformation, the tale-tellers ignored if outsiders,
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING211

 silenced if' initiates. Outright rebels like Frederick Barbarossa and Lenin
 were crushed. Invincible, secret beyond secret, the conspiracy at the heart
 of all conspiracies and secret orders, the Brotherhood went on. just at the
 moment it took the form of the ARM and Buford Early, and demanded that
 certain individuals vanish in the dangerous, bandit-haunted wastes of the
 jotuns. That, at least, was easily arranged, with willing tools who knew
 nothing of what purpose they served.
  "Go." He turned, nodding to the attendant who had caught the spilled wine.
  "See to your hurts."
  He kept his voice curt, but the man sensed the approval. When the tinw
  cotnes to silence Gruederman, I will send that one, Hirose decided. None of
  Gruederman's band could be allowed to live, of course. They would be no
  loss to anyone.

  "It's a very tempting proposition, Herr Early-or should I say Herr General
  Early?-but I'm afraid it's not what I had in mind at the present time,"
  Claude Montferrat-Palme said.
  His current mistress set a tray between the two men and withdrew; she was
  a spectacular blonde in red tights and slashed tunic, and Early's eyes
  followed her out of the lounge with appreciation. Low gravity could do some
  interesting things for the human figure, things only prosthetics or special
  effects could accomplish on Earth. Belters were usually too spindly to take
  advantage.
  They were meeting on Montferrat's home ground, the manor-house of his
  grudgingly restored estate. Grudgin I ' since his allegiance to the
  Resistance had
      'Y been so fate and politic, but the conversion had been spectacular
      when it came. Also he turned out to have used much of the graft that
      came the way of a coUabo chief of police for Munchen to help refugees,
      most of whom had showed their gratitude in electorally solid
 212The Best of All Possible Wars

 ways ... Rather surprising me, Montferrat chuckled inwardly. Sometimes I
 wish the world would not keep chipping away at my cynicism so. You needed
 the vigor of disillusioned youth to maintain a really black, bitter
 cynicism. In his seventh decade and settling into middle age, Claude felt a
 disconcerting mellowing effect.
  Early leaned back, coffee cup in one hand and brandy snifter in the other.
  "Excellent," he said after sipping at one and then the other. Continuing:
  "I'm surprised you're not interested, Herrenmann. You struck me as an
  ambitious man."
  "Pleasant to meet someone who appreciates the finer things," Montferrat
  said, swirling the amber liquid in his snifterand inhaling the scent. Most
  of the plutocrats who founded Wunderland had been German or Netherlander or
  Scandinavian; his Montferrat ancestors were a French exception, and they
  had worked long and hard to establish the true vines of Cognac on this
  property Along with the coffee plantations, things were possible in
  Wunderland's climate that were not on earth.
  "And I am ambitious, Herr General," he went on, setting it down and taking
  out his cigarette case.
  Early accepted one of the cigarillos, and they both lit from the candle on
  the table. The big room was dimly lit, letting in moonlight and warm garden
  scents through the tall louvered windows on three sides. Blue smoke drifted
  up toward the molded plaster of the ceiling.
  "Strange you should be willing to risk all this, then," he said, waving an
  arm at the outer wall; taking in the mansion and estate beyond, in spirit.
  "If you mean the inheritance of the Nineteen Families," Montferrat said,
  blowing a smoke ring, "it's already moreor-less lost. And in any case, what
  business is it of yours?"
  "I'm merely advising General Markham, as liaison with the UN Space Navy,"
  Early said mildly.
 "Advising him that his dreams of returning Wunderland
      INTHE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING213

 to the pre-War status quo can be accomplished," Montferrat said dryly.
 "Absurd. For a variety of reasons, good and bad, the Families were too
 closely involved in running the planet during the Occupation. Their rule
 is doomed, even if the Provisional Government's Gendarmerie has stopped
 the rioting and looting against them."
  "You haven't thrown in with the Democrats, either," Early pointed out.
  "No, because I recognize a certain fine Terrestrial hand behind
  them-you've been puppeting the new Radical Democrat party too-financing
  it, in fact."
 "You'll never prove a word of that," Early replied.
  "Of course not; I'm not entirely sure what you and your masters are
  after, but you're certainly no fool. There isn't even enough evidence to
  convince Markham, and he's a clinical paranoid, I wonder his autodoc
  doesn't fix him. My best guess is that you want to use Markham to restore
  order, infiltrating our military in the processthen use hii n to
  discredit the aristocrats completely with his ham-handed repression. Thus
  leaving the field to the Radical Democrats, who want a constitution
  that's a carbon copy of Earth's-complete with a technological police.
  Which the experience of the UN shows is equivalent to handing the
  government over to the technological police, since to control technology
  in a modern society you have to control everything."
  For a moment the mask of affability slipped on Early's face, and
  Montferrat felt a slight prickling -along his spine. How much o that is
  genuine? he thought. The man is ancient, for Gott's sake. At least three
  times older than himself ... and he ought to be sitting wheezing in a
  computerized wheelchair in the Strudlebug's Club back on Earth. Secrets
  of the ARM.
  "You are ambitious," Early said softly. "I'd hoped to talk you out of
  this party you're promoting."
 214The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Many people are involved with the Centrists," Montferral corrected;
  Early waved his hand.
  "Please, I know the signs of secret influence when I see them." For some
  reason be grinned at that. "Separatisin is not a viable alternative."
  "Independence is," Montferrat said. "And Wunderlandthe Alpha Centauri
  system-is going to be independent. Of the kzin, and of Earth and the UN."
  "You'd better be sure you've got ample bargaining power before you sit
  down to bargain with me," Early warned.
  "Oh, exactly, my dear General. Which is why, as you will have noticed,
  I'm not bargaining with you now."
  Unexpectedly, Early laughed; it was a deep rich sound, thick as
  chocolate. "You aren't, are you?" He took another sip of the brandy.
  "Well, in that case-perhaps you could expand on the remark you made at
  dinner, about local performance techniques and classical Meddelhoffer?"
  CKUYUR ELEVEN

  "He's not hunwn," Jonah gasped, flopping down on a rock and watching Hans
  swing along up the mountainside.
  Bigs rolled a baleful eye at him as he lay prone in the track, twitching
  expressive eyebrows; Spots carefully poured water from a plastic container
  over his body, from head to the base of his tail. Then he trudged down to
  the small stream and poured several more over his own head before returning
  to repeat the process with his brother. Both kzin were panting, their
  tongues lolling, the palms of their hands and feet and their tails oozing
  sweat. Those were the only ways kzinti had to shed excess heat; Kzin was a
  cooler planet than Earth or Wunderland. Besides ...
  "If-" Spots stopped, thrust his muzzle into the plastic container and
  lapped down a torrent --if I remember my instructors, you monk-hrrreaow,
  you Men evolved into omnivores by taking to running down your prey in long
  chases."
 "Think so," Jonah replied.
  His feet hurt, and he felt dizzy from the amount he'd sweated. A swallow
  from his canteen to wash down salt tablets, and he poured more on a
  neckerchief and wiped

               215
 216The Best of All Possible Wars

 his face and neck. The hollow where they had halted was shady at least, big
 gum trees and whipsticks, but the steep rock to either side concentrated the
 sunlight, and it was humid as well. The air hummed and buzzed with insects,
 drawn to sweat, landing and biting and stinging. The human ignored them;
 there was no relief until they made camp and set up the sonics-and those had
 to be turned low or the sensitive ears of the kzin found them unbearable in
 frequencies humans could not hear.
  "Well, we Heroes evolved from stalk-and-leap hunters!" Spot snapped.
  Literally: his jaws closed on the word with a wet clornp. "Of course we
  don't shed heat as well. We don't chase prey that escapes our ambush! We
  never needed to! We developed brains cunning enough to catch meat without
  following it for days!"
  There was a teeth-gritting whine in the kzin's voice. Bigs was in worse
  shape, heavier and thicker-pelted; he simply lay with his tongue hanging
  out on the ground. Jonah nodded wordlessly, stumbling down to the stream
  and refilling his canteen. He had never had the slightest interest in
  chasing prey of any sort, except kzinti Vengeful Slasher-class fighters
  during the War-and that could be done in the decent comfort of a
  crashcouch, right next to a good food synthesizer and autodoc. Fighting in
  s ace was war for gentlemen: either you won or you dieTusually quickly, and
  you did it in chmate-conditioned comfort. There had been a couple of
  boarding actions when the Fourth Fleet was smashed, but even those had been
  done in space armor.
  He shuddered slightly, swallowing hard. There had been tubing in the meat
  last night.
  The water looked cool and inviting as he dipped his head once more. The
  pebbles in the bottom were unusual--he noticed the dull glitter of them
  through the rippling water, and idly lifted a handful. Heavy, he
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC217

 thought, and threw them skipping across the surface. One struck a shovel
 lashed to the pack-saddle of a mule, startling the animal out of its
 torpor and into a brief bucking frenzy. The sound of pebble on steel was
 a dull, metallic clunk ...
  "Wait a minute," Jonah whispered. He scrabbled at his belt for the sample
  spectroscope and scooped again for more pebbles; his hands were trembling
  as he shoved one into the trap of the instrument and flicked the
  activator. "Platinum!" he yelled. The kzinti unfurled their ears to
  maximum, like pink radar dishes. "54% platinum, by Finagle's ghost!"
  Jonah Matthieson had been a rockjack, an asteroid prospector, in the
  brief intervals of peace in Sol System; the methods in that were a great
  deal more mechanized, but he knew what was valuable. He scrabbled in the
  streambed, then tore back to his mules for the pan. Pebbles and heavy
  sand washed out as he swirled the water and flicked off the lighter
  material. Readings glowed as he jammed more samples into the scanner:
  57%, 72%, an incredible 88%. His stomach ached with the tension as he
  worked his way upstream; Bigs and Spot were following, howl-spitting at
  each other in the Hero's Tongue. At last he thought to call Hans. The
  Sol-Belter was still fumbling with the belt radio when the old man came
  up, leading his mules and looking nearly as phlegmatic.
  -Ja,- he said calmly. "Platinum all right. Nice heavy concentration." He
  took the pipe out of his mouth to spit aside. "Worthless."
  Spot gave an ululating howl, jaws open at the sky. Bigs collapsed again,
  this time into the stream with only his eyebrows and black nostrils
  showing; his tafl waved pink in the water, and little fish-analogues came
  to nibble at it. Jonah felt an overwhelming urge to break the
  spectroscope over the Wunderlander's head, and then a sick
  almost-headache at the back of his neck.
 218The Best of All Possible Wars

  "It's a perfectly good industrial metal!" he protested, slogging to the
  bank of the stream and sitting down on a wet rock. A kermitoid croaked and
  thrashed away through the spiny underbrush. "It's used for everything from
  chemical synthesis to doping crystal fusion cores. Back in the Sol Belt, it
  was the first thing we looked for."
  "Ja, so useful the kzinti hauled seven or eight asteroids from the Swarm to
  near-Wunderland orbit as reserves, back during the Fifth Fleet buildup,"
  Hans nodded. "StiH a lot of it left. We need something valuable but not so
  valuable they thought to get a supply set up," he went on. "Gold, hafnium,
  something hke that. Well," he went on, rest-period's over. Got to get a
  move on if we want to get anything done."
 Spots and Bigs whined. So did Jonah.

  "Give me two," Spots said, throwing two cards into the pile.
  Jonah dealt, watching the kzin across the campfire narrowly. His scent was
  calm-he had long since learned to recognize the gingery smell of kzinti
  excitementbut that could simply be control enough to keep it down below the
  stun-your-nostrils level humans could recognize. Bigs seemed to be watching
  him intently, ears out and fur fluffed up around his face. Spots's tail was
  held rigidly and quivering just slightly at the tip. . .
 "Fold," he decided. Nobody else wanted more cards.
  Spots flapped his ears, and his eyebrows twitched. "See you and raise you
  three."
  Three krona, to the humans; the brothers were playing each other for
  kzinretti, of which they both had more than they wanted, due to the surplus
  after most of the kzintosh-male kzin-in the system died. Evidently numbers
  in the harem were a status matter for kzinti.
 "See you," Bigs said in Wunderlander: "And snwll you,
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING219

 you vatch-in-the-grass," he muttered under his breath in the Hero's Tongue,
 in the Mocking Tense.
  "And two," Hans added. He puffed ostentatiously on his pipe, and the two
  kzin closed their nostrils in an exaggerated gesture. Their huge golden
  eyes caught the firelight occasionally, silver disks in the darkness.
  Well, it is pretty foul, Jonah conceded. On the other hand, Hans was
  sitting downwind.
 "Call." Bigs's tail was quivering visibly.
  Spots sighed and let his ears droop. "Three queens," he said, flipping his
  hand upright.
  Bigs lunged and snapped close to his nose. "I thought you were bluffing!"
  he said, throwing down his pair of tens.
  "You should have listened to the Conservors and learned to control the
  juices of your liver," Spots said sanctimoniously, purring slightly and
  letting the tip of his tongue show through his teeth. The pelt rose around
  his neck, and his whiskers worked back and forth; he licked a wrist and
  smoothed them back. "That is fifteen kzinretti you owe me-my selection,
  remember."
  "Sorry, fellers," Hans laughed. "That's fifteen krona you three owe nw." He
  turned up his hand; three aces.
  Spots shrieked, sending the mules snorting and pulling on their curb chains
  out at the edge of sight. Bigs waved his ears and thumped his tail back and
  forth, flapping his lips against his fangs in derision.
  "Now whose liver is overheated?" he said, then stretched and yawned. "You
  have first watch."
  Spots stalked off into the night, ears folded away and tail a rigid pink
  length behind him.

  "I think even Hans is getting tired," Jonah said over his shoulder.
  Then he raised the cutting bar and slashed again at the thick, matted
  vegetation ahead of him. It was almost
 220The Best of All Possible Wars

 all native, with the cinnamon scent of Wunderlander growth; the local
 varieties seemed to run mostly to thorns and silica-rich stems, though. The
 cutting bar was a thinfilm of diamond sandwiched between vacuum-deposited
 layers of single-crystal iron, and it should have gone through vegetation
 with scarcely more effort than air. Two of the teeth had broken off on
 rocks, and the matted stems pulled irritatingly at his wrist.
  Spots scarcely bothered to flap his ears; Bigs was morosely silent again.
  Last night he had even turned down the evening ker game, a very bad sign.
 "Your turn," the Vilman wheezed.
  Bigs squeezed past him and began chopping methodically. From the way his
  lips moved and the slight murrfing sounds from his chest, he was
  fantasizing each bush as an enemy to be killed. Hans was to their right and
  a thousand meters upslope, up in the open. Hotter up there, no shade, but
  at least there was some wind, a little air. The olive gloom around Jonah
  seemed as airless as the bottom of the sea; sweat clung and curdled, drying
  in the creases of his body, chafing at the small sores the thorns had left
  on his arms and face. Even the tough
 rthetic of his clothing was starting to give way, and e zitrigor leather of
 his boots had begun to wear thin in a place or two. He was leaner by about
 ten kilos than he had been at the beginnm~ of the trip, and tough as the
 strip of dried meat he c ewed at mechanically as he marched. The kzinti had
 lost weight too, and their pelts were so matted with tangles and burrs that
 even their obsessive nightly grooming could scarcely keep pace.
  So muchl'or the mighty hunters, he thought snidely. That was a little
  unfair; whatever their instincts, Wunderland kzin were the descendants of
  space travellers. Their immediate ancestors came from Hssin, a
  sealed-habitat colony on a world with poisonous


     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING221

 atmosphere. Spots and Bigs had hunted in their father's preserves, but
 their home environment was as artificial as any human's.
  "I begin to dream of talcum powder and blowdriers, Spots said
  unexpectedly. Bigs grunted. "And of kzinretti. My palazzo will be in
  chaos."
  Jonah grunted in his turn. Thinking about women was a bad idea out here;
  easier for a kzin, since their responses were so conditioned on smell.
  They turned upslope to avoid an outcrop of granite and emerged blinking
  onto the steep brushy slopes of the hill; they were in an interior
  depression of the Jotuns, with eroded volcanic peaks on all sides, and
  it focused the summer heat like a lens. Wearily they all sank to the
  ground, letting the mules browse for a moment. The kzin had taken to
  wearing conical straw'hats the humans wove for them, and now they fanned
  their dangling tongues. Jonah shook his canteen and decided half-full was
  still enough to warrant a drink; he sipped at the water, letting each
  drop soak into his tissues. Far above a contrail streaked across the sky,
  some vacationer in an aircar off to the beaches of HeleigolaDd Island.
  Sitting under an umbrella, sipping at drinks with fruit in them. Watching
  girls diving into the surf ...
  "There's not much point in going on," he said wearily. It was only the
  thought of retracing his steps that had kept him from saying it until
  now. Going forward with some hope was bad enough; going back with none
  was unbearable. 'IvVe've got those tigripard hides, that'll cover most
  of our expenses. We could sell the gear."
  Bigs was lost in his brooding. "I begin to think you are correct,
  Jonah-human," his sibling said sadly. "My nose is dry with worry at what
  will befall our householdsbut still, we-"
  Hans jumped down from a boulder near them. "Ready to give up, are we? The
  valiant Heroes, the UN Navy
 222The Best of All Possible Wars

 hotshot?" He cackled laughter, his ancient leathery face crinkling. "You're
 so stupid you don't know a fortune when you're standing on one. You're so
 stupid you'd shit on a plate and call it steak!" The Wunderlander was
 practically dancing around his bewildered companions. "Jonah, you're sitting
 down, you've got your thinking apparatus jammed on money---can't you tell
 when you're rubbing your cheeks on wealth?"
  "Something hit so hard the planet splashed," Hans said, leaning on his
  pick.
  They had been working up the side of the hill, following the gullies and
  taking samples. The gold was patchy, but the deposits caught in folds and
  ripples in the ground were increasingly rich. Off to their left a waterfall
  stretched down the surface of a cliff, a thread-thin line of silver against
  the pink granite rock; where it struck down in the valley bottom an
  explosion of mist blossomed, amid a great circle of whipstick and jacaranda
  trees, with tall silver-gums towering over all. Ahead the slope was jagged
  and eroded, soft crumbly rock and clay streaked ;vii-h bright mineral
  colors. The scent of the scrub under their feet was dry and intense, like
  a perpetual almostsneeze, cut occasionally by a drift of cooler air and
  mist from the falls. Kermitoids peeped and croaked, and a red-tailed hawk
  dove down the slope after a rabbit and then rose with the struggling beast
  in its claws, skreeskree as it flapped off heavily toward the cliffs.
  "Ja, big astrobleme-way, way back. Punched right through the crust.
  Wunderland's got slow continental drift, you know, ja? Starts and stops.
  This made a hotspot, kept buming through every time the crust moved across
  it. The whoVe line of the Jotuns, east-to-west across the Aeserheimer
  Continent is here because of it-this is the active part. Erosion ... that's
  why you get pockets of metallics here. None very big, but by Herr Gott,
  they're rich. -
       IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING223

  "Where do we dig?" Spots asked. He was drooling slightly, always a sign of
  impatience in a kzin.
  "Not down here," Hans said; the beatific smile still quirked at the edges
  of his mouth. "No, no use digging down here. Oh, there's gold, but we need
  water to set up the ripple membranes and get it out." He used the haft of
  his pick as a pointer. "Up there. We can cut a furrow'cross the hillside
  from the creek."
  "Tanj," Jonah said, measuring distances. Trivial by spatial terms, but he'd
  acquired a whole new perspective on "kilometer" since lie started spending
  so much time dirtside. "That's quite a job, without any equipment."
  "We've got cutter bars and thirty kilometers of monofilament," Hans said
  cheerfully. "My brains, and you three for strong backs and simple minds,
  plus four mules. Thats plenty of equipment for what we'll need."
  "There ain't no justice," Jonah muttered, dragging a forearm across his
  face. Still, it wasn't much harder than the contracting job, and promised
  to pay a good deal better.
 "You said it, son. You said it," Hans chuckled.

  "Hrreeeaaawww!" Bigs groaned, rising from all fours with a gut-straining
  effort; their flexible spines made a straight lift harder for a kzin than
  for a man, The timber across his shoulders was ten meters long, and even on
  Wunderland it weighed three times his body mass. The other three hauled on
  the cable rigged over a woodframe block and tackle, and the long gum-tree
  timber rose slowly in swaying jerks until it settled into the predug hole
  with a rush and stood nearly upright, vibrating. The two kzin took turns
  bracing it upright and hammering rocks into the hole to hold it so. Three
  more of equal size stretched in a line across the gully; up on the lip the
  humans returned to slicing other trunks into squarecut troughs with the
  cutter bars. When the line of supports
 224The Best of All Possible Wars

 was complete, they would swing the troughs out and lash them to the poles
 with monofilament.
  "We're doing the slave's part of this," Bigs complained to his brother, as
  they climbed down the boulders to where the next upright waited to be
  dragged up to its hole.
 "Suck sthondat excrement," Spots said.
  They set themselves on either side of the massive timber and braced
  themselves, securing a good hold on the oozing slab-cut timber with their
  claws. The sharp medicinal scent of eucalyptus sap was overwhelming.
 "strike!"
  The kzin heaved in unison, lifting the end of the beam and running it half
  a dozen steps upslope before letting it fall.
  "It's the heavy lifting," Bigs went on, as they rested for a second,
  panting. His tongue worked on nose and whiskers, reaching almost to his
  tufted eyebrows. "They slice planks off trees, we carry the trunks."
  "We are larger and stronger," Spots pointed out reasonably. He had tied a
  wad of cloth over his head and soaked it in water; now he patted at it, and
  runnels fanned down his neck and muzzle, plastering the fur to his skin.
  Mud streaked his legs and the paler-colored pelt of his belly. "If the
  monkeys were hauling these trunks, they would go very slowly--or we would
  have to take more time to rig a dragway with a winch and tackle."
  "Hrrrr. Then we should get more of the gold," Bigs went on. "Now-strike."
  They moved the log another dozen meters. This time they dropped it next to
  a rock-pool full of water and crouched to lap up a drink; instinctively,
  their muzzles rose every second or two to scan the surroundings.
  "We contributed less than a quarter of the capital, yet we are to have
  equal shares," Spots replied. "You
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING225

 would complain if a monkey brought you a zianya with its muzzle already
 taped."
  Bigs yawned enormously and licked his bps. "Zianyaah, the first mouthful,
  full of fear-juices! With dipping sauce and grashti on the side." He
  paused. "Yet I would complain if a monkey brought one. It is disgraceful to
  be dependent upon them."
  "Silence, fool. You did not complain when they were our slaves-and we were
  even nwre dependent on them then! Ready-strike."
  This rush carried them to the line of supports, where the next hole waited.
  "You are a whisker-splitter," Bigs said, unlimbering his cutting bar. They
  had dropped the thigh-thick end of the log across a boulder, leaving it at
  comfortable chest height. With four swift strokes he trimmed the hard wood
  to a point.
  "Besides," Spots continued, raising his voice slightly from the other end
  of the log, where he belayed a loop of cable to a hole punched through the
  wood. "There are probably no zianyas closer than Hssin."
  They whined; zianyas were a horneworld beast, and they had never flourished
  in the ecology of Wunderland, unlike many other kzinti animals. Before the
  human hyperdrive armada arrived some kzin estates had specialized in
  rearing them, coaxing them to reproduce and investing in expensive
  gravity-polarizer sheds to rear them under homeworld gravity, 1.55 of
  Earth's. Most of those had been smashed in the fighting, or confiscated in
  the aftermath of liberation, and the markets were vanished now that kzinti
  were few and poor in a humanruled Wunderland.
  "Reason enough to shake the dust of this world from our paws," Bigs went
  on. "Push-slowly, slowly."
  Spots heaved with a steady pressure on the smaller end of the log, as his
  brother guided the point to the
 226The Best of All Possible Wars

lip of the hole. As he did, his ears waggled ostentatiously. "Yes-I can see us
 prostrating ourselves before the Patriarch's Cushion. 'Admittedly we did
 surrender to the omnivores and obey them; nevertheless we long to have Full
 Names and be permitted to maintain the noblesized households we, the
 penniless refugees, have brought.' Aha! The Patriarch's liver overflows with
 kinfeeling for us! His pelt stands on end with joy at our scent! With his
 own hands, he serves us tuna ice cream. He awards us Names; he allows us
 possession of every one of our kzinretti; he grants us vast estates on the
 extremely expensive savannahs of Homeworld. . ."
  His lips flapped derisively against his teeth in imitation of a kzinti
  snore; you dreamer, it implied. "We could not even afford passage to kzinti
  space without human help."
  "That may change," Bigs said, grimly sliding out his claws. Long silvery
  needles against the black leather of his hands. "That may change. . . -
  "Not without gold," Spots replied. He took the end of the cable in his
  mouth and climbed the wall of the canyon with a bounding four-footed rush;
  kzinti had evolved hands to help them climb rocks.
  "Next one ready!" he called, dropping back into Wunderlander. Jonah and
  Hans straightened; the older man groaned, kneading his hands into the small
  of his back. "Reave this to the block line."
  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gracious lord God, but these are primitive! Tyra Nordbo thought.
  Friendly enough, but so backward. The village was hidden, with dwellings
  of straw and bamboo tucked deep under an overhang of rock. There was a
  waterfall at one end of the little valley, and channels irrigated gardens
  of banana, citrus and vegetables. There were goats and sheep, a few
  horses ... and that was all. There was plenty to eat here, but not a
  book, not a powered tool, not a single comp or receiver. The only metal
  or synthetic was what their ancestors had brought in, fleeing as refugees
  from the first wave of kzinti conquest. There were things here that had
  been only names to her before: opthamalia, cataracts, club-foot, harelip.
  She shuddered at the thought, even as she made herself smile and accept
  an opened coconut from a smiling woman. At least the settlement was
  fairly clean. And the people walked with pride.
  I thought we were badly off in Skognara during the occupation, she mused.
  Machinery wearing out, more and more hand labor, the kzin tribute abating
  not one whit. It was paradise compared to this. The thought of the labor
  and loneliness these people had endured was

               227
 228The Best of All Possible Wars

 chilling. Only by cutting themselves off completely from the money economy
 had they been able to stay out of the kzinti sight, but that meant no
 machinery, no medicine, no help in the disasters of everyday life ... They
 were touchingly awed at having one of the Nineteen Families here, as well.
 There was no mistaking what she was, of course; everything from her accent
 to the mobile ears that twitched forward at a sound betrayed it. It is
 humbling.
  "Why did you stay here?" she asked the leathery old headman of the ...
  village seemed inappropriate. Compared to this, Neu Friborg was like
  downtown Munchen. And the headman was probably only fifty or so, not even
  middle-aged by civilized standards.
 His grandfather had been a orbital shuttle pilot.
  "We are free, Fra Nordbo," the man said proudly. "Here, we pay no tribute
  to the enemy. None of them has ever come here---except one on a hunting
  trip."
  He nodded proudly to a ledge above the plaited-cane doorway. The skull
  that grinned with yellowed fangs looked much like a cat's, or a
  tigripard's, until you saw the long braincase that swept back from the
  heavy brows. A creature that thought, and made tools, and hunted Man.
  Until some Men hunted it ...
  -we had the pelt," the villager went on regretfully, "but it rotted in
  my father's time."
  "The kzinti are gone," Tyra said gently. "Gone from all this world. None
  remain except those who accept human rule. You have no need to hide any
  more."
  The man's face fell slightly. "I know," he said. "A fur hunter told us
  the news ten months ago." More slowly: "You are of the Herrenfolk, Fra
  Nordbo," he said. "Since the war is over, folk have come from the Great
  City. They speak of taxes, of land titles--of taking our children for
  schools."
 "You understand," he went on, leaning closer earnestly.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING229

 'We do not want to be isolated any more ... not really. We know we have
 forgotten much. But we arefree. Some say the folk of Munchen wish to grind
 us down, that they think of us as ignorant savages."
  You are, poor creatures. Nofault of yours, Tyra thought sadly.
  What shall we do?" he said. "We know nothing of these matters-only what
  the officials of the new government tell us. Some say we should move
  again, as our ancestors did-move back even further into the mountains,
  and live free. There are others like us in the jotuns, they might help."
  "Even the jotuns are not large enough to shield you from Time and Fate,"
  Tyra said gently. "You need a friend who can intervene for you in
  Munchen. I know a good man, a Herrenmann, who would be your protector.
  But even so, change will come. it must; your children deserve to have the
  world opened up to them once more. Wunderland is once more a Planet of
  Man, and there is no reason to deny them the stars."
  "Thank you," the headman said, wiping at his eyes one palm; the calluses
  scraped against the blond-gray stubble on his cheeks. "We will try it."
  The headman's daughter came in, with a tray: slices of roast wild boar
  and gagrumpher, steamed plantain, sauces, the rough homemade wine. Tyra's
  mouth filled at the smell; her own camp-cooking had grown tiresome.
  "It is good of one of the Freunchen clan to take time for our troubles,"
  the headman went on.
  "Duty," Tyra mumbled. Embarrassing. Perhaps only in a place as
  out-of-the-way as this, as completely isolated from the past century,
  could you find that sort of faith in the Nineteen Families and their
  tradition of stewardship.
  "We must do what we can for you, who helped those who were strangers,"
  he said.
 230The Best of All Possible Wars

  "MurphiTimhg?" she replied, then swallowed. "You've already helped me,"
  she said. Quite sincerely; a month in the wilderness with nobody but her
  horse and Garm to talk to had been a chastening experience.
  "There are ... bad people in the mountains," he said. "Some of them have
  been here for a long time-they fought the ratcats a little, stole from
  us more. The real fighters, to them we gave without asking, but they went
  back to the towns when the liberation came. The others have become worse,
  and more have joined them since. They do not come this far back into the
  mountains often-we have little to steal, and we will fight to keep what
  we have. When the police chase them, then they run deep into the Jotuns.
  Some of the ones who were here during the war, they know their way
  around, a little."
 "Do you help the police?"
  "Yes." Flat and decisive. "The outlaws, they are advokats." That was a
  small, scruffy, unpleasant-smelling carrion eater common to this part of
  the continent; it travelled in packs, attacked sick or wounded animals,
  and would cat anything including dung. Eat until it puked up, then eat
  the vomit. The beast was almost all mouth and legs, with very little in
  the way of a brain, an evolutionary holdover. "If we had more guns, we
  would shoot them ourselves."
 "Thank you," she said. "I'll be cautious."
  "And. . ." He looked down at his feet in their crude leather sandals.
  "You said, you were looking also for unusual things?"
  Tyra felt a sudden prickle of interest. Unusual could mean anything, back
  in here; jadeite, a meerschaum deposit, abandoned kzinti equipment from
  a clandestine base ... or news of the party she had been told to look out
  for. Business for herself, or for Herrenmann Montferrat-Palme. It was
  about time sonwthing turned up, it was cheap to live in the outback but
  not free,
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING231

 and she would be damned if she was going to be a burden on Mutti. Doubly
 damned if she would go asking Ib for help.
 "Yes, if you please," she answered.
 "Here."
  He pulled out something small but heavy, wrapped in cloth, and placed it on
  the table between them. The work-gnarled fingers unfolded the homespun
  cotton with slow care and the young aristocrat leaned over, holding her
  breath. A dull-shining piece of ... not metal, she thought. About the size
  of her palm, with a curved surface and a ragged edge, as if it had been
  torn lose from a larger sheet. Not any material she recognized, but there
  was a cure for that.
  "Excuse me," she said, and rummaged in the packsaddle braced against one
  bamboo wall. The sample scanner Montferrat had gotten for her was
  late-model, a featureless rectangle with a pistol grip and readout screen.
  She pressed it against the whatever-it-was and pulled the trigger.
 No data, it told her.
  "What do you mean, no data?" she muttered. Perhaps the contact wasn't close
  enough: she turned the piece over and made sure there was no airspace.
 No data.
  "Swine of a gadget!" she said, and tried it on the surroundings. No problem
  with the table, a rock on the floor, the bamboo wall, or her own hand. Tyra
  pressed it firmly against the artifact.
 No data.
  "Hmmpfli." The girl tapped at the back, running the diagnostic. Everything
  fine.
  Her hand stopped in mid-motion. The scanner worked by firing a tiny but
  very intense burst of laser energy into the sample, then analyzing the
  result. The material involved was minuscule, too little to even feel if you
 232The Best of All Possible Wan

 used it on yourself, unless you pressed it to your eye, of course. But the
 laser was very energetic.
  She tapped out temperature. At ambient, which was no surprise. Then she
  squeezed the trigger for the sample function-no data-and asked for
  hotspots. Nothing: still at ambient temperature. Whatever this was, it
  was absorbing the energy and not ablating; not even warming up.
  Odd, she thought: very odd. Back home in Gerning, the manor-house had had
  a functioning computer system with good educational programs. Tyra Nordbo
  bad received a sound university-entrance level scientific education, and
  offhand she could not think of anything with those characteristics, A
  moment's conference with her belt-comp's reference functions confirmed
  her ignorance. It could be a kzin product, or something military that was
  not in the general databases ...
 "Do you mind if I test this?" she said to the headman.
  He grinned. "We tried shooting at it. Then we dropped large rocks on it.
  Nothing we could do would so much as scratch it. The smith's forge didn't
  even heat it UP."
  She nodded. That did not mean much, since the only thing these outbackers
  had in the way of weapons was old-fashioned chemical energy rifles. There
  were plenty of modern materials that would be untouchable to anything
  they could do, and which would reflect away a lot more thermal energy
  than charcoal could produce.
  A crowd of children gathered as she came out into the sun, blinking for
  a moment in the brightness; all dressed alike in shorts, bare feet and
  varying degrees of grime. They clustered bright-eyed as she drew the
  magrifle from its sheath beside her saddle, on the porch of the hut, and
  held up the piece.
  'Would one of you like to help me?" she said. A sea of hands waved at her
  amid eager clamor. She picked a
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING233

 girl of nine or so, with strawberry-blond braids and a gap in her teeth.
 "What's your name?"
  The girl blushed and dug at the packed dirt with a toe. "Helge," she
  whispered.
  "Well, Helge, why don't you take this all the way down there---down by that
  big boulder-and put it in at ground level? jam it in tight, facing me. The
  rest of you," she went on, "get back-back behind me. Yes, that means you,
  too. One of you take the little one."
  A few adults had come to look as well; some of them with envy at her
  equipment, more in curiosity~ Gracious lord Gott but it must be boring
  here, she thought. The cassette of regular ammunition came out with a clack
  sound, and she slid in the red-flagged one from the bottom of her war-bag.
  The normal rounds were singlecrystal iron, prefragmented for antipersonnel
  or hunting use. These were narrow penetrators of osmium, in a ferroplastic
  sabot that would peel off at the muzzle. Antiarmor darts, and at a hundred
  meters they would punch through two hundred millimeters of machinable steel
  plate. Much less of real armor, and it drained the batteries like the
  teufel, but she had a solar-charging tarpaulin spread out over a sunny
  patch of ground. She tapped the velocity control to maximum and set the
  weapon for semi-auto.
  Helge ran like the wind, heels flashing, and used one to pound the piece of
  material into the angle between ground and rock. Tyra gave her a smile of
  thanks and waved her back into the crowd as she sat, pushed her hat back
  and brought the rifle up with her elbows on her knees. A final check to be
  sure that everyone was behind her-Dada-mann had taught her about firearms
  as soon as she could walk; even under the occupation Herrenmann families
  had been allowed hunting weapons-and she took up the slack on the trigger.
  The sighting holo sprang up before her eye on x5, and
 234The Best of All Possible Wars

 she laid the target blip on the center of the gray material. Squeeze
 gently-
  Whack. The recoil was punishing, several times worse than normal; there
  was not all that much mass in the darts, but they were travellingfast.
  She let the tremor die out of her arms and shoulders and the sight settle
  back on the target as the muzzle came down with its own weight. Whack.
  Whack. Whack. Whack. Five rounds, as much as her shoulder could stand and
  more than should be necessary.
  "Don't touch it!" she called sharply, as some of the children ran ahead
  of her.
  The older ones pulled their younger siblings back, making a circle around
  her as she knelt. The impacts had driven the fragment back against the
  stone; into the stone, in fact, cutting a trough. The surface was shiny,
  plated with a film of osmium, and splashes had colored the earth and
  rock. She reached out with a stick, and it sizzled as the end came in
  contact with the shiny film. The osmium layer peeled away at the touch,
  falling to the battered earth below.
  "Scheisse," she whispered. Nothing. Gottdamned nothing. The dull gray
  surface of the material was utterly unmarked, to the naked eye at least.
  She shifted the rifle to her left hand and pulled out the scanner.
  Another no data, and the temperature was still at ambient ... no,
  about.002 of a degree higher. That after being struck with penetrator
  darts that splashed across its surface in a molten film!
  Well, Herr Montferrat-Palnw wanted the unusual, she thought. And this is
  certainly unusual enough.
  Another thought struck her as she lifted the material and turned it. The
  edges were torn, twisted as if something had struck a sheet of
  whatever-it-was and belled this piece out beyond the breaking strain of
  the material. Considering what the tensile strength must
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING235

 be, that would have to be a fairly drastic event.
  "Careful about that," she said to a curious child who was poking at the
  film of osmium; the edges would be razor sharp even though it was thinner
  than tinfoil. She crumpled it with the heel of her boot and stamped it into
  a harmless lump. Turning to the headman:
 "Where did you find this stuff?"
  "The Mutfiberg, Fra Nordbo. We pan a little gold in the rivers below it, to
  trade for things we must have. In the wash beneath-"
  CELAPTER THIRTEEN

  "Let her rip!" Hans called into his beltphone. "Don't get your underwear
  in a knot," he went on to Jonah. "And that's enough dirt."
  "My back agrees with you but my greed dissents," Jonah said,
  straightening up.
  The water-furrow that fed their wash was nearly half a kilometer long,
  dug along the hillside or carried in troughs of log slab. Nothing in it
  had come with them, except the monofilament line that held it together.
  The wash itself was a series of stepped wooden boxes, ingeniously rigged
  with baffles so that the flow of water would shake them.
  Their bottoms were different; memory-film, made in Tiamat, the central
  manufacturing asteroid of the Serpent Swarm asteroid. Leads hooked them
  to a wooden stand where their computer and main distortion-battery lay.
  A single keystroke would activate the memory-film; each box's floor was
  set to form an intricate pattern of moving ripples. Rushing water would
  dissolve the mixture of water-deposited volcanic soil and gold granules
  Jonah shoveled in to the first box; a thin layer of water would then run
  over the rippling film. Gravity would leave the

               236
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING237

 heavier metal particles in the troughs of the ripples, and they would move
 slowly down each box to deposit the gold in a deep fold, ready to be
 scooped out. The surface had a differential stickiness, too, nearly
 frictionless to the useless garague, catching at any molecule the computer
 directed.
  From higher up the water-furrow a rumbling sounded. Spots had lifted the
  sluicegate, and the flood was rumbling along. Raw timber vibrated and
  thuttered, and the beams reinforcing comers groaned as the first weight
  threw itself against them. A meter across and deep, the wave bore dirt
  and twigs before it, and a hapless kermitoid that peeped and thrashed.
  It curled and rose as it struck the pile of gold-rich dirt, then washed
  it away and into the settling tanks like a child's sand-castle. The tanks
  themselves began vibrating back and forth, their squealing groans almost
  deafening.
  "Shovel, boy, shovel!" Hans called. "That's a pocketful of krona with
  every shovelful of dirt."
  Jonah cursed and wiped at his face, covered in an oil of sweat and dirt;
  more moisture ran from the sodden rag around his forehead, trickling down
  to cut runnels over his face and drip onto his bare chest. He had always
  been muscular for a Belter, but the weeks of labor had thickened his arms
  and shoulders, besides burning his face and body nearly the color of
  teak. The loads of dirt still felt heavy as he swung the long handle.
  Hans was spindly and wrinkled beside him, but his movements were as
  regular as a metronome.
  "You're putting too much heave into it," the old man said after a moment.
  "Remember what I told you. Don't jerk at it. just enough to get the
  shovel moving, then turn your wrists and let the dirt slide off into the
  water. No need to waste sweat sticking it in."
  Jonah grunted resentfully, but he followed Hans' advice. He was right;
  it was easier that way. Zazen helped
 238The Best of All Possible Wars

 too. His training was coming back to him, more and more these days. Use the
 movements to end thought; become the eye that does not seek to see itself,
 the sword that does not seek to cut itself, the unself-contemplating mind.
 Feel sensation without stopping its flow with introspection, pull of muscle,
 deep smooth breath, aware without being aware of being aware. The two humans
 fell into lockstep, working at the high pile of precious dirt. Presently the
 pile grew smaller, and Spots came up with more. He was dragging it on a sled
 made from more of the film, set to be nearly frictionless on the packed
 earth of the trail. There was a rope yoke around his neck and shoulders, and
 he pulled leaning far forward, hands helping him along. When he was level
 with the men he collapsed to earth, panting.
  Jonah stuck his shovel in the pile and helped him out of the rope harness,
  then handed him a bucket made from a section of log. The kzin lapped down
  a gallon or so and then poured the rest over his head, scooping out another
  from the trough and repeating the process. Then he licked his whiskers back
  into shape and shook himself, showering Jonah and Hans with welcome drops
  from his fur. The air was full of the smell of a quarter ton of hot wet
  carnivore.
  "Bigs needs someone to help with the shoring," he rasped, drinking again.
  "He digs more quickly than we thought."
  "Guess I'd better," Hans said, rubbing a fist into the small of his back.
  "See you later, youngster." He walked off up the trail to the shaft they
  had sunk into the hillside, whistling.
  Spots paused as he gathered up the drag harness and the film.
  "Ah-adventure!" he said. "Travelling to faroff lands; ripping out the
  gizzards of hardship and danger; winning fortune and Name. Is it not
  glorious? Does your liver not steam with-"
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING239

  "Go scratch fleas," Jonah muttered, spitting on his hands and reaching for
  the shovel.
  "Better that than hauling freight like a zitragor," the kzin replied,
  flapping his ears ironically as he turned to go for the next load. "Far
  better."

  "I cannot believe it! I do not believe the testimony of my own nose!" Bigs
  said, pawing through a pile of datachips.
 "Believe what?" Spots replied.
  Across the campfire Jonah looked up at the sound; the hiss-and-spit of the
  Hero's Tongue always sounded like a quarrel, but this was probably the real
  thing.
  "That I was stupid enough to let you pack the virtualreality kit!" Bigs
  said.
  That was a late-model type, with nose implants for scents as well as ear
  and eye coverings for visual and aural data.
 "It's in perfect working order."
  "The chips, fool, the chips-you forgot the Siege of Zeeroau, the Hero
  Chruung Upon the Ramparts, no Warlord Chmee at the Pillars-all our good
  stuff. None of the classics at all!"
  Spots flapped his ears and fluttered his lips against his teeth. "You run
  too many of that graypelt sthondat excrement," he said. "You will curdle
  your liver and stultify your brain living in the past that way; you should
  pay more attention to the modern world, sibling. Renovate your tastes!
  Entertainment should be instructive!"
  "Modem-heeraaeeow-The Kzinrette's Rump?" Bigs said sarcastically, throwing
  one chip aside and digging for more. His voice rose an octave as he listed
  titles, and his tail quivered and then began to lash.
  "Blood and Chrowl? The Lost Patriarch ofthe Hareem Planet? Energy Swords at
  the Black Sun?" He screamed, a raw sound of rage. "Is there nothing here
  but smut and cheap, trashy science fiction adventures?"
 240The Best of All Possible Wars

  He abandoned the carton of chips. The two kzinti faced each other,
  crouching low and claws extended: their ears were folded away and their
  tails held rigid. The air smelled of ginger as they growled through their
  grins, and their fur bottled out. Jonah started to rise in genuine alarm;
  most of the siblings' spats were half in fun, but this looked like the
  real thing-and when kzinti got angry enough to stop exchanging insults
  in the Mocking Tense, they were milliseconds away from screamingand
  leaping. it must be the sheer frustration of the hard labor ...
  Hans broke in first: "You two tabbies interested in our results, or are
  you too set on killing each other and leaving it all for us monkeys?" he
  said dryly.
  The kzin relaxed, breaking the lock of their unwinking eye-to-eye stare.
  The huge golden orbs turned on the old man instead, and they both licked
  their lips with washcloth-sized pink tongues. After a moment their fur
  sank back and their tails relaxed, but they both drooled slightly with
  tongues lolling. Hans brought out the portable scale and a set of bags
  of tough thermoplastic, setting a heatrod at one hand.

 "That's the last of it," Hans said.
  He took the container off the scales and dropped the dust into a bag;
  then wrote the weight on the outside and sealed it shut with the rod.
  Jonah watched the digital readout blink back to zero. They were sitting
  in front of the humans' tent-the shelters of the felinoids were longer
  but much lower-and the sunken firelight was flickering on their faces,
  shining in the eyes of the kzin. Tonight it was scarcely brighter than
  the moon, full and larger than Luna from earth, leaving a circle of
  blackness in the sky where the stars were outshone. The dust had not
  looked like gold, save for a few granules larger than pinheads. Mostly
  it was blackish.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING241

  "Not much to look at," he said, hefting one of the bags. It was a little
  larger than his fist, but heavy enough to bring a grunt of surprise.
  "No nuggets," Hans nodded. "It's rich, but not that rich. We've cleared
  about three thousand krona. Not bad for the first day-s work."
  "First month's work," Bigs grunted, lying flat on his belly with his hands
  on either side of his chin. "Not counting walking in to this verminous
  spot."
  There is that, yes," Hans went on cheerfully, and spat into the fire before
  lighting his pipe with a twig. "Thing is, we'll get as much tomorrow. For
  a while, too. Sort of time for it all to pay off. Remember what I said back
  in Munchen; getting the benefit of all the labor that everyone else who
  went looking put into it. Now we reap the results. Should be tasty, very
  tasty."
  Spot's tongue moistened his nose. "How much?" he said. At their looks: "How
  much shall we take out before we stop?"
  Hans pursed his mouth. "Twenty thousand over our expenses would do me fine.
  Twenty thousand's enough to get the shop I've had my eye on."
  "Not enough for me," Bigs said; the humans looked at him in slight
  surprise. Usually the larger kzin spoke as little to them as he could. "For
  what I want ... I need more."
  "More is good," Jonah nodded, remembering to turn away his eyes. Never
  stare at a kzin. Seven times, never stare at a hostile kzin. "I'd like
  forty thousand myself. Starting a business is risky. Plenty of people have
  gone bust just because they didn't have enough cash to tide them over until
  the returns started."
  "Forty thousand would satisfy me,- Spots mused, using a branch he had
  whittled to scratch himself on one cheek, then under his chin. He slitted
  his eyes and purred, tongue showing slightly. "Plenty of land coming on the
 242The Best of All Possible Wars

 market; we might even be able to buy back some of our Sire's lost estate.
 Enough over to start a consulting firm; there are kzinti in the Serpent
 Swarm, on Tiamat, who would be glad to have Wunderland agents."
  "Forty thousand it is, then," Hans said. He hooked the coffeepot off the
  fire and poured himself a cup. "Nothing like a cup of hot coffee to
  settle you for sleep."
 Bigs spoke up. "When shall we divide it?"
  The old man's hands stopped and he looked up, face carefully calm. "Well,
  that's a question. We could split it up when we leave, or when we get
  back to civilization, or each day. Something to be said for all three."
  "Each day, where I can see it," Bigs snarled. Literally; talking with
  kzinti made you realize that humans never really snarled. "I labor in the
  earth like a slave. The prey I toil for shall rest in no monkey's
  larder."
  Spots hissed at him; he turned and hissed back through open jaws, and the
  smaller kzin shrugged with an elaborate ripple of spotted orange fur.
  "I will be content either way," he said. "By all means, divide it. It
  makes no difference."
  Jonah locked eyes with Bigs for a moment, then shrugged himself. It
  didn't make any difference. Except ... why was the kzin so insistent? A
  surly brute, to be sure-if Jonah had been in the habit of naming kzinti,
  he would have christened him Coon-but it was also a little strange he had
  never so much as mentioned what he intended to do with the money. In
  modern kzin society few ever satisfied the longing for physical territory
  with game on it, and their harem and retainers about them; that was
  reserved for the patriarchs. It must have been doubly cruel for a noble's
  sons to have the prospect snatched away; Spots daydreamed about it
  constantly, and Jonah could see him imagining the wilderness about them
  to be his own. Whereas Bigs seemed more and more withdrawn,
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING243

as if Wunderland were not really real to him any more. Again, he shrugged.
 Kzinti psychology was still a mystery to those humans expert in it. Jonah
 Matthieson had killed quite a few kzin, and worked a few months with two.
 That was no basis for easy judgment-in fact, just enough to lull your
 sense of difference and put you most at risk of anthromorphizing them.
 That could be dangerous; besides the weird culture the oranize-furred
 aliens had produced, dragged straight from the Iron Age into an
 interstellar civilization, their basic mental reflexes were not like a
 human being's. And never had been, even before they used the new
 technology to alter their own genes.
  They wanted to be more like theirfolk heroes. So they did genetic
  engineeting to make it so. That was what the ARM intelligence people
  decided was the only plausible explanation for Kzinti behavior and
  customs. Usually civilization changes things. Defects don't result in
  death. Evolution stops, then works backwards. Bad genes are preserved.
  Not with the kzin. They really are like the Heroes they admire.
  Hans wordlessly set out the scales, checking that each bag was identical.
  Then he divided them into four piles, and silently invited his partners
  to take their pick. Bigs scooped his up and disappeared into the dark;
  they heard him stop and make a long leap onto bare rock further up the
  slope, hiding his trail. Spots sighed and trotted out into the night in
  the opposite direction.
  Of course, now we've each got to wonder about our goods,- Hans added; the
  smaller kzin hesitated for a second, then continued. -Wonder if any of
  the others has found them, you see. Couldn't tell who, not if some of it
  just disappeared."
  Jonah halted with an armful of small, heavy bags. "Finagle's hairy arse,
  now you mention that?"
 "Well, son, if it was all in one place it'd also be a teufel
 244The Best of All Possible Wars

 of a temptation, now, wouldn't it?" There was a twinkle in the little blue
 eyes beside the button nose, but they were as hard as any Jonah had ever
 seen. "Been at this business quite a few years now. Not the first time
 I've had partners, no indeed. Something to be said for all the methods."

  Jonah yawned cavernously over his morning coffee, then hauled the crisp
  air deep into his lungs as he stretched work-stiffened muscles, it was
  a cool morning, a relief before the long blazing heat of the day. Alpha
  Centauri was rising red over the mountains to the east, and the
  eye-hurting bright speck of Beta hung on a peak like a jewel on a
  wizard's staff. No mountain on Earth could have been so slender and so
  steep, but Wunderland pulled its heights less fiercely. Birds and
  orthinoids were waking down in the ribbon of forest that filled the
  valley, purling and cheeping. None of the kzin were present, which was
  not surprising in itself. The aliens had fallen into a gorge-and-fast
  cycle which seemed to be natural to them, and the bacon and eggs frying
  in the pan would be repulsive to them.
  They used to be that way to me, he admitted: far too natural. After this
  much pick-and-shovel work, he just felt hungry all the time.
 "Want some hash-browns?" Hans asked.
 "You're bleeping right I do," Jonah said, yawning again.
  "See you didn't get any more sleep than the rest of us," Hans said.
  The rest of us?" Jonah paused with his fork raised over his loaded plate.
  "Oh, I may be getting on, but that don't make me sleep any sounder. just
  the opposite. First the big ratcat goes out to check nobody's found his
  goods-then the little one. Then you. Then the big one again. . .
 Jonah flushed. "I just had to piss," he said.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING245

  "Funny you went in that direction, then," Hans said, and cackled with
  laughter. "This'll get worse the longer we're out here. That's why I wanted
  to stop at twenty thousand, mostly. Now we'll all have to check nightly.
  And each of us worry about the others ganging up on him."
  Jonah forced himself to eat. His body remembered his hunger, even if his
  mind was telling him his stomach was full of lead.
 "You don't seem too worried," he said.
  Well, it's a matter of possibilities," Hans said. "The two ratcats could
  take us out-but they don't get on too well, you may have noticed. Stiu,
  blood counts for something. Or you and Spots could take the rest of usSpots
  will be seeing Bigs as a real challenge down in his balls, while we're just
  monkeys. Or-"
  "Or you could know where it all is and just take it and clear out," Jonah
  said harshly, feeling the hair on his back creep. As a programmer, he knew
  what an infinite regression setup could do to your logic; also how the
  Prisoner's Dilemma generally worked out in real life.
  Hans lit his first pipe of the day with a stick from the fire. "No, don't
  think so. You three are a lot tougher than you were when we started. You'd
  catch me and kill me. Still, it's something to think about, isn't it?" He
  blew a cloud of smoke. "Enough lollygagging-nobody told us to stop
  working."

  "Sure," Jonah muttered to himself. "Send ffw back to Neu Friborg for
  supplies. Why nw?"
  Another charge of water went down the sluice, to his left past the beaten
  trail up to the shaft. The wood groaned less now after a week of operation;
  water had swollen it until the pegged joints were tight, and there was less
  leakage too. He ignored it, concentrating on
 246The Best of All Possible Wars

 strapping the pack-saddle tight; the mule just seemed quietly relieved to
 be free from hauling loads out of the mine. The pack was mostly empty,
 except for some hides and dried meat to lend credence to their coverstory
 of hunting for pelts. The last thing they needed was contact with the
 authorities. The Provisional Government was hard-up and had even more than
 the usual official determination to see that the citizenry and their money
 were soon parted. All four of them agreed on that, if nothing else,
 although it had been a bleeping struggle to get the kzinti to skin their
 kills before they ate them.
  Is Hans out of his mind? Or is he in it with them? Jonah thought. It
  would be a four-day trip. Four days he'd be unable to check on his goods,
  and that was nearly fifteen thousand krona by now. Without that gold he'd
  be back cadging handouts in Munchen soon enough. I put up more money than
  the others, he thought bitterly. As it is, I'm getting less than my
  share. Tanfit, but it's hot. He reached for the canteen and poured more
  water on the cloth draped over his head. He could hear Spots coming down
  the trail, dragging another load of dirt for the boxes. With a scowl, he
  led the mule behind a boulder; it was downwind from the trail this time
  of day, so he wouldn't have to talk to the kzin.
  Spots stopped for a moment, moaning softly and pulling the rope yoke over
  his head. His effort at grooming the matted, worn spots on his sloping
  shoulders seemed halfhearted, and after a few swipes he simply lay down
  in the roadway, groaning more loudly. Something he would never do if he
  were aware of being watched, of course ... Jonah felt a moment's guilt.
  I should cough or something, he thought. Then: No. If he did, he would
  have to explain why he was hiding behind the rock-and that would make
  Spots more suspicious than he was already. At least they were still
  talking when business made it necessary,
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING247

 while Bigs was barely speaking even to his sibling and not at all to the
 humans.
  The kzin lay still, panting in the sparse shade a pile of rocks threw over
  the path. Then his head came up, the big pink bat-ears swiveling downslope.
  Jonah held his breath, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Spots drew his wtsai
  and headed down the steeper slope, leaping over the water furrow and
  dodging along agile and swift as the hillside grew steeper. When the kzin
  stopped to cut a pole from a broombush and began prying up a large flat
  rock suspicion grew to rage. Jonah drew his magrifle out of its slings
  along the pack saddle and stepped out from behind the rock.
  I should let him have it right now, he thought, taking up the slack. No, he
  decided, as the back of the kzin's head sprang into the holosight. No, I
  want him to see it coming.
  "Freeze, ratcat!" he shouted, and sent a round whack through the air over
  him.
  Spots whirled and leaped backward instead, the stone thumping back down on
  the others that supported it. His ears flared wide with surprise, as did
  the wet black nostrils, then folded away in anger. He crouched, opening his
  mouth wide and extending his hands to either side; one gripped the wtsai,
  and the claws slid out on the other, needles against the black leather of
  the hand.
 "What-put that rifle down, monkey!"
  "Right," Jonah sneered; the ratcat had gotten good enough at Wunderlander
  to put indignation into its tones. "So you can cut me tip-and then take my
  goods."
  Spots's pupils flared wider still, in surprise. "Oh, so that was where you
  put them," he said. "Clever, clever, the spray from the furrow would
  obscure your scent."
  The human had been moving downslope; he climbed across the furrow
  carefully, not that there was any danger
 248The Best of All Possible Wars

 with sixty-nine rounds still in the cassette, and halted beyond leaping
 distance.
 "Drop the knife," he said, his voice flat and ugly.
  I saw a fuzzball crawling under there," Spots went on, staring at him in
  deliberate rudeness. "I was going to pry up the rock and kill it."
  "Murphy, can't you invent something more plausible than that?" Jonah
  jeered. There was a bounty on fuzzballs . . . although they were commoner
  here in the Jotuns than in more settled regions.
  Another footfall sounded on the trail. Jonah risked a quick glance upslope;
  it was Hans, trotting up with his rifle at high port. He stopped at the
  sight of the tableau below and then climbed down, standing midway between
  Spots and Jonah but out of the line of fire, with the muzzle of his weapon
  carefully down.
  "You fellers mind telling me what's going on?" he said mildly.
  They both began to speak at once. Jonah gestured Spots into silence with
  the rifle.
  "The bleeping ratcat found my goods, and I caught him trying to lift the
  rock"-he nodded at the lever still jutting into the air, and then at the
  boulder upslope where the mule still stood--and clean me out."
  He tensed slightly; Hans might be in it with the alien. Not likely, since
  Hans had voted to send Jonah off for the supplies. If it was Hans, they
  would have waited until he was gone and they could do it safely. Or wait-
  Spots could be double-crossing Hans by promising to wait until Jonah was
  gone, and then looting the cache first himselfl
  "Of course," Jonah went on sardonically, "he claims it was all because he
  saw a fuzzball crawl under there."
  Spots had risen from his crouch. Ostentatiously, he sheathed the wtsai and
  stood up to his full two-meters plus of height, staring down his muzzle at
  Jonah with
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING249

 ears half-unfurled. That was an insult as well; it was the Posture of
 Assured Dominance, rather than the fighting crouch used to confront an
 adversary.
  "There is an easy way to find out, monkey," he said. "Put your arm in
  through the gap you used to hide the bags of gold. If there is no fuzzball,
  it is perfectly safe."
  He backed up along the slope, still in clear sight but more than leaping
  distance away from the tumbled rocks. Jonah licked his lips, tasting the
  salt of sweat, and moved closer to his once-secret cache.
  "Of course, you know that fuzzballs never let go once they bite, don't
  you?" Spots said, as Jonah bent toward the hole. "The jaws have to be
  broken and pried loose. Not that that matters a great deal. The neurotoxin
  venom is quite deadly. Convulsions, bleeding from all the orifices,
  hallucinations and agonizing death."
  Jonah snorted and bent further. Then he stopped, looking at Spots. Kzin
  don't lie well, he thought. The slick film of sweat that covered his body
  suddenly seemed to cool. They don't get enough practice--they can snwll
  each other lying. Spots could be relying on human inability to smell,
  nearly total by kzinti standards ... but Jonah knew enough of their body
  language to know that he really was relaxed. Even amused. And if there was
  a Beam's Beast hiding down there- With a convulsive movement he turned and
  hauled one-handed on the lever. The big volcanic slab toppled backwards
  slowly in Wunderland's .61 G, and the fuzzball cowered for a second as the
  light stabbed its dark-adapted eyes.
 "Pappy-eek!" it shrilled, the characteristic warning cry.
  Jonah gave a shout of loathing and pumped two rounds into the vermin. The
  little biped flew backward, half its torso torn away, but still snapping at
  the air. Beam's Beast-the origin of the name was lost in the early
  settlement of the planet-was about half a meter long, covered in
  titan-blond fur. They had huge eyes, filling
 250The Best of All Possible Wars

 nearly half their faces, and clever monkey-like hands to match their demonic
 cunning. They could even be considered cute, if you didn't notice the
 over-lappin
                              . 9 fangs. In a frenzy of disgust the human
                              leaped forward and stamped the heav~heel of
                              his boot into the bigeyed face. Then he had
                              to spend a minute using the muzzle of his
                              magrifle to pry the jaws out of the tough
                              synthetic.
  That was a welcome distraction. When he looked up Hans had slung his rifle
  and was looking at him with a speculative stare; Spots was grinning in
  contempt-threat. Jonah clicked his rifle onto safety.
  "Guess I'd better get back to the mules-" he began. Then the earth shook,
  and a cloud of dust rose from over the ridge where the mineshaft lay.
 None of them wasted words as they ran.

  Spots was the first to reach the entrance, but he hesitated. The exterior
  shoring on the hillside was still intact, but choking dust and grit
  billowed out. Most kzin are natural claustrophobes unless they are
  lactating females, and it had raised his opinion of his brother's courage,
  if not his intelligence, when he volunteered for the job at the pit-face.
  It also kept Bigs more out of contact with the humans ...
  Without a word, Jonah plunged past him into the interior.
  The outer stretch was intact, but the air broiled with metallic-tasting
  debris; hacking and coughing, he stopped for an instant to tie the wet
  headcloth over his mouth and nose and snatch a glowrod from the wall. Murk
  surrounded him, glowing with reflected light, thickening as he advanced
  wiping his streaming eyes. Ten meters in the roof had collapsed, and a
  tangle of dirt, rock, broken timbers and planking lay across his way. He
  dropped to the floor and raised the glowrod. A triangle
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING251

 of empty space in the lower right-hand corner of the pile gaped at him like
 a toothless mouth. He crawled close and shouted:
 "Bigs! Can you hear me?"
  Nothing; nothing but the trickling sound of dirt falling, and the groan of
  raw timber stressed to its limits. The rest might come down at any moment.
  He repeated the call in the Hero's Tongue, shouting as loud as he could,
  grit raw in his throat and hings.
  A sound; faint, and it could be wood collapsing as readily as a kzin
  moaning in pain. Spots and Hans came up behind him, and he turned
  urgently-
  "This looks like it might go through. Get me a cutterbar and a rope."
  Spots stared at him oddly as Hans handed him the tools. Jonah tied the rope
  around his waist and went down on his belly.
  "I'm-" he hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath. "I'm going to go
  in head-first. I'll tie a loop under Bigs's forelimbs, if I can, and you
  pull him out."
  That might work with a kzin; they were so flexibly jointed that they could
  get through any space big enough to pass their head with a centimeter to
  spare on either side of the skull. That was a conscious kzin, of course.
  "You are going in that hole?" Spots asked, in a low voice. His pelt was
  bristling in a ripple pattern, as if he tried to order it flat and his
  nerves rebelled. He looked over his shoulder; the entrance was a spot of
  light. More dirt trickled down from above. "Bigs might be dead."
  "I said I'm going, didn't I?- Jonah asked, his voice rough with more than
  the bad air. A wave of gooseflesh ran over his own skin; he looked at the
  hole, and remembered the piping cry of the fuzzball. Don't try to talk me
  out of it. You might succeed.
  "Pain does not hurt," he muttered to himself. "Death does not cause fear;
  fear of death causes fear."
 252The Best of All Possible Wars

  The mantra was little protection as he squirmed into the hole. He could
  feel it shifting above him, and the jagged edges of broken wood clawed at
  his back and flanks. He could feel the blood trickling down, feel the salt
  sweat stinging in the wounds. One meter, then ten, infinitely cautious.
  Controlling his breathing helped control the overwhelming impulse to squirm
  backward. The glowrod was little help, in air so thick with floating dust,
  and his passage stirred up more.
  At least it'sfairly straight. After a time that could have been a minute or
  twenty, his outstretched hand touched something softer. Kzinti fur, that
  twitched under his hand. Timber creaked.
 "Brother?" Bigs whispered, in the Hero's Tongue.
  "Jonah," the man said, and felt the kzin start again. "Careful, its still
  unstable! Can you understand me?"
  "Yes," the alien rasped. The heavy scent of its fear was detectable even
  through the dirt; he could smell urine, too.
 "Are you badly injured?"
  A moment's silence, full of heavy panting. "No. I think not. There is a
  timber resting on my thighs, but they are only bruised, not broken. My
  shoulder is dislocated." That hurt a kzin less than a human, but it meant
  the arm was useless until the joint was set back. "I am bleeding a little,
  but I cannot move."
  Jonah had been feeling around, raising the glowrod. Bigs was in a bubble of
  space, spindle-shaped with the narrow end at his feet. There was a main
  vertical support across his legs just down from the crotch; one jagged end
  of a fastening peg had driven into the flesh for a centimeter or so.
  " I , m_" Jonah paused to cough. "I'm going to have to get in there with
  you," he said. Tanjit. There Ain't No justice. I don't even like the
  bleeping pussy-never did It was mutual, too. "I'll tie this rope under your
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING253

 forelimbs and then sever the timber with my cutterbar. Then we'll slide you
 out on your back. I'll follow and get you past the obstacles. Understand?"
  "Brother," the kzin whispered again, and something in his own language too
  fast and faint for Jonah to follow.
  The human shook him, and barely dodged the instinctive snap that followed.
 "Finagle shave you bald, do you understand me?"
 "Yesss . . . " followed by a mumble.
  Oh, joy. Concussed. Jonah shone the light into the big golden eyes. One
  pupil was slightly larger than the other, and that was a cross-species
  indicator. No blood from the nose or ears, though.
  "Here I come," Jonah said, keeping up a flow of words to maintain Bigs's
  attention. And to boost my morale too. "I'm going to have to do a forwards
  somersault." That took an eternity, but when it was completed he was lying
  along the kzin's side. "Here comes the rope. Can you lift your
  forequarters?"
  Another eternity before the dazed kzin understood, and the slipknot loop
  went under his armpits. He made a short convulsive sound between clenched
  fangs as the rope touched his dislocated shoulder, and the claws of his
  other hand stabbed into the dirt close to Jonah's stomach.
  "Be a Hero," Jonah said sharply, in that language. Bigs twitched his
  whiskers affirmatively. It was not that the kzin was unable to control his
  fear, but the blow to the head was leaving him wavering in and out of full
  consciousness. A quarter-ton of kzin acting from instinct and reflex was
  not something you wanted to have with you in a confined space.
  "Here we go," the human muttered, and reached down with the cutter bar.
  This was the one with no broken teeth, and it sliced smoothly through the
  tough gumtree wood. Pale curls
 254The Best of All Possible Wars

 of shavings came free as he drew and pushed, with a faint shirrr-shirrr
 sound. His own pelvis was under the timber. If it was bearing weight, it
 would shift when he cut through and smash his hipbones to splinters. Not
 that that would be of much interest to either of them when the dirt closed
 'round ... Halfway through, and the log had not pinched shut on the cutter
 bar, that was a good sign. Three quarters of the way, and something went
 crack over his head. Man and kzin froze, peering upwards. Another crack
 and the sound of rock grinding on wood. Jonah's arm resumed movement, more
 quickly this time. He closed his eyes for the last cut. There was a deep
 tung sound as the wood was cut and the severed end rode up, not down
 towards him.
  He let out a shaky breath, suddenly conscious of how thirsty he was. No
  time for that. He dropped the cutterbar, carefully, and wedged his knee
  under the end of the timber that now lay across Bigs's thighs.
  "This is going to hurt," Jonah said, and repeated it until he was sure
  Bigs was fully conscious. "Here goes."
 -Eeeeraaeeewwooww!11
  The kzin scream was deafening in the strait space, like being in a closet
  with a berserk speaker system. After the jagged wood was free of his
  flesh Bigs was silent save for rapid shallow panting.
  "All right," Jonah shouted, mouth to the hole. "Get ready to pull!" The
  slack on the rope came taut. "Carefully. If the rope gets caught on a
  timber, it could bring the whole thing down on us."
  The ten meters of passage might as well have been a Idlometer. Jonah had
  to follow behind Biass nearly inert form, pushing on his feet and easing
  ihe cabl~-thick tail over obstacles; when the rope caught, he had to
  crawl milhmeter by millimeter along the hairy body until his hands could
  reach and free the obstruction. More s1dn scraped off his back and
  shoulders as he did so, a
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING255

 lubrication of sweat and human and kzinti blood that made the wiggling,
 gasping effort a little easier. After the first few minutes he lost track
 of progress; there was only effort in the dark, an endless labor. Until
 light that was dazzling to his dark-adapted eyes made him blink, and a
 draft of air cool and pure by comparison brought on another coughing fit.
 Hands human and inhuman pulled him and the comatose kzin out of the last
 bodylength of the wormhole.
  Jonah had only an instant to lie and wheeze. The groaning and creaking
  from above became a series of gunshot cracks, and streams of loose dirt
  poured down. A board followed, ripped free as the scantlings twisted
  under the force of the earth above and weakened with the forward sections
  brought down in the first fall. He told his body to rise and run, but
  nothing happened but a boneless flopping sensation; there was nothing
  left, no reserve against extremity. Death was coming, smothering in the
  dark, coming at the instant of victory.
  Spots had been squatting while Hans maneuvered the larger, heavier body
  of his sibling across his shoulders. One hand was up, steadying that; the
  other reached out and gathered Jonah to his orange-furred chest.
 "Run," he grunted.
  Hans ran beside him-a staggering trot was a better description-steadying
  the load on his back and taking some of the dragging weight. Jonah was
  clutched beneath him, turning his progress into a three-limbed hobble
  that turned into a scrambling rush as the innermost section of the
  shoring gave way behind them. Wood screamed as each successive section
  took the full weight for a moment and yielded; the collapse nipped at
  their heels, its billow of choking dust enclosing them like the hot
  breath of a carnivore in pursuit. They shot out of the mouth of the
  diggings like a melon-seed squeezed between fingers and collapsed half
  a dozen meters from
 256The Best of All Possible Wars

 it; Spots was barely conscious enough to turn sideways and avoid crushing
 Jonah beneath the half-ton weight of two grown kzintosh.
  Jonah was still sitting with his head in his hands when Hans returned with
  the medical kit and water.
  "Better look at Bigs first," he coughed, drinking a full dipper in one long
  ecstatic draught and blinking up at the sun. It had hardly moved; less than
  two hours since the cave in, difficult to believe.
 "Hmmin-hmm," Hans agreed.
  He and Spots went to work. "No broken bones," Spots pronounced. "There is
  a lump on the skull but the bone is sound beneath it. Reflexes are within
  parameters. Concussion, but I doubt any major damage."
  "Speak for yourself," Bigs whispered. "More water." He drank rather than
  lapping, to wash down the handful of antibios and hormonal healing
  stimulants his brother handed him.
  Hans had been examining the thigh wound. "Splinters in here," he said,
  slipping his hand into the debrilidator glove. "Want a pain-killer?"
  I am a Hero-" Bigs began. Then the miniature hooks in the
  computer-controlled glove began extracting foreign matter from the wound.
  --so of course I do," he went on, in a thready whisper.
  The work was quickly done, and Hans stepped over to Jonah; then he
  whistled, watching as the younger man doused himself with water. Fresh
  blood slicked great patches of skin and raw flesh.
  "You done a good job on yourself, youngster," he said, rummaging for the
  synthskin sprayer. "Hold on."
  Jonah did his best to ignore the itching sting of the tiny hooks cleaning
  dirt and dead skin out of the scrapes. The synthshin was cooling relief in
  comparison, sprayed on as each area was cleansed.
 "What the tanjit were you doing digging that deep?"
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING257

 he asked Bigs. "You were way beyond the shored-up section. You know the
 routine; timber and shore every meter you go in."
  Bigs's eyes were glazed. "Hull," he mumbled. "I found the hull."
  "You found the what?" Jonah asked, looking up sharply; then he gasped. Hans
  had done likewise, and braced himself against a flayed area. Spots halted
  with his muzzle halfway into a bucket.
  "Hull," Bigs said more distinctly. "Like nothing I've seen before.
  Spaceship hull. Small."
  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The little trading post had a dusty, abandoned feel. There was the adobe
  store, two houses and a paddock, all planted where three faint mule-tracks
  crossed a creek. Tile houses had roofs of tile with tiles missing, carrying
  solar-power panels with some of the panels missing; the pump that filled
  the watering troughs before the veranda of the store was still functioning,
  and the metered charger available to anyone who wanted to top up their
  batteries. The satellite dish on the rooftree looked to be out of order for
  some time, though. A straggly pepper tree shaded the notional street, and
  a big kitchen garden lay behind a dun-colored earth wall.
  Tyra Nordbo tethered her horses where they could drink; Garm stood on his
  hind paws to lap beside them. Two meters further down two pack-mules looked
  up at her animals, then returned to their indifferent doze. She blinked at
  them thoughtfully as she loosened girths and patted her horse's neck, put
  a hand to the stock of her rifle where it rested before the fight stirrup
  in its saddle scabbard, then shook her head.
  "Hello the house," she called, from outside the front door; outback
  courtesy.

               258
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING259

  The inside was just as shabby as the exterior, if a little cooler from the
  thick walls, and the fan-and-wet-canvas arrangement over the interior door.
  A counter split the room in half, with a sleepy-looking outbacker standing
  behind it; boxes and bales were heaped up against the walls. And another
  man was at the customer's side, reading from a list:
  ". . . two four-kilo boxes of the talcum powder. Two kilos of vac-packed
  vanilla ice cream. One kilo radiated pseudotuna. A thousand meters of
  number-six Munchenwerk Monofilament, with a cutter and tacker. Ten
  hundred-nail cassettes for a standard nailgun . . ."
  Both men looked up, then looked again, squinting against the sunlight
  behind her. A third look, when she stepped fully inside and became more
  than an outline; the storekeeper straightened and unconsciously slicked
  back his thinning brown hair. Tyra sighed inwardly. There were times when
  being twenty and a pattern of Herrenmann good looks was something of an
  inconvenience. Here in the back of beyond it made you stand out, even in
  smelly leathers with a centimeter of caked dust on your face and a bowie
  tucked into the right boot-top. Then her eyes narrowed slightly; after the
  first involuntary reaction, the customer was looking at her with suspicion,
  not appreciation.
  He's changed, she realized. Harder and strongerlooking than the holo
  Montferrat had shown her. Burned dark-brown from outdoor work, dressed in
  shabby leather pants and boots with a holstered strakkaker at his waist and
  a sleeveless jerkin. The Belter crest still stood alone on his head, legacy
  of a long-term depilation job, but it had grown longer and tangled.
 "Guetag, herr", she said politely, nodding.

  What the tanj is she doing out here? Jonah thought suspiciously. His gaze
  travelled from head to toe. Young,
 260The Best of All Possible Wars

 very pretty, with the indefinable something-perhaps her accent--that
 indicated Herrenmann birth. Definitely not an outbacker. Not the sort to
 be bashing the bundu. Although there were plenty of Herrenmann families
 down on their luck these days, of course. He started to estimate what she
 would look like without the bush jacket and leather pants ...
  Get back to business, mind, he admonished himself, with a mental slap on
  the wrist. Think of ice and sulphur. Besides that, his experience with
  Wunderlander women had not exactly been overly positive.
 "Been out here long?" she asked.
 "Not long," he said shortly.
  "Prospecting? Odd to find a Sol-Belter prospecting dirtside."
  Jonah stopped, a finger of cold fear trailing across his neck. His crest
  marked him, and his accent. For that matter the standard Sol System
  caucasoid-asian mix of his own genetic background was uncommon here,
  where unmixed European stock was in the majority.
  "Hunting," he grunted, jerking his bead at the pile of pelts on the
  counter.
  Suddenly they looked completely unconvincing. The beautiful wavy lines
  of tigripard, the fawn and red of gagrumphers, all might as well have
  been cheap extrudate. She met his eyes and smiled, face unlined but
  crinkles forming in the reddish-grey dust on her skin. It was a charming
  smile.
  "Hunting good?" she asked. "Enough to keep all of you in business?"
  "Good enough," Jonah replied, lifting a sack of beans to his shoulder.
  Then he turned back. "All of us?" he said.
  "Not really smart to be out in the bundu alone," she pointed out. "Let
  me give you a hand."
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING261

  Before he could prevent her she scooped up a double armful of sacks-a
  very respectable armful, for a Wunderlander born and raised in this
  gravity-and carried them out the door. Jonah followed, torn between fear
  and embarrassment. Outside, she was tying them down to a mule's
  packsaddle with brisk efficiency.
  "What's wrong with hunting alone?" he asked, when the silence began to
  be suspicious in itself. She turned and looked at him with open-eyed
  surprise; blue eyes, he noticed, with a faint darker rim.
  Break a leg and die," she said. "Or a dozen other things. Not to mention
  the bandits."
  Jonah moved to the other side of the mule and began strapping the sack
  of beans to the frame of the saddle, moving it a little to be sure the
  load was balanced. She had neat hands, slender for a tall woman but
  stronglooking; her nails were clipped short and clean enough to make him
  feel self-conscious about the rim of black grime under his. It was
  difficult to object to the lecture; coming out here alone would be
  insanely risky. Too risky even for a flatlander.
  "Heard the Provisional Police have the bandits under control," he said.
  "Oh, they're getting there. Not much on trials and procedures, but they
  track well enough. Big job, though. It'll be a while before these hills
  are safe for a man alone--or a woman, of course. Tempting fate to go out
  there with a mule-train of supplies, too."
  Jonah worked on in silence, turning on his heel for another load and
  ignoring the presence at his heel.
  "Tyra Nordbo, ~lan F~'reunchen," she said after a moment. "Besides which,
  a man alone usually doesn't
 Mre ire that much tuna and ice cream. You don't look e"you drink that
 much bourbon by yourself, either."
  "Manse Chung," he replied shortly. "I've got unusual tastes."
 262The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Not Jonah Matthieson?" she enquired sweetly. "The man with the unusual,
  large, hairyfriends?"
  Jonah stepped back half a pace, snarling and reaching for his strakkaker;
  he paused with the vicious machinepistol half out of the holster, half
  from prudence and half from the genuine shock on her face.
  "Please, be calm, Mr. Matthieson," she said soothingly, hands held
  palm-down before her. "We have a mutual friend in Munchen who asked me
  to look you up. And," she added with a gamine grin, "you're a girlhood
  bero of mine, an ' Yway-some people did hear a little of what went on out
  in the Serpent Swarm, you know."
  "I don't have any friends in Munchen, and I don't have any here either,"
  Jonah barked. Montferrat. He's checking up on us, the scheming bastard.
  "I've got a backer in Munchen, and he'll get the return on his capital
  he was promised, if he leaves me alone to do my work. Now if you'll
  pardon me, Fra Nordbo or whatever your name is, I'm a busy man."

 "What took you so long?" Hans said.
  "Making sure I wasn't followed," Jonah said. "Got it out?"
  "Out to the mouth of the diggings," the old man said. "Didn't think it
  would be all that smart to leave it out in plain view."
 "Show me."
  Film sheeting had been rigged over the mouth of the shaft and covered
  with dirt and vegetation. Jonah ducked through into the interior chamber,
  lit by glowrods stapled to the timbers of the shoring, and whistled
  silently.
  The ... craft, he supposed ... was a wasp-waisted spindle four meters
  long and three wide. One end flared with enigmatic pods; a hole had been
  torn in it there, the only sign of damage. Through the hole showed the
  unmistakable sheen of a stasis field. A Slaver stasis field,
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING263

 except that no thrint could be held in a ship this size; the thrintun were
 Man-tall and much more thickly built. Jonah shuddered at the memory of icy
 tendrils of certainty ramming into his mind ... but he knew thrint naval
 architecture as few men living did, and they had been programmed to forget
 it. Thrintun ships were always large; the thrint were plains-dwelling
 carnivores by inheritance, and not intelligent enough to suppress their
 instincts.
 "Tnuctipun," he breathed.
  The Slavers' engineers, the ones whose revolt had brought down the Slaver
  Empire three billion years before. The revolt had wiped out both races and
  every other sentient in the galaxy save for the bandersDatch; humans and
  kzinti alike had evolved from Slaver-era tailored foodyeasts, along with
  the entire ecosystems of their respective planets. As a master race, the
  thrint had not been too impressive, apart from their power of telepathic
  hypnosis-with the Power, they did not need intelligence. An IQ equivalent
  to human 80 was normal for thrintun. Little was known of the tnuctipun, but
  it was clear that they had been very clever indeed.
  "Or something else from then," Hans said. "That hull's like nothing in
  Known Space, that's for sure. Tensile strength and radiation resistance is
  right off the scale; none of the gear we brought can even test it." He
  scratched in the perpetual white three day's beard that covered his chin.
  "Wish we hadn't found it. Gold I understand. This I don't. Don't like it."
  "This could make us one bleeping lot richer than all the gold on
  Wunderland," Jonah said.

  "We do not know if there is anything valuable in the artifact," Spots said.
  "Not yet."
  "There is a stasis field!" Bigs replied. "Neither the Patriarchy nor the
  monkeys have that as yet. There is
 264The Best of All Possible Wars

 the hull material. Think of the naval implications of such ships! We know
 the ancients had superluminal drivesundoubtedly the secret of that is
 inside as well. Matter conversion . . ."
  He licked his chops and forced his voice to quietness; they were near the
  disused gold-washing boxes, but the humans could be anywhere and both of
  them had some command of the Hero's Tongue.
  "You said we could not return to the Patriarchy-we, defeated cowards with
  nothing to offer. Now we can return. Now we can return as Heroes, assured
  of Full Names-assured of harems stocked from the Patriarch's daughters,
  and a position second only to his!"
  Spots nodded thoughtfully. "There is some truth in that," he said
  judiciously; his voice was calm, but his eyes gleamed and the wet fangs
  beneath showed white and strong in the morning light. "If we could get
  the secrets, and if we can get them offplanet-you do not hope to ride
  aloft in the alien craft, I hope," he added dryly.
  Bigs snorted; neither of the humans could filt in any likely passenger
  compartment, much less a kzin.
  "We must get the pilot, or download the data from the crafts computers,"
  he said decisively-
  "Easy to say," Spots said, flapping his ears. Bigs grinned at the
  reminder that his sibling had always been better with information
  systems. "The hardware and programs both will be totally
  incompatible-fewer similarities in design architecture than kzinti-human
  system interfaces have. At least we and the monkeys have comparable
  capacities, and integrating those systems was a rebornas-kzinrett
  nightmare. I did some of that during the war. What kind of computer would
  the monkey slaves of the thrintun build?"
  "And yet. To be a true Hero, to have a name, it never was easy. Until now
  it was not possible. Now it is."
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING265

  Spots paused thoughtfully, scratching himself under the jaw. "And the
  monkey authorities-if they sniff one trace scent of this, they will bury us
  so deep that we will stay submerged as long as that spacecraft did."
  Bigs's fur rippled, and he gave an involuntary dry retch. Ever since die
  cave-in he had been unable to force himself closer than the outer entrance
  of the shaft. The darkness, the stifling closeness ... he retched again. As
  nearly as they could estimate the tnuctipun spaceship had spent the last
  three thousand million years in the planetary magma, bobbing around beneath
  the Aeserheimer Continent's crustal plate. The hot spot must be connected
  with it, somehow-the how of it was beyond them; none of them was a
  specialist in planetary mechanics-and only chance had ever brought it to
  the surface again. Vanishingly unlikely that it should be then, although
  erosion would have revealed it in another few centuries. On the otber paw,
  it had to be discovered sometinw. It looked to be eternal.
  To be buried that long, though. His mind knew that it had been less than an
  instant; inside a stasis field, the entropy gradient was disconnected from
  that of the universe as a whole. Less than a single second would pass
  inside during the entire duration of the universe, from the explosion of
  the primal monobloc to the final inward collapse into singularity. His mind
  knew that, but his gut knew otherwise.
  Spots chirred. "For that matter, what of the humans here? They seem no more
  anxious than we to attract the governnwnt's"-he fell into Wunderlander for
  that; the Hero's Tongue had no precise equivalent-"attention. Yet they may
  be reluctant to allow us to depart with the data-they are monkeys, after
  all."
  "We can bury their bones. They are outcasts, not dear to the livers of the
  monkeys in authority. Who will miss their scent?"
 266The Best of All Possible Wars

  The smell of anger warned him; he looked up just in time to jerk his head
  backward, and Spots's claws fanned the air over his nose rather than raking
  through the sensitive flesh.
  "Honorless sthondat!" the smaller kzin hissed. "Did you forget the oath we
  swore with Jonah-human? You are alive because of the Jonah-human!
  Oath-breaker! Are you without regard for the bones of your ancestors? The
  Fanged God will regurgitate your soul."
  Bigs bristled, swelling up to a third again his size; his ears folded back.
  "They are monkeys," he growled back; the sound was a steady urrreeuueeerree
  beneath the modulations of his words. The Menacing Tense in Imperative
  Mode.
  "That monkey crawled into the darkness to rescue you as you lay helpless,"
  Spots said; he stood higher, unwilling to let Bigs' height give him
  dominance. All eight claws on his hands were out. "Blood for blood."
  They began to circle, tails rigid. "What of our duty to the Patriarch?"
  Bigs spat.
  "Our first duty to the Patriarch is to be Heroes," Spots replied. "Heroes
  do not break their solemn oath!"
  They both sank on their haunches for the final leap. Then Bigs let his fur
  fall and looked aside.
  "There is a true trail among the prints of your words," he admitted with
  sullen reluctance. Earth rumbling and the walls closing around-"If the
  monke ... if Jonahhuman refuses to let us leave with the data, I will
  challenge him to honorable single combat."
  Spots straightened suspiciously; he sniffed with his jaw open and licked
  his nose for a second try.
  "I smell reservations. They smell stronger than a dead kshat," he warned.
  "Be sure, I will not permit less. No ander-the-grass killing. And if you
  duel Jonah-human, you must preserve his head for the Ancestral Museum of
  our line."
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING267

  "Agreed. We shall all act as Heroes. Even the Jonahhuman."
  Spots's pelt rippled in a shrug. "We quarrel over the intestines of a
  prey that grazes yet," he said. "So far, all we have is an impenetrable
  mystery."
  CELAPTER FIFTEEN

  "What did you do?" Spots demanded, springing back and bruising his tail
  against a timber upright. He rubbed at it absently, eyes locked on the
  tnuctipun spacecraft with the same intent longing that they might have
  fixed on a zianya bound in the blood trough of a feasting table.
 "I did nothing," Bigs said.
  Jonah grunted, and Hans whistled softly. For the better part of a week,
  nothing. And now the stasis field had vanished, seemingly of its own
  accord.
  The hull had turned ... translucent, as well. Much of the interior seemed
  to be packed solid with equipment of various sorts; none of it familiar,
  although he thought he recognized something like the wave-guides of a
  gravity polarizer. If it's that stnall, and can lift this ship, it's
  better than anything we or the kzin can tnake, he thought. Nothing this
  size could make space on its own-the power-plant alone would be too
  large-and nothing this size could possibly mount a superluminal drive,
  from what little was publicly known about them. On the other hand,
  nothing humans or kzinti knew would stand three billion years of
  immersion in liquid metal, either.
 "Tnuctipun," he whispered, awed. In the center of

               268
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING269

 the forward bulge was a capsule, and inside that he could dimly see the
 outline of a body inside a cocoon of tubes and wires.
  Small, was his first thought. He knew from his time on the thrintun ship
  Ruling Mind that tnuctipun were small; they had built that thrintun vessel,
  and many of the crawlspaces were too cramped for a human to enter. Long
  limbs in proportion to the body, and twelve digits, longer and more jointed
  than human fingers. Another indication; there was a rough correlation
  between manual dexterity and the length of time a species had been
  sentient. Dolphins and bandersnatch were exceptions, of course. Overall he
  thought it would come to about his waist standing erect, but the arms were
  as long as his. A single nostril in the long snout, ahead of an even longer
  swelling of braincase; a pattern of holes on either side of the head that
  might correspond to ears, or might not; two large eyes and a smaller one
  set where the forehead would be if there was one. The eyelids closed
  side-to-side rather than up and down.
  I'm the first human ever to see a tnuctipun, Jonah thought, slightly dazed.
  He stepped forward, acutely conscious of the smell of his own sweat, of the
  ginger scent of the kzin. They were staying well back; not that they were
  more fearful than he, just less driven by curiosity.
  ,,it,s hurt,,, he said, peering closely with his hands on the absolute
  smoothness of the hull; it was an odd sensation, the palms always trying to
  slip away.
  Whatever the tnuctipun was floating in was liquid, and reddish blood was
  hazing the egg-shaped chamber; it thinned and flowed away as he watched. An
  autodoc, he realized. Doubling as a pilot's crash couch. Some small
  scoutcraft and atmosphere flyers used that arrangement, with a high-oxygen
  liquid for breathing. A body with open air spaces inside it was much more
  vulnerable to
 270The Best oJ'All Possible Wars

 acceleration than one whose lungs were solidly filled with incompressible
 liquid. Why bother, if they had gravity polarizers? he wondered. Then: ah.
 Gravity waves were detectable, and the ones from a polarizer much more so
 than the natural variety A clandestine operations craft, no doubt. The
 tnuctipun had probably been a spy, and the ship designed to slip onto
 thrintun-beld planets during the war of the Revolt. Jonah was willing to
 bet a great deal that the hull material was superlatively stealthed, as
 well as near-as-no-matter invulnerable.
  "You realize what this means?" he said, looking at the others. "It means
  we four are potentially the richest beings in known space."
  "Means we could all lose our heads, hearts and testicles when the
  gov'mint gets its claws on us," Hans said dourly, The kzin both snapped
  their jaws shut: We are nwat.
  "We certainly are if Markham or the ARM get hold of us," Jonah mused.
  And the bleeping ARM wouldn't even use this stuff, particularly now we're
  beating the pussies. At that thought his head came up, raking his eyes
  across the kzin. Both returned his glance blandly, looking aside in
  carnivore courtesy. The Patriarchy would use it, he knew. Kzinti had
  never been able to afford antitech prejudice; they had less natural
  inventiveness than humans to begin with. Tanj. And we were ready to kill
  each other over gold, much less this.
  A voice spoke in his ear, in the Hero's Tongue: 'What did you do?-
  Jonah jumped backwards; then he noticed everyone else around the
  spacecraft had done likewise; the kzinamaratsov brothers were whirling
  in place, trying to find whatever was speaking beside their ears.
  "It's hurt," the voice said, in Wunderlander with a trace of Sol Belt
  accent. The wet sound of kzin jaws closing on air followed.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING271

  The kzin were bristling. "Haunted weapons," Spots said, snapping twice.
  "Translator program," Jonah said. "The systems are active, if not the
  pilot. It's trying to talk to us." It was vibrating the air beside their
  ears somehow, not too startling compared to the rest of the technology.

  "That is beyond my parameters," the computer said. "I must consult my
  operator before I can make further judgments."
  Jonah opened his mouth to reply, and found himself croaking. A startled
  glance outside showed darkness.
  "We'd better knock it off for a while," he said. Nervewracking work.
  Especially when the translator program bad spent an hour trying to find
  out which side they were on in the tnuctipun-thrintun war; it seemed to
  have a bee in its bonnet about that, understandably enough. He strongly
  suspected that it also had a self-destruct subroutine, and would engage
  it if it 'thought' that they were part of a thrint slave-species. The
  type of suicide bomb available to a culture whose basic energy source was
  matter conversion did not bear thinking of. You could tell a good deal
  about the people who designed an infosystern by talking to one of their
  programs, and there was a pristine ruthlessness to this one that even the
  kzin found chilling.
  No wonder the Revolt wiped out intelligent life, he thought. They had had
  to take a datalink out and show the ship's system the stars before it
  really seemed to believe them about the length of time that had passed.
  At that, it was probably fortunate that the pilot was still comatose. The
  computer had limited autonomy; it was very powerful, right up with the
  great machines that ran the UN Space Navy from Gibraltar Base in the Sol
  Delt, but not a true personality, as far as he could tell.
 272The Best of All Possible Wars

 Neither human nor kzinti designers had ever been able to make a really
 sentient system that did not 90 catatonic wi thin months. Evidently the
 ancient world of the Slaver Empire had been no more successful. At least the
 Al was completely logical; Finagle alone knew what a conscious but
 traumatized tnuctipun would do on realizing it was the only member of its
 species left in a universe changed beyond recognition.
  Jonah shivered again. That did not bear thinking about either. When the
  Yamanwto dropped him and Ingrid Raines off into the kzin-occupied Alpha
  Centauri system two years ago they had decelerated by using a stasis
  field-one of the few the UN had been able to makeand skidding through the
  photosphere of the star. A little, little mistake and they would have spent
  the next several billion years in stasis themselves-until Alpha Centauri
  went nova, perhaps. Then the invulnerable bubble of not-time might have
  been flung out, eventually to land on a planet. To wait while intelligent
  life arose or arrived, then be opened. He swallowed, mind exploring the
  concept the way a tongue might probe at a sore tooth. At that, there would
  have been two of us, he thought. And Id still have gone off the deep end.
  Jonah was preoccupied enough not to notice the extra figure at the
  campfire, as he walked downslope to the tents. Spots and Bigs had better
  senses; he looked up sharply at their angry hisses of territorial
  violation.
  "You all seemed to be busy," Tyra Nordbo said, crouched by the fire. "So I
  thought I'd help myself to some of this coffee."
  With her free hand, she pitched something small and heavy out into the
  firelight. All of them recognized the material. After a moment, they
  recognized the shape; the hole in the rear section of the tnuctipun ship's
  hull matched it exactly-
           0.        ~O 4~
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING273

  "No, of c(nirse I haven't reported back to Herrenmann Montferrat,"Tyra
  said. "How could I? The governmentwhich means the ARM, remember-is
  monitoring all frequencies and all the cable and satellite links. There
  is still a state of military emergency on, you know."
  Jonah relaxed slightly; out of the corner of his eye, he could see Spots
  and Bigs doing likewise, the ruffs of fur around their throats and
  shoulders sinking back to the level of the rest of their pelts. Their
  eyes stayed locked on the young woman, ominously steady, glints of silver
  and red in the gathering dark against the ruddy orange of their fur. Hans
  was imperturbable as he sucked his pipe to a glowing ember.
  "You really don't have much choice but to go through with your agreement,
  as far as I can see," she went on.
  "Oh?" Jonah said, softly. "We didn't bargain to hand over the Secret of
  the Ages for a pat on the head and a few thousand krona."
  Bigs snorted agreement, followed by a low growl. Spots was silent, but
  the tip of his tongue showed as he panted slightly.
  "It's too big," Tyra said. "The ARM would give anything to suppress
  this-they'll take the tnuctipun back to Earth, put it in the museum next
  to the Sea Statue, that thrint they bottled up again, and that'll be
  that. You know them. They have a lot of influence here on Wunderland
  these days. To make any use of the secret, you'd have to have a powerful
  patron of your own-or," she added with a gamine chuckle that made her
  look twelve for a second, 11 you could take it and sell it to the
  Outsiders or the Patriarch of Kzin. No offense," she added in the
  brothers' direction.
  Bigs snarled, a sound like ripping canvass. Spots snorted, ajlupp sound.
  "None taken," he said.
  "Besides which," she went on, "I know about it, and it's my duty to see
  that the most responsible authority
 274The Best of All Possible Wars

 takes charge of it for the benefit of Wunderland--of everyone, eventually.
 That means Montferrat. Of course, you could kill me and bury my body." She
 leaned back against her saddle. "Up to you, mein herren."
  Blast, she had to go and say it, Jonah thought. His palms were damp. Fin
  a-nwderately--4aw-abiding type, he mused. And normally, I'd be against
  offing anyone that good-looking on general principle. But Finagle there's
  a lot at stake here!
  Odd, how ambition struck. He had never been conscious of wealth as
  something he lacked, before. Enough to be comfortable, yes; the loss of
  that had been shocking when Early had him railroaded out of the UN Space
  Navy and then blacklisted. A little more of the gold, yes; independence
  had looked awfully desirable. The tnuctipun's secrets were more than
  wealth, they were power. The problem was, they were proportionately
  risky-
  "Ja, Fra Nordbo," Hans said mildly. "Those look to be the alternatives,
  don't they?" Tyra stiffened; she had not meant to be taken literally. "If
  you'd let us talk it over in private, for a minute?" He waggled his pipe
  towards the kzinti; it would be futile to try and run in the dark, with
  them ready to scent-track as accurately as hounds and with intelligence
  to boot.
  As soon as she had withdrawn, Bigs spoke: "Kill him. I mean her." Kzinti
  females were mute and subsentient, probably another consequence of
  genetic engineering, and kzintosh-male kzin-had trouble remembering that
  sexual dimorphism was not so extreme among the race of Man. The matter
  was acadernic to them, of course. "We owe the monke-hrreaheerr,
  Montferrat-human only money. We can pay him off with gold. The secrets
  in that craft will make us Patriarchs!"
  "Or make us dead," Hans said. "Killing the girl-the Provisional
  Gendarmerie, they don't worry about trifles
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING275

 like proof They just shoot you. Can't spend if you're dead. I wish we
 hadn't found it, I truly do."
  "I also," Spots said surprisingly. "But it is done." His breed wasted
  little time on regrets. "My sibling is rightin potential. Hans-human is
  also right-as to the risk. I scratch dirt upon the dung of risk ... but
  there is no glory in defeat. It is a difficult matter."
 "We can't kill Tyra-the girl," Jonah said reasonably.
  The two kzin looked at each other. Bigs rolled his eyes toward Jonah and
  made a complex gesture, involving fingers wiggling at the muzzle,
  flapping ears, a ripple of the fur and an arch of the back. It meant
  mating frenzy; also stupidity and madness.
  "Hrrrr." Spots lay his chin on his hands and turned his eyes on Jonah.
  "We must agree, whatever we do. Or else fight each other." He added
  kindly: "If all agree to kill the female, we will do it; you need not
  watch. We will even forgo eating it."
  "Bleeping hell you-" Jonah forced calm. Breath in. Breath out. Ommmm-
  "Look, I know it's tempting for you, but I've decided; we really can't
  do anything but sell to Montferrat. Wunderland's our only market. They
  won't let us get off planet! Montferrat is the only market on Wunderland
  that won't slap us in a psychist's chair. And kill you two, by the way."
  "I think Fra Nordbo should go," Hans said. He gestured with his pipe as
  Jonah stared round. "Nothing against her personal. No, seems a nice
  enough sort. Still, I'm a Wunderlander--commoner, like my parents before
  me. Don't like the thought that we hand this to the new government; too
  cozy by half with the Earthers. Don't like the idea of the Herrenmenn
  getting it, eithertired of them running things, and throwing us scraps."
  He smiled across at the kzin without showing his teeth. "Since you
  fellers' friends back home can't get it, that don't come into the
  picture."
 276The Best of All Possible Wars

  Tanjit! Jonah thought. Aloud: "Look, we've had a long day. What say we turn
  in? She isn't going anywhere. We can consider it in the morning."
  "Logic will be the same in the morning," Spots said reasonably. "Also, you
  will not find the decision easier once you have mated."
  "I don't intend to mate!" Jonah snapped. Although Finagle knows Id like to.
  Aliens had trouble with the details of human social interaction. "And I say
  let's think it over in the morning."
  CHA11YrER SLXTEEN

  Spots-Son of Chotrz-Shaa whimpered softly in his sleep. He was hiding from
  his father. Chotrz-Shaa had seen the vids from the Fourth Fleet sent
  against ManHome. Three elder sons and a brother had sailed with the Fourth
  Fleet; Ssis-Captain, Second Gunner and Squadron Analyst. Chotrz-Shaa raged
  through the home complex; the scent of his anger was terrible. In the
  palazzos of the harem, mothers tucked their kittens into cupboards or piles
  of pillows and yowled their fear and defiance, prepared to fight to the
  death to keep the enraged mA-e from eating the young. That was an instinct
  older than the Patriarchy, older than speech and tools.
  Spots-Son followed in his father's wake; the smell of killing rage repelled
  and led. Occasionally a faint euuuweuuuw trickled past the young kzin's
  lips; his brother the Big One gave him a contemptuous look, that was the
  infant's distress call. They followed down corridors of black basalt with
  trophies of ceremonial weapons, into the communications room. Sometimes
  their father brought them there for lessons with the teaching machines, but
  now it was in turmoil; smashed crockery, modules thrown here and there. A
  human servant

               277
 278The Best of All Possible Wars

 huddled bleeding in one corner, then scuffled out as the youngsters
 entered.
  Pictures were up on the wall holo. For a long time the two youngsters
  stared at them without comprebension, until Spots recognized the face in
  one.
 "Uncle Ssis-Captain!" he cried. "Sire's Brother!"
  Bigs reared back beside him with a reeearrwowow of protest, hair bottling
  out and tail stiff. Uncle SsisCaptain was dead. He was floating in
  zero-G, with the bottom half of him gone. The brothers were old enough
  for preliminary education; they both knew about spacecraft, and kzinti
  anatomy.
  "But ... but Uncle Ssis-Captain went to conquer the monkeys!" Spots
  wailed.
  Uncle Ssis-Captain had picked hint up and swung him around, and promised
  him an elephant-hunt when he came to visit on the estate on Earth ...
  "The monkeys killed Uncle Ssis-Captain," Bigs said shakily. "That ...
  that is Brother and Brother." The other two forms in the holo were
  calcinated to ash and bone, but one had a chased-tungsten arm ring. Their
  father had given that when the Fleet left on its mission of conquest.
  Two shrill cries of grief and rage rose, higher and higher until an adult
  roar cut them off.
 "What are you doing here?" it bellowed.
  Spots threw himself down flat, paws over eyes and fur laid flat. Bigs was
  more reckless; he stood upright, met his father's eyes.
 "i shall kill all the monkeys-they killed Uncle and-"
  "Silence, cub!" Chotrz-Shaa bellowed, backhanding the youngling into the
  wall and whimpering silence. The huge face bent low, filling Spots's
  vision, all glaring eyes and teeth and rage-smell.
 "No, Father!" he cried, and woke.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING279

  I detest that dream, he thought, shaking his head and rolling up to all
  fours.
  it was the hour before dawn, with the moon down and the air chilly; it
  felt good to be comfortable in his fur, and scents were marvelously
  clear. Eyesight was flatter and less color-sensitive than in daylight,
  but otherwise not much less as the pupils of his eyes expanded until the
  iris was only a yellow thread around the black pits of sight. Something
  moved, a human-he sniffed deeply-yes, the blander, earthier odor of the
  female.
  Good, he thought. That dream usually came when something serious
  disturbed him in his sleep. If the human-female was trying to escape, he
  could kill it without angering Jonah-human; that would be best. Jonah is
  afine monkey, he thought. If the thought were not slightly blasphemous,
  one could wish that he had been born a Hero. I will make him my Chief
  Slave when we reconquer Wunderland. As they would, if Bigs was right. If
  only. My liver says yes, but my brain disagrees. Enough. The longest leap
  begins with setting your hindclaws. First the Tyra-human.
  He crept forward, belly to the earth, tail straight back to balance his
  weight and hands touching down occasionally to guide it. Ready for the
  sudden overwhelming rush, the final leap; he needed no weapon for this.
  Excitement folded his ears back into knots and drew lips back from teeth,
  brought the claws sliding out on all eight digits. Almost, he was
  reluctant to end it; Tyra-human moved very quietly, for a monkey, and he
  might have had trouble following her if the breeze had not been with him.
  Eagerness brought him forward faster, but with only a little more noise;
  a pebble displaced, a thorn snagging his fur and snapping. Then he went
  rigid with sh~_ck.
  "Quiet," she said, turning and calling softly. "They're moving up the
  valley."
 280The Best of All Possible Wars

  She looked directly at him, with the bulbous shape of nightsight glasses
  hiding her eyes. She spoke in the Hero's Tongue, as closely as a monkey
  could come to pronouncing it; in the Warning Tense. He nearly screamed
  and leapt then; only caution at the sight of her magrifle gave him pause.
  Then the sense of the words sank home.
  They? he thought. Quickly he came level with her and followed her
  pointing hand. Motion, over a kilometer away; he took the glasses from
  his belt and looked. Humans on horseback, leading other horses. Octal to
  the second of them, all heavily armed, and he recognized the shapes of
  knock-down beamers on the lead horses.
  "Who?" he breathed. I lay myfurflat in shame. Claw your own nose and roll
  in sthondat excrement, Spotted Fool! We should have kept lookouts.
  "Don't know," she replied. Even now a thought flickered, how easy it
  would be to reach out--only arm's reach-and slash her throat open.
  No. Not with an unknown factor ... unless she led them to us? His lips
  went further back in rage, but it was unlikely.
  "Could be the Provisional Gendarmerie," she said softly. "Or it could be
  bandits. Either way, bad news for us. They'll be here by dawn at that
  rate. Can't miss the trail and the water-furrow."
  Us, Spots thought mournfully. Us expands to too many monkeys. The Fanged
  God would have his jokes on those so lost to honor that they surrendered.
  I will rip your throat yet, he thought, staring resentfully up into the
  sky for a second. The God appreciated a good fight.
 "I will wake the others," he went on aloud.

  'Well, they've got Provisional Gendarmerie armbands," Jonah said,
  lowering the magnifier.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING281

 "Cloth's cheap," Hans replied.
  Jonah nodded, mind busy. "All right. Spots, you take your beamer and dig in
  behind those rocks over there. Hans, get the mules back into the diggings
  and then set up on the hill over the entrance."
  Hans was the best shot of all of them; it was difficult to be a bad shot
  with a military magrifle, but he was superb.
 "I'll take the center, here."
 "What about me?" Tyra Nordbo said.
  I wish to Finagle you werefarfar away, Jonah thought. Aloud: "Ever used
  that rifle?"
 "Yes."
  The reply was bitten off, and from the expression she hadn't enjoyed it.
  All to the good; he'd known people in the UN Navy who enjoyed combat, and
  none of them were types he'd like to have backing him up. They tended to
  fly off the handle like ... like kzinti, come to think of it.
  "You get about ten meters to the east of me and take that little knoll." He
  turned to eye the two kzin. "And nobody fires unless they open up, or I
  give the order. Understood?"
  Bigs looked skeptical. 'What if they flank us?" Spots asked. "There are
  enough of them."
  "Then we'll retreat," Jonah said. "And someone else will have the headache
  of what to do with that." He jerked a thumb towards the entrance to the
  diggings.
  The mounted column wove over the ridge opposite and down into the morning
  shadow of the valley, disappearing into the dense vegetation along the
  streambed. Jonah burrowed deeper into cover, showing nothing but the lenses
  of his field glasses, their systems keyed to passive receptors only. IR
  would show their locations, ofcourse; a good deal depended on how much the
  whatever-they-were had in the way of detection
 282The Best of All Possible Wars

 systems. Quite a bit if they really were Provisionals, anything from the
 Eyeball Mark I to military issue if they were bandits. The dawn was coming
 up in the east, to his right; the snowpeaks and clouds around the summits of
 the Jotuns turned red as blood, while Beta was a point of white fire
 overhead. The waterfall toned and thundered to his right, mist rising out of
 darkness into light.
  He pulled the audio jack on his field glasses out and put it in his ear.
  The instrument clicked, sorting out sound not in the human-voice
  frequencies. Then:
  ... boot sonw head. . . "
 -shut up, scheisskopf! Turn it on!"
  A crackling hiss filled his ear. Wonders of tnodern technology, he
  reflected sourly; it was always easier to make things not happen than to
  make them happen, so countermeasures generally ran ahead of detection. The
  rustle of boots and the clink of equipment came more clearly, and the tock
  ... tock ... of synthetic horseshoes on firm ground or rock. The strangers
  were in no hurry. They stopped to water their horses and picket them, to
  set up a firing line along the edge of the brush, before two walked out
  from under the trees and began climbing the hill.
  "Everybody stay calm," Jonah warned again, as the pair halted and looked
  upslope.
  They looked tough, shabby and a little hungry; or at least the rat-faced
  thin one did. The leader had a beer belly that hung over his gunbelt, and
  even in the cool morning sweat stains marked his armpits. He carried a
  strakkaker at his belt and a magrifle in his hands; his companion had the
  chunky shape of a jazzer slung from an assault sling. That fired miniature
  molecular-distortion batteries set to discharge into any living tissue they
  met. An unpleasant weapon.
 The big-bellied leader smiled, a false grin creasing
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING283

 his stubbled face. His Wunderlander had a thick accent, maybe regional,
 or he might have come from one of the many ethnic enclaves that dotted the
 planet:
 "Hey, you up there? Why you hiding?"
  "Why are you here?" Jonah replied. "Ride on. We'll mind our business, you
  mind yours."
  "Hey, we can't do that, man!" the other man said. "We're the Provisional
  Gendarmerie-you know, the mounted police? We're inspecting the area for
  illegal weapons. New order, to confiscate all illegal weapons, peace and
  order, you know?"
 "What's illegal?" Jonah asked.
  "Just military stuff, man. You know, magrifles, jazzers, beamers-hunting
  rifles, they are fine."
 " Let's see some ID, then."
 "ID? We got plenty of ID. Here, I show you."
  The fat man pulled something out of a leg-pocket on his stained pants and
  handed it to the smaller figure beside him. He murmured an order, which
  the other seemed to resent; then he took off his hat and began thrashing
  the little man over the head and shoulders.
  "Ja, boss, Ja, I'll take it," the small man with the big nose said.
  "Here!" he called out, climbing towards Jonah's position.
  "Toss it over that rock and get back down," Jonah shouted.
  Ratface scuttled to obey, and Jonah signed to Tyra. She leopard-crawled
  with her rifle across her elbows, over to the plastic card and examined
  it with a frown of puzzlement; then she ran it past the scanner of her
  belteomp. That brought another frown, and she kept crawling to within
  arm's length of him to pass the ID. He glanced (town at it; a holo of the
  fat man's face, looking indecent without its stubble. Serial number, and
  Leutnant Edward Gniedermann, Provizional Staatspolezi.
 284The Best of All Possible Wars

  "My comp recognizes the codes, and I updated about a month ago, but. .
  ."
  "But?" Jonah bit out. If he had stood off a real Gendarmerie Lieutenant,
  they were all in serious trouble. Wunderland was under martial law, and
  out here a mounted police officer could be judge, jury and executioner
  all in one. Staging a shoot-out with the police would be absolute
  suicide, even if he won. Jonah Matthieson's ambiguous status would harden
  into desperate criminal" quite quickly, then.
  "But if that lot are Provisionals, I'm a kzinrette." She bit her lip;
  even then it was interesting . . . "Look, herr Matthieson-up until two
  months ago, I was in the Provisional Gendarmerie. My brother Ib's a
  captain. I spent six months riding with them. That lot down there smell
  wrong, completely."
  Jonah met her eyes, a changeable sea-blue; tinted with gray this morning,
  desperately sincere. Tanj, why couldn't she be a middle-aged battleaxe
  of eighty?
  "All right," he said. "I'll play it safe." Because if we do give up our
  guns, there's our options gone right there. "You get over there east of
  the Brothers Kzinamaratsov; they might come up the gully."
  To his surprise, he heard her chuckle-he had only taken up ancient
  literature in the last year himself; data was free, if nothing else-and
  she touched a finger to her brow before heading off east with an expert's
  use of cover.
  "If this ID is genuine," Jonah called down to the man halfway up the
  slope, "then you won't mind me calling in to Munchen for confirmation.
  Leutnant Gruederman."
  Gruederman began a snarl, and forced it back into a smile. Docking
  contact, Jonah told himself. Tyra was right.
  "Hey, man, we don't want to steal your guns-it's the law, you know. Here
  " he shoved the other man ,,-we'll give you compensation."
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING285

  "See," the little man said, rummaging in his knapsack. "This is worth
  three, maybe four hundred krona!" He held up a briefcase-sized box, an
  obsolete model of musicomp and library. "Good stuff, pre-war!"
  Stolen from some farmer you bushwacked, Jonah thought grimly. He took up
  the slack on his trigger and put the aiming point on the musicomp. Whack.
  The casing exploded and the little bandit went howling and whirling away,
  face slashed by the fragments. The sharp sound of the high-velocity round
  went echoing off down the valley in a whack-whackkkkk of fading
  repetitions.
 "Get moving," Jonah called flatly.
  The bandit chief's face convulsed, going from a broad grin to an
  expression that was worthy of a kzin. Spittle flecked out as he screamed:
  "You can't do this to Ed Gruederman! I will boot your head!"
  The smaller bandit had recovered enough to unlimber his jazzer. A round
  cracked over Jonah's head; by reflex he shifted aim and sent a short
  burst into the man's torso. It blossomed out in a mist of sliced bone and
  flesh as the prefrag bullets punched in and disintegrated, a thousand
  crystalline buzzsaws of adamantine strength. By the time he shifted back
  it was too late. Gruederman threw himself backward in a desperate flip,
  somersaulting and rolling down the short distance to cover. Bullets
  pecked at his shadow, and then the whole treeline opened up. Magrifle
  bullets chewed at the stone, and a boulder exploded as a tripod-mounted
  beamer punched megajoules of energy into its brittle structure. Thunder
  rolled back from the cliffs.
 "Let 'em have it!" Jonah yelled.
  Unnecessary, but satisfying. He rolled a half-dozen paces to his right,
  rose, fired a burst, ducked and rolled again. Hans was shooting from his
  position over the diggings, single shots. A man screamed and fell from
  a
 286The Best of All Possible Wars

 tree in the valley below, and the beamer fell silent. Over to the left the
 kzin were popping up for fractional seconds and sending bursts from their
 captured beamers, using heavy weapons like rifles, inhumanly quick and
 accurate. Trees below exploded into steam and supersonic splinters. Their
 screams sounded louder than the noise of battle, daunting in a way that
 the mechanized death they wielded was not. Hair rose on human spines, a
 fear that went back to the caves and beyond.
  Wonder what Tyra's doing, Jonah thought in a second of calm. Hope she
  hasn't got buck fever

  Spots flicked himself up with a heave of his body. It was just enough to
  clear head and hands above the scree ahead of him; the aimpoint of the
  beamer settled on the target he had picked on his last shot, and it
  exploded with steam. From vegetation, and as he dropped and rolled he
  could smell flash-cooked monkey as well. He shrieked exultantly:
  "Eeeeeerreeieiaiiaaiawiowiue!" The kzinti are upon you! He had a wide are
  before him, with a deep narrow ravine full of brush that stretched right
  down to the river. Already an arc of riverbank forest before him was
  burning. He looked down at the power readout of the beamer; almost half
  discharged. A pity~ since he liked this weapon. The two strakkakers
  strapped to his thighs seemed like feeble toys in comparison, although
  the grips had been modified for kzin hands.
  The next shot almost brought disaster. A fragment caught his forehead,
  and stineing blood covered his eyes as he dropped back into the
  protection of the rock. With a yowl of impatience he felt at the injury,
  even as rounds chewed at the tumbled volcanic basalt ahead of him. it was
  painful enough to wake him to full fury, the area above his brow-ridges
  cut to the bone and a flap of skin hanging free; his ears rang, and his
  mouth filled. He
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING287

 swallowed and forced pain and dizziness back. That had almost killed him;
 many monkeys would die for their presumption, and he would chew their
 livers. In the meantime he had to get the blood out of his eyes; it was
 blinding him, and the rank scent of kzin blood dulled his nostrils.
  A yowl from Bigs meant that he had caught that smell too. "All's well!"
  he snarled back. "Look to your front."
  There was a length of gauze in his beltpouch. He pushed the flap of skin
  back into position-he would get a worthy battlescar out of this, but in
  the meantime it stungand began binding the wound with an X-shaped
  bandage, anchored by a loop under the base of his jaw and around the rear
  bulge of his skull. Hurriedly he poured water from his canteen over his
  brows and eyelashes, snuffling and scrubbina, and lickiniz his nose to
  clear his senses. A sharp scent of eucalyptus almost made him sneeze;
  some tree damaged in the fight, he supposed.
 "Behind you!" a human voice screamed.
  It was utterly unexpected, but Spots' reflexes wasted no time on
  surprise. He dropped sideways.
  A bandit lunged through the space he had occupied a moment before, with
  a vibroblade outstretched before him. It whined into uselessness as the
  humming wire edge sliced into rock. The knifeman's face had just enough
  time to begin to show surprise when the kzin's full-armed swing ripped
  out his throat almost to the neckbone and threw him ten meters through
  the air. The instinctive full-force effort swung Spots around in a
  three-quarter turn, his body betraying him in a G field barely a third
  of the one for which it had evolved. That exposed him to fire from below
  for a moment-rock spalls stung his shoulders-and left him helpless as the
  second bandit six meters away raised a strakkaker lefthanded. The
  forty-round clip of liquid-teflon filled bullets would rip the kzin's
  body open like an internal explosion.
 288The Best of All Possible Wars

  The baDdit's head vanished from the shoulders up in a spray of red, gray
  and pink. The body stood for two seconds with blood fountaining up to
  where the face would have been, took two stumbling steps forward, and
  collapsed across Spots'tail. He blinked surprise and looked.
  Tyra-human lay prone beside another boulder, slapping another cassette
  into her rifle. She gave him a brief nod before moving off to a fresh
  firing position; her face was gray, and she smelled of fatigue poisons
  and nausea, an acrid scent.
  Spots went flat again and readied his beamer, but the savor had gone out
  of the fight. Bigs owes a life to Jonahhuman. Now I-owe a life to
  Tyra-human. Two lives the honor of the House of Chotrz-Shaa owes to
  Man-It is too much. How will I know the balance of debt and obligation,
  unless the Fanged God tells me? Like most modern kzin, Spots had worked
  at rejecting religion as unfashionable. The effort wasn't entirely
  successful. Intellect was one thing; but belief in the Fanged God was
  built deep into the kzin culture, and a desire to believe bad been built
  into their very genes. The Conservators of the Patriarchal Past had a
  fertile field to sow. Now Spots wished he had listened more closely to
  the Conservators. It would take a God to figure out this tangle.
  Oh, well-there are monkeys down there I can kill, he thought gloomily.

  -Sssisssi!" Bigs snarled, and forced his clawed hand down again. "We
  should have pursued," he went on.
  "Shut up," Tyra said, working the sprayskin around the depilated patch
  of singed flesh that ran down the barrel ribs of the big kzin's body.
  "We're not in any shape to pursue three times our number. Defending gave
  us an advantage."
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING289

  Jonah sighed and sipped again at his canteen, looking around the campsite;
  they had moved into the outer edge of the shaft, in case the bandits tried
  to sneak a sniper back, and left sensors scattered about outside with Spots
  to oversee. The kzin seemed depressed; not so Bigs, who was a little manic
  by his own surly standards. He lifted his beltphone.
 "Spots, anything?"
  "No. They ran, and continued to run to the limit of the audio s~nsor's
  ability to detect the footfalls of their riding beasts." A sigh. "Must we
  really leave all those bodies?"
  "Yes!" Jonah snapped, swallowing at certain memories of his own. Every once
  in a while, you remember that they're not humans infur suits. "Last thing
  we want is a posse-mob of outbackers on our trail, understood?"
  Wunderlanders would not react well to the thought of kzin eating even dead
  bandits.
 "Understood." A long, sad sigh.
 "Come on in."
  Silence crackled between them as they waited; Jonah met Hans's eye, and got
  a slight nod in return. Tyra finished with Bigs and stepped quickly away,
  aware that an injured kzin was unlikely to tolerate much contact with a
  human. Got brains, that girl, Jonah thought admiringly. Spots ducked in
  between the screens and stopped, turning his head inquiringly towards his
  brother, ears cocking forward and nostrils flaring. Then he rippled his fur
  in a shrug and squatted against the restraining timbers of the far wall,
  hands resting on the ground before him.
  "We can't stay here," Jonah said abruptly. "There's something you should
  know: I don't think that those bandits were acting on their own."
  It took a few minutes to sketch in Jonah's relations with Buford Early, and
  Early's campaign of persecution. Silence followed, and he went on:
 290The Best of All Possible Wars

  "We can't lug that"-he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the tnuctipun
  spyship-"either. Either the bandits will come back with more men, or the
  real Gendarmerie will show up. The bandits will kill us, the Gendarmerie
  might-and the government will certainly stamp everything Excruciatingly
  Secret and silence us, one way or another. I'm a pariah, you two are
  kzin, Fra Nordbo here comes from a suspect family subject to pressure-
  "And I'm a worthless old bushcoot," Hans said cheerfully.
  "If we were lucky, they might buy us off," Jonah continued. "If we want
  to make anything of what we've got, we'd better get out quick and make
  a sale to the only one who has the resources to make something of this-to
  Montferrat-Palme. At least we'll have some bargaining position with him."
 "That ... is ... not ... all," a voice said behind him.
  Jonah shot erect, turning before he came down again. Within its sac of
  fluid, the tnuctipun's eyes had opened. It stayed in its fetal position,
  hands wrapped about knees. The three eyes blinked vertically, and the
  mouth moved; the lips seemed almost prehensile, and they were not in
  synch with the words that he heard. The translator program, then.
 "I ... will ... not . . . be ... buried ... again.
  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Durvash whimpered to himself, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Agony, agony
  to speak. Agony to think. Last. He was the last. Ifailed. Suicide night
  had succeeded. The thrint had won. Egg mother. Womb mother. Father.
  Siblings. All dead. The tnuctipun race was dead, and he was the last. The
  last by three billion years. Onecelled organisms had evolved to
  intelligence while he lay within this planet's crust. He was not even
  sure it was the planet he had lost consciousness on; there was more than
  enough time for his damaged craft to have drifted through several
  systems. Time for all the bodies of thrint and tnuctipun and shotovi and
  zen-gaborni to rot away, and the fabric of their cities to erode to dust
  and the dust to be ground down under moving continents, and for stars to
  age and-
  Rest, the faithful machines said; they had no souls, no souls that longed
  for the deep red velvet sleep of death. Yourfunctions are at less than
  45% of optimum and you must restfor the healing to be complete.
  He jerked. No. I must think. He was not the last tnuctipun! His race had
  won, not the mouth-beshitting Slavers, joy brought Durvash tears as
  painful as despair.

               291
 292The Best of All Possible Wars

 He existed; his autodoc and computer existed. They contained the knowledge
 to clone his cells, to modify the genetic structures to replicate
 individuals of all three sexes. Genetic records of thousands of tnuctipun;
 that was part of the general autodoc system. His rubbery lips peeled off his
 serrated teeth in aggression-pleasure. Tnuctipun were pack-hunters of great
 sociability; group survival was sweet ecstasy.
  I will need facilities. Laboratories, tools, time. The current sentients
  here would be complete fools to allow a rebirth ofthe tnuctipun species, of
  tnuctipun cultureand all of that was encoded in the memory of his computer
  as well.
  They were not complete fools. Not very bright by tnuctipun standards, but
  then few races were. They were certainly more acute than thrint-by about a
  fifth to a third, he judged, from the hour or so of conversation, and to
  judge from their technology. It was fairly advanced, in a quaint sort of
  way-the beginnings of an industrial system, interstellar travel and fusion
  drives.
  They were divided, too. Species from spades, as was natural: the tnuctipun
  word for "alien" traAated roughly as "food that talks." Also individual
  from individual, a common characteristic of inferior races-he quickly
  suppressed memory of his own rivals at home. Durvash knew what to make of
  that. He had been trained as a clandestine agent, and his proudest
  accomplishment had been an entire thrint world wiped clean of life by
  engineering a civil war between thrintun clan elders.
  The large carnivore, he decided. Carnivores were easiest to work with, in
  his opinion-as he was one himself. He is in a minority of one. It should be
  easy to persuade him to use the neural-connector earplug. That would make
  communication easy, and certain other things, if the biochernistries were
  similar enough.
 Durvash squeezed his eyes shut. No warrior of
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING293

 tnuctipun had ever been so alone as he. He had lost a universe; there was a
 universe to win.
  If I do not go mad, he thought; although his autodoc would probably not let
  him do so. He did not know if that was fortunate, or the most terrifying
  thing of all.
 Sleep ...

  The little caravan prepared to depart in the blueish half-light of Beta
  dawn, with Alpha still a hint on the horizon, blocked by the peaks whose
  passes they would have to traverse. The mules had become inured to kzin
  scent-somewhat-and were loaded first, to proceed Tyra's skittish horses who
  were doubly disturbed by the smell of carnivore and the dead horses from
  yesterday's battle. Fading woodsmoke and coffee smells mixedAith the crisp
  earthy scent of dew on the bushes, and the cries of birds and gliders cut
  a sharper undercurrent through the sound of the waterfall. That came into
  focus again, now that they were leaving it after so many months of labor.
  "Done right well by us, this mountain," Hans said reflectively, strapping
  the packsaddle of his mule. 'Wonder if it has a name? Not likely," he
  decided. "Too small." The little eroded volcanic peak was a midget among
  the jotuns, even in the comparatively low hollow.
  "Muttiberg," Tyra said, passing by with her saddle over her shoulder. The
  dog Garm pressed against her leg, casting another apprehensive look back at
  the two kzin. He had been trying to keep himself between her and them since
  she rode into camp, despite the flattened ears and tucked tail of
  intimidation. Kzinti were nightmares to canines, of course. "The locals
  call it the Mother Mountain-for obvious reasons."
  Probably a man named them. This and the hill opposite did look like a
  woman's breasts, if you squinted and had the right attitude. Muttiberg-
   294The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Let me give you a hand with that," Jonah said; then he was a little
  surprised at the weight of the saddle. Strongfor a Wunderlander, he
  thought; but then, you could tell that from her build, almost like an
  Earther's.

  Bigs lifted the life-capsule possessively. It was lighter than it should
  be, some application of gravity polarizer technology beyond current
  capacities, and opaque now as well. The whole assemblage had seemed to ooze
  through the wall ofthe spaceship, leaving no mark of its passage. For the
  first time in his life Bigs felt lust as a purely mental state, not just
  the automatic physical reaction to kzinrette pheromones. It was an oddly
  cerebral sensation, yet it had the same obsessive quality of excluding all
  other considerations. The tnuctipunvoice murmured in his ear, and he
  commanded them not to twitch. Only the slightest subvocalization was
  necessary to reply, too faint even for Spots's ears to catch.
  He fitted the life capsule into one side of the pack saddle; the other was
  balanced with sacks of gold dust, worthless as dirt now. 'We have a means
  of converting matter into energy along a beam,' the voice said. Bigs's mind
  blossomed with visions of monkey warships flashing into fireballs, galaxies
  of fire to light the triumphant passage of k-/-inti dreadnoughts. Planetary
  surfaces gouted upward, gnawing down to fortresses embedded in the crusts.
  'Matter-energy conversion is also available as a power source.' Fleets
  crossed between suns in days, weeks. Once or twice, no more, in the history
  of the Patriarchy a warrior-a Hero-had been adopted into the Riit clan,
  promoted to the inmost lairs. What reward would be great enough for
  Chotra-Riit, savior of the k/,inti? What glory great enough for the one who
  brought the Heroic Race domination not merely over the monkeys, but over a
  galaxy as well? Man was not the only enemy of the Patriarchy. None of them
  could stand
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING295

 against the secrets of the tnuctipun. The Eternal Pride would sweep the
 whole spiral arm in a conquering rush.
  Slaver dripped down from his thin black lips to the fur of his chest. He
  ignored it, taking the mule's bridle as tenderly as he might have borne up
  his firstborn son.

  ". . . and so after Father was forced to leave on that crazy astrological
  expedition with Riao-Captain, Mutti had more and more trouble with the
  kzin," Tyra went on.
  Jonah leaned his head closer, interest and concern on his face. They were
  strung out over rocky plateau country, following a faint trail upwards
  toward the nearest pass through the central Jotuns. The mountains curved
  away northeastward, this slightly-lower hilly trough between the main
  ranges heading likewise; directly east and south were the headwaters of the
  Donau, and the long road down to the fertile lowlands where Munchen lay.
  Tyra hesitated and went on; Jonah seemed to be that rare thing, a man who
  knew how to listen. Not to mention looking at you without salivating all
  the time, something that was more subtly flattering than open interest.
  "She had not his strength of body. Or," she went on more slowly, "his
  strength of will-they were very close. So she must yield more to the
  kzinti, and the replacement for Riao-Captain was less ... willing to
  listen, in any case. Things were growing worse all over Wunderland then;
  the war was going against the ratcats, and they squeezed harder on the
  human population." She scowled. "Yet Mutti did her best; more than can be
  said for some others, who were punished less."
  "I agree with you," Jonah said. "Your family seems to have gotten a raw
  deal. Mind you," he went on, "I wasn't here, dealing with the kzin
  occupation. That twists people's minds, and there's little justice in an
  angry man-or a frightened one."
 296The Best of All Possible Wars

  She nodded, liking him better for the honesty than she would have for more
  fulsome support.
  "In the meantime," he went on, lowering his voice, "I'm worried about our
  kzin here and now." He dropped into English, which was a language they
  shared and the sons of Chotr-z-Shaa did not. "They're not acting normal."
  Tyra blinked puzzlement. They had been sullen, true. "Kzinti are not
  supposed to be talkative or gregarious, are they?" she said.
  "Tanj, no," Jonah said, taking a moment to fan himself with his hat. This
  high up the heat was dry rather than humid, but the pale volcanic dirt and
  scattered rocks threw it back like a molecular-film reflector.
  "Bigs is surly even by kzin standards, but now he's downright euphotic. Not
  talking, but look at the way his fur ripples, and the way he holds his
  tail. Spots is talkative for a kzin. Now he's miserable."
  Tyra looked more closely. The smaller kzin was plodding along with back
  arched, the tip of his tail carelessly dragging in the dirt, even though it
  must be sore. His nose was dry-looking and there was a grayish tinge to its
  black, and his fur was matted and tangled, with burrs and twigs he had not
  bothered to comb out. Bigs's pelt shone, and his head was up, alert, eyes
  bright.
  "It is a bad sign when a kzin neglects his grooming, isn't it?" she
  murmured.
 "Very bad."
  She glanced aside at him. "You know them very well. From having fought them
  so long?"
  He shrugged. "I know these two," he said. "You have to be careful you don't
  anthropomorphize, but offhand I'd say Spots is thoroughly depressed and
  worried. I don't know if that worries me more than Bigs being so happy, or
  not."
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC297

  Spots folded his ears. "Must you torture that thing?" he said to Hans,
  as the old man blew tentatively into his harmonica. "It screams well, but
  the pain to my ears is greater."
  Off curled asleep around the canvass-wrapped tnuctipun module, Bigs's
  ears twitched in harmony. His hands and feet were twitching as well,
  hunting in his sleep, and an occasional happy mreeowrr trilled from his
  lips.
  Hans shrugged and put it away, picking up his cards. "Don't signify," he
  said mildly. "You want to bet?"
  "Sniff this group of public-transit tokens," Spots snarled, throwing down
  his hand. "I fold. Count me out of the game." He stalked off into the
  night, tail lashing.
  "Ratcats don't have the patience for poker," Hans observed. "Bids?"
  "I fold too," Jonah said. Tyra had dropped out a round before.
  "Neither do youngsters," Hans observed, showing his hand; three sevens.
  He raked in the pot happily. "Could be we'll all be very rich, but I
  never turn down a krona."
  Jonah made a wordless sound of agreement and looked over at the girl. She
  was sleeping, curled up against her saddle with one hand tucked beneath
  her cheek. He smiled and drew the blanket up around her shoulders ...
  "Awake!" Spots shouted, rushing back into the circle of firelight on all
  fours.
  Jonah leaped. Tyra awoke and stretched out a hand for her rifle in its
  saddle-scabbard; Garm growled and raised his muzzle.
  The kzin kicked his brother in the ribs and danced back from the
  reflexive snap. "Awake. Are you injecting sthondat blood? Get ready!"
  He turned to the humans. "A dozen riding beasts approached; their riders
  dismounted and are coming this way, a half-kilometer. They will be within
  leaping distance in a few minutes."
 298The Best of All Possible Wars

  Bigs awoke sluggishly, shaking his head and licking at his nose and
  whiskers. Spots efficiently stripped the beamer from a pack-saddle and
  tossed it to his brother before freeing his own weapon. Jonah checked his
  rifle; Tyra and Hans were ready.
  "Careful," he said. "These might be the bandits-but they might not. We
  can't fight our way back to Neu Friborg through a hostile countryside."
  Spots snorted. "Who would be pursuing us but the ones we fought, thirsty
  for blood and revenge?" he said. Bigs was growling, a hand resting on the
  module. Still, th~ small~r kzin licked his nose for greater sensitivity and
  stood stretched upright, sniffing open-mouthed.
  The wind favors us," he said after a moment. "And I do not recognize any
  individual scents. That does not mean these are not the ones we defeated-I
  had little time to pay close attention then." He sounded disappointed,
  thwarted in his longing to lose himself in combat and forget the decisions
  that had been oppressing him.
  Spread out and we'll see," Jonah said; it made no sense to outline
  themselves against their campfire. "No, leave the fire. If you put it out,
  they'd know we'd spotted them.-
  Not bandits, was his first thought, as he watched through his field
  glasses. The bandits had been in a mismatch of bits of military gear and
  outbacker clothes. These were in coarse cotton cloth and badly tanned
  leather, with wide-brimmed straw hats and blanket-like cloaks. Their
  weapons were a few ancient, beautifullytended chemical hunting rifles, and
  each man carried a long curved knife, heavy enough to be useful chopping
  brushwood. Taueah looking bunch, he thought, but not particularly mer~cing.
  T&ey stopped a hundred or so yards out from the fire and called, a warning
  or hail. He could not follow their thick backcountry dialect, but
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC299

 Hans and Tyra evidently could. They stood and called back, and Jonah
 relaxed.
  "Act casual," Hans said as they all returned to the fire. "These people
  are deep outback. They've got peculiar ways." He frowned a little. "Don't
  think they'll like we've got kzin with us."
  The men did stiffen and bristle when they saw the silent red-orange forms
  on the other side of the fire, but they removed their hats and squatted
  none the less, their hands away from their weapons. One peered across the
  embers of the fire at Tyra and smiled, nudging the others. That brought
  a chorus of delighted, crook-toothed grins; the kzinti controlled
  themselves with a visible effort.
 "I passed through their village," Tyra explained.
 "What do they want?" Jonah asked,
  Now that fear was gone it was a nagging ache to be delayed. They must get
  to Neu Friborg before Early and his cohorts could think up something
  else. Jonah never doubted for a moment that the bandits had had Early's
  backing, doubtless through his Nipponjin friends. The ID cards proved
  that, the forgery was far too good for hill-thieves to have managed.
  "Got to handle the formalities first," Hans said. "Go on, light up."
  The outbackers; were passing around their pouch of tobacco; Jonah
  clumsily rolled a cigarette and passed it to Tyra, who managed the
  business far more neatly, even one-handed. She poured cups of coffee and
  handed them around as Hans filled his pipe, lit it with a burning stick
  from the fire and passed that likewise; the kzinti were pointedly
  ignored, crouching back with their eyes shining as red as the coals. Time
  passed in ritual thanks, in inquires about their health and that of their
  horses and mules, talk of the dry weather ...
 Tyra leaned forward intently as the real story came
 300The Best of All Possible Wars

 out. "They had a brush with our bandits," she said. "And-oh, Gott, no!"
  Hans took up the story, listening intently; Jonah could catch no more
  than one word in three. "Sent some of their kids up-hill for safety. Ran
  into an ambush. Couple of men killed; they got the kids back, but they'd
  been hit with some sort of weapon they don't understand. The kids are
  alive and breathing, but they won't wake up.
  Jonah's skin crawled. He relayed a few questions through the two
  Wunderlanders. "Neural disrupter," he said, when the villagers had
  answered, "Didn't know they had one-nasty thing, short-range but
  effective."
  "They want-they want us to do something for them, heal the children,"
  Tyra burst in. "What can we do?"
  "Hmmm." Hans broke off to rummage through their medical kit. "Yep. That
  might work." He spoke to the headman of the strangers; they stood. 'Wants
  us to come right away. That'd be better. Take a day or two to get to
  their settlement, two three days there."
  Jonah opened his mouth to object-couldn't they call in to one of the
  lowland villages and get a doctor in by airear?-and then shut his mouth
  again when Tyra looked at him. Damn. Shame works where guilt wouldn't.
  Bigs felt no such objection; he shot to his feet, sputtering in the
  Imperative Mode of the Hero's Tongue, with his brother only half an
  expostulation behind. A dozen outbacker heads turned to the aliens like
  gunturrets tracking, hands moving towards rifles and machetes. A sudden
  chill hit Jonah's stomach as he heard Bigs:
 'We will not delay."
  Even then, Jonah frowned in puzzlement. His command of the Hero's Tongue
  was excellent if colloquial, and he could have sworn that that had been
  in Ultimate Imperative Mode-which only the Riit,
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING301

 the family of the Patriarch, were entitled to use. Not that there was
 anything on Wunderland to stop Bigs using any grammatical constructions he
 pleased, but it was an unnatural thing for the big kzin to do. He was a
 traditionalist to a fault, that much had been clear for months. Spots
 stopped in mid-yowl to glance aside at him, confirming Jonah's hunch.
  No matter. Both kzin were on the verge of fighting frenzy, and a very nasty
  little battle could break out at any second with a scream and leap. Garm
  backed up, bristling and barking hysterically; the kzinti ears twitched,
  and that was just the extra edge of hysteria that might set them off.
  "Shut that damned dog up!" he barked. Tyra grabbed its collar and soothed
  it. "You two, you won't get extra speed by starting a battle now."
  "What are the kittens of these feral omnivores to us?" Spots said, all his
  teeth showing. "You pledged to cooperate in this hunt with us, Jonah-human.
  And you were the one who said we risk failure with every minute of delay.
  Is the word of Man good, or is it not?"
  A weight of meaning seemed to drop on that last phrase; Spots was watching
  him intently, not staring at the outbackers the way Bigs did. Jonah had a
  sudden leaden conviction that more rested on his decision than he could
  estimate.
  "Look. . . " he began. Then an idea struck. "Tyra, these people, they're
  trustworthy?" An emphatic nod. "You and Hans are the ones with the medical
  training. You two go to the village; Spots and Bigs and I will take our ...
  load on ahead. You can catch up-the outbackers will lend you a horse,
  surely, Hans."
  Bigs'head jerked around to look at him, and his muzzle moved in the
  half-arcs of emphatic agreement. Spots brushed back his whiskers, as if
  confirming something to himself
 302The Best of All Possible Wars

  "That would be according to your oath," he said softly. "I apologize."
  Jonah was a little surprised; 'sorry' was something kzinti were reluctant
  to say, especially to other species.
  The outbackers followed the exchange with wary eyes. Hans turned to them
  and spoke, then smiled at Jonah:
  "As it turns out, young feller, they don't want our kzin anywhere near
  their place anyway. just me and Fra Nordbo here are fine. We'll start
  right away, if that's all right with you. Sooner begun, sooner done."
 Tyra rose. "Will you be all right?" she asked softly.
 "We'll manage," Jonah replied.

 "I do not have to account to you," Bigs said loftily.
  StIv using that tense!" Spots snapped in a hissing whisper, glancing
  ahead to where Jonah walked beside the lead mule. "Who contacted the
  Fanged God and promoted you to royalty, Big-son of Chotrz-Sbaa?"
  "I am self-promoted," Bigs replied softly, but with no particular effort
  to keep his voice down. "And the Fanged God fights by my side. How else
  would the two monkeys remove themselves? We will take the northeastern
  path, abandoning all but the beast necessary to carry the capsule. Alone,
  we will make better time. There is a kzin settlement at Arhus-onDonau.
  We will seek shelter there. We will build a means to get off-planet, or
  buy it-these monkeys will do anything for money."
  "You are self-befuddled!" Spots said. "Fool. What will Jonah-human say
  to this?"
  "It is what Durvash says that is important," Bigs said, resting his hand
  on the module. "He becomes clearer all the time."
  Spots recoiled. "Now you, oh pattlarchal warrior, take orders like a
  slave from that little horror?"
 Bigs bristled, suddenly swelling up and hulking over
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING303

 his smaller sibling in dominance-display. Spots forced himself to match
 it, letting his claws slide free.
  "At least it is a carnivore, you ... you submitter-toomnivores," Bigs
  grated. "Your breath stinks of grass!"
  Spots's mouth gaped at the horrendous insult. All their lives they had
  sparred and tussled for dominance, insulting each other in the friendly
  fashion of non-serious rivals. That was a blood libel.
 "Is your oath nothing to you?" he grated.
  "Oh, I will allow the monkey to fight me ... barehanded," Bias said, with
  a sly, horrible amusement in the twitch of his ears and brows. "That
  fulfills the oath." He paused for effect. "What of your blood-obligation
  to the Patriarchy and the Heroic Race, Spots-Son of Cbotrz-Shaa?"
  Abruptly, Spots collapsed into a fur-flattened, droopeared, limp-tailed
  puddle of misery. "I know," he muttered. "I am ripped in half. if you
  have forgotten your honor in madness, I have not. We are the last of the
  line of Chotrz,-Shaa. Two lives and the life of our House we owe these
  monkeys. Your life to Jonah-human. Mine to a female! Yet we owe blood and
  honor to the Patriarch."
  Bigs smirked, and Spots flared into a gape-jawed scream of rage: -Stop
  whacking at my tail, fatherless sthondat-sucker!"
  He could see Jonah turning, alarmed at the sound, and he forced calm on
  himself with an effort greater than he had thought was in him.
  "No killing by stealth," he finished, dropping into the Menacing Tense.
  "Or you die."
  Bigs smirked again, and continued in the infuriating inflections of a
  Patriarch: "You will conspire with a monkey against your own sibling?"
 "No. But I will not allow you to kill him."
  A sneer, just showing the ends of the dagger incisorfangs. -He is
  helpless as a kit at night."
 304The Best of All Fossible Wars

 "I will be watching."
  "How long can you go without sleep, brother? I will feast on his liver
  yet." Bigs stalked off after the train of mules. As lie came level with
  the last his hand rested on its pannier, and Spots could hear the edge
  of a whisper.
  My tail is cold, he thought in panic. What can I do? What can I do?

  Three nights later Spots watched desperately as Jonah prepared for sleep,
  tilting his broad-brimmed hat forward over his eyes; it was a bright
  night, alive with the shooting stars so common on Wunderland and with
  Beta Centauri overhead near the moon. The human gave him a puzzled look
  as he settled in, and then his breathing grew slow and steady, his
  heartbeat sounded like an ancient Conundrum Priest drum to Spots's
  straining ears. A heavy drum, regular, soothing. Heavy as his eyelids,
  so soothing as they dropped across dry and aching eyes, so pleasant.
  Making the ground soft tike piled cushions, like piled cushions in the
  palazzo when he was young, and his father was crooning:
 "Brave little orange kzin
 Brave little spotted kzin,
 Turn to the din
 And if it makes you smile,
 Leap
 But if it is nothing at all
 Really nothing at all
 You may turn-in;
 And droop your eyes while
 You sleep."
  Spots sighed and turned, drifting, content. Then shot half-erect,
  trembling, his fur laid tension-flat on the bones of face and body, tail
  out and rigid.
  Bigs was halfway from his lair of blankets to Jonah, moving with
  ghost-lightness. Moonlight and Betalight
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING305

 glinted on the heavy blade of the wtsai in his hand. He caught his
 brother's eye and shrugged with fur and tail, grinned insolence, flared
 his nostrils.
  I scent that which you do not. Slowly, insultingly, he sauntered back to
  his blankets, laid himself down. Then he yawned, a pink-and-white,
  curl-your-tongue yawn of drowsy contentment, stretching every limb
  separately and grooming a little. He circled, finding exactly the right
  position, and curled up with tail over nose. One eye remained open for
  a second, glinting at Spots from beneath the tufted eyebrow.
 You were lucky. But I only have to be lucky once.
  Spots whimpered, tongue dangling as he panted with envy and despair.

 "Are you all right?"
  Spots blinked. What am I doing lying on the ground? he thought.
  The mule had stopped, pulling at the brushes nearby with a dry tearing
  sound as leathery leaves parted. One limb at a time, the kzin pulled
  himself up, Heavy, heavy, more heavy than the battle-practice in the old
  days, when their Sire worked them to exhaustion under kzin-normal gravity
  in the exercise room of the palace. Something seemed to bold his hands
  to the dry packed soil, and pains shot up his back as he stood and
  squinted into the bright daylight. He ran his fingers through the tangled
  mass of his mane, and hanks and knots of hair came loose, the furnace
  wind snatched it from him and scattered the long orange hairs on the air,
  on the dirt, on the scrubby bushes and sparse grass. He stood, dully
  staring after them.
  "Are you all right?" Jonah asked again. Then he recoiled hastily from the
  vicious snap that nearly ripped open his arm. "If that's the way you want
  it," he said, tight-lipped, and went back to the lead mule.
 306The Best of All Possible Wars

  Bigs's ears smirked as he came by, his hand on the capsule. He never left
  it, now. "Soon we will camp for the night," he jeered. "Won't it be good to
  sleep?" More seriously: "It will be for the best, brother."
  "I have no brother," Spots rasped, and stumbled forward to take the reins
  of his mule.

  Even the scream hardly woke Spots. His eyes were crusted and blurred even
  when he opened them. The savage discord of metal on metal jarred him to
  some semblance of consciousness, and the scent of hot freshshed blood. He
  stumbled erect, mumbling, and stepped forward. The raw-scraped tip of his
  tail fell across the white ash crust that covered the embers of the fire,
  and he shot half a dozen meters into the air, screeching.
  When he came down, he could see. Bigs's first leap had failed, and Jonah
  had gotten out of his blankets and erect. Now the two were circling; Jonah
  had a fourfurrowed row of deep scratches across his chest, and the very tip
  of Bigs's tail was missing. The wtsai gleamed in the kzin's hand, and Jonah
  had his arm-long cutterbar whistling in a figure-eight between them.
  Totally focused, Bigs lunged forward. Density-enhanced steel shrieked
  against the serrated edges of the bar and Bigs danced back, smooth and
  fast. There was a ragged notch in the blade of his honor knife, and his
  snarl grew more shrill. For a moment Spots thought desperately that his
  brother would walk the narrow path of honor, weapon against weapon.
  "Get back," Bigs flung over his shoulder, reaching for the strakkaker at
  his waist.
  The world stood still for Spots. I owe my life to Jonahhuman. I owe my life
  to the Patriarch. This is my brother That is my- There was no more time for
  thought.
  Spots screamed and leaped. "No!" he howled. His leap carried him onto the
  larger kzin's back.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING307

  There was nothing wrong with Bigs's reflexes. Even as Spots fastened on
  to him with all sixteen claws he ducked his head between his shoulders
  to avoid the killing bite to the back of the neck and threw himself
  backward, stabbing with reversed wtsai. The blade scored along Spots's
  massive ribeage, but there was no soft unarmored midsection to a kzin
  body. He twisted to lock the arm as they rolled, accepting the savage
  battering and the pain as they rolled across the campfire, fangs probing
  deeper and deeper through fur ruff and into the huge muscles of Bigs's
  neck. Groping for the vulnerable spine, to drive a spike into the nerve.
  Jonah stepped forward, cutter bar raised to strike in a chop that would
  have cut through Bigs's torso to the hearts. To the hormone-speeded
  reflexes of the battling kzinti, the movement might as well have been in
  slow motion. A full-armed swi e of Bigs's free hand caught him across fa,
  - ~ and shoulder, sending him spinning limp to the ground in a shower of
  flesh. In a tuck-and-roll that was a continuation of the same movement
  Bigs levered his brother off his back and sent him a dozen meters away.
  They screamed together and met in a flowing curve of both their leaps,
  mouths open in the killing gape, hands and feet ripping and tearing and
  stabbing. Rolling over and over in a blurred mass of orange fur, blood,
  distended eyes, flashing steel and gleaming inch-long fangs.
  Spots's grip on his brother's knife-wrist weakened, the claw-grip on his
  throat choking him until his eyes bulged almost out of their deep-set
  sockets. Stronger and fresher, the muscles of the short thick arm
  straining against his were as irresistible as a machine. Pain sho6through
  his hand as his thumb opped out of its socket, and then something cold
  anyvery hot at the same time lanced into his body. Gray swam before his
  eyes as vision
 308The Best of All Possible Wars

 narrowed down to the killgrin of his brother's face, then winked out.
 Sleep, he told himself. You fought to the death.

  Victory was cold and pain and nausea, after the first liver-jolting flash
  of adrenaline. Bigs staggered away, away from the body that lay at his feet
  with blood bubbling on its chest-fur, blood in mouth and nose and eyes
  where his teeth had savaged it. He threw away the broken hilt of his wtsai
  and gave a sobbing shriek of grief and triumph at the risen moon.
  "I have killed my brother. Howlfor God!" His brother, guardian of his back
  in the tussles of childhood. Last son of Chotrz-Shaa beside himself.
  "Not now," the voice whispered in his ears. "You have work to do. Gather
  the equipment. Bury the bodies. We must move."
  Bigs shook his head as if shaking off water, clawing at his own ear. The
  little implant seemed impossible to dislodge; sometimes these days in evil
  dreams he felt that it was growing tendrils into his brain from his ear.
  Pain shot through his head at the thought.
 "Nonsense. Now, get to work."
  Howling again, Bigs beat fists on the capsule until the mule reared and
  kicked and nearly escaped. Then he seized the halter and dragged it after
  him into the night. He must run, like Warlord Chmee, run from his guilt.
  Had not Chmee broken an oath for ultimate power? He must run.
  "Stop, you brainless savage! Obey!" The pain again, but Bigs ignored it.
  "I did it for the Heroic Race!" he screamed into the night. "None shall
  command us. No more monkey arrogance. I did itfor you, my brother!" His
  grief rose shrill, a huge sound that daunted even the advokats pack that
  had come to prowl at the edge of sight, attracted
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC309

 by the blood. Dragging the mule behind him, LargeSon of Chotrz-Shaa ran into
 the darkness.

  The pain in his head was continuous now. Sometimes he felt as if his brain
  were being dragged out, and he found himself walking in a circle to the
  left, head bent to his shoulder. When it lessened, he was conscious of the
  voice again. It was daylight, but he was uncertain of the day. They were
  over the pass, and the ground on either side was covered in long grass,
  with patches of trees on the higher slopes. The cool damp scent from the
  lowlands spread out below him was like a benediction in his nostrils; there
  was no sight of Man, not even of his herdbeasts.
  "Very well," Durvash said. "We will proceed straight. That pack of
  scavengers probably finished them off in any case. No time may be spared to
  go back, in any case."
  Bigs mumbled something. He felt he should resent the tone; did the ancient
  revenant not know he was speaking to a Conquest Hero? Soon to be the
  greatest of all Conquest Heroes? Yet the emotion was far away, as if
  muffled behind a thick layer of sherrek fur. Why was his mind wandering so?
  Great chunks of time seemed to be missing, and sometimes his vision would
  blur like a badly adjusted holoscreen. It kept the grief at bay, though.
  With that he began to weep, an eeeuuureuee sound.
  "My brother fought for me when the older kits pulled my nose," he mumbled
  to himself. "I grew bigger, but he never quarreled with me." Not enough to
  really draw blood. 'We shared our first kzinrett." An under-the-grass
  transaction with a warrior needing quick cash to cover a gambling debt.
  "We-"
 "Silence."
  "Urr-urrr-" Bigs's throat would not work any more, and he found he had lost
  interest in speaking.
           ~0.       .0.10.
 310The Best of All Possible Wars

  Well, now I know how the implant will work on these Ein, Durvash thought
  sourly. Badly. It had been designed to use on thrint and thrintun slave
  species, of course, %kith multiband capacity. Kzinti seemed very
  resistant to pain-center stimulus, and on a strange species the control
  of volitional routines was impossibly coarse.
  Report, he thought/ordered the autodoc system. Impatiently, he ran
  through the diagnostic and came to the conclusion. Prepare to decant me,
  be told it. Warnings flashed, but he overrode. The autodoc would be
  priceless as part of his breeding program, since it was capable of acting
  as an artificial womb, but he must not run down the base supplies of
  organic molecules for recombinant synthesis before he was sure of
  obtaining more. The local biochemistry was unlikely to have all a
  tnuctipun metabolism required.
  Besides, I am hungry and mad to see the sky, to smell fresh air again.
  If he was to be reborn into this new world, let his fangs and tongue take
  seizin of it.
  "I will emerge," he said to the kzin. It stood apathetic, eyes dull; he
  ordered the machine to jolt its pleasure centers and relax forebrain
  restriction, and awareness returned to the big golden eyes. "Where are
  we?"
  " Near. . . hrreeawho, how did we come here so fast? Where is ... we are
  near Neu Friborg, I think. We are there, I think."
  It lifted the module to the dirt and sank exhausted to the ground. Fluid
  began to cycle out of Durvash's lungs, and he wrapped his lips against
  the pain,
  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 Something was biting his tail.
  Spots groaned and tried to open his eyes, but they were gummed together.
  The biting stopped, and water fell across his face. He beard shouting.
  Feebly, he scrubbed at his eyes with a wrist, and blinked back to
  wakefulness. An advokat slinked in the middle distance, huge jaws
  working, matted pelt stinking of carrion.
  Jonah-human was looking down at him, from a safe distance, canteen in
  hand. Matted blood covered one side of his face, and fresh blood
  glistened on clumsy bandages around his neck and one arm. They glanced
  aside from each other's eyes, and the human stepped forward and sank down
  by the kzin's side.
 "Got to stop the bleeding," he rasped. "Here, drink."
  Spots lapped water from his cupped palm, and then seized the canteen to
  guzzle with his thin lips wrapped awkwardly around the spout. He coughed
  and felt tearing pain in his chest; water spurted out of his mouth.
  Looking down, he could see the bright gleam of steel among the tangled
  red mass of his flank.
  "It is not as bad as it looks," he wheezed, after taking a careful deep
  breath. "See, the steel must have turned

               311
 312The Best of All Possible Wars

 aside and snapped on the ribs-thanks to your cutter bar, which weakened it.
 My lungs are not pierced, nor my intestines." He licked at his nostrils and
 sniffed again. I would smell that."
  "Could be stuff inside hanging on by a thread," Jonah said worriedly.
  I will survive while you pursue the oath-breaker," Spots said grimly. Then
  the voice broke into a howl of woe.
  "Not until we get you to help. This would happen while Hans and Tyra are
  away with the medkit ... that'll be the closest place. You can lean on one
  of the mules, I can catch them. I think."
  My sibling attached him dishonorably, yet he will forego revenge to save my
  life, Spots thought. I am ashamed.
  "First," he said aloud, "you'll have to get this out of me.
  Jonah blanched as he looked down at the knifeblade. The stub of it moved
  with every breath.

  "We really should get under way," Tyra urged, with a sigh.
 "Yep. Figure we should."
  Hans smiled beatifically, and leaned back in the hammock. His was strung
  between two orange trees, and a few blossoms had fallen across his grizzled
  face. He brushed them aside and took another sip of the drink in his
  hollowed-out pineapple. There was rum in it, and cherries and cream and a
  few other things-passionfruit, for example-and it helped to make the warmth
  quite tolerable. So did the tinkling stream which flowed down the narrow
  valley under the overhanging cliff, and the shade of the palm trees. Hans
  Sbwartz had been a grown man when the kzinti came; he was into his second
  century now, and even with good medical care your bones
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING313

 appreciated the warmth after so much hard work. The air buzzed with bees,
 scented with flowers.
  "Thank you, sweetling," he said, as a girl handed him a platter of fried
  chicken; it had fresh bread on the side, and a little woven bowl of hot
  sauce for dipping. The girl smiled at him, teeth and green eyes and blond
  hair all bright against her tanned skin. Someone who looked like her twin
  sister was cutting open a watermelon for them. Not far away in a paddock
  grazed six horses, three for him and three for Tyra, and they had been
  turning down gifts of pigs and sheep and household tools for a solid day
  now.
  "These are sweet people," Tyra said, as the girl handed her a plate as
  well.
  "No argument," Hans said, gesturing with a drumstick. The batter on it
  was cornmeal, delicately spiced; he bit into the hot fragrant meat with
  appreciation. "They need some help, though. Someone to guide them through
  the next few years, getting back into contact with things. Otherwise
  they'll be taken advantage of."
  "True enough," Tyra said, more somberly. "I was surprised at you, the way
  you diagnosed those children and managed the treatment." Her young eyes
  were guileless, but shrewd. "What did you do before the conquest, Freeman
  Shwartz?"
  "This and that, this and that," Hans said, repelling her curiosity with
  mild firmness. The youngsters were all up and about, although they would
  need further therapy. Unfortunately, that would cost; it would be some
  time before Wunderland could afford planetary health insurance again.
  "And we should get going; I'm worried about jonaabout Freeman Matthieson,
  alone with those kzin."
  Hans suppressed a smile. His tolerant amusement turned to concern as the
  headman of the village dashed up, sweating, his eyes wide.
 314The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Your friend," he gasped out. "Your young friend and one of the accursed
  ratcats-they are here. They are hurt!"
  Hans tossed his plate and drink aside, yelling for his medkit as he landed
  running down the pathway. Tyra was ahead of him, her long slim legs
  flashing through the borrowed sarong.

 "Finagle, there is a heaven after all," Jonah murmured.
  The cool cloth sponged at his face and neck as he looked up through matted
  lashes at Tyra's face. Sheer relief made him limp for long moments, his
  head lolling in her lap. A man could get used to this, he thought.
 Then: "Spots!"
  "He's all right," Tyra said. "In better shape than you, actually. The
  locals were a bit leery of having him in the village, but they put up a
  shelter for him and Hans has been working on him."
  "Speak of der teufel, - Hans said, ducking through the doorway of bamboo
  sections on string. "Aren't you sitting pretty, young feller," he added.
  Tyra blushed slightly and set Jonah's head back on the pillow.
  "Your furry friend is fine, as far as I can tell," the old man went on.
  "Growling and muttering about that brother of his."
 "Who nearly killed both of us," Jonah said grimly.
  He felt at the side of his face; the swellings were gone, and his fingers
  slid over the slickness of sprayskin. From the sliizhtlv distant feel from
  within, he was on painblockers, butnot too heavily.
  "He would have killed me, if Spots hadn't jumped him." Jonah shook his
  head. "I'm surprised. Usually, if a kzin swears a formal oath, they'll
  follow it come corecollapse or memory dump; look at the way Spots stood up
  for me. I can see Bigs challenging me, but to try and kill me in my sleep-"
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING315

"Temptation can do funny things to a mind, human " H,
 or non, ans said shrewdly. "Seem to remember one feller who wouldn't
 believe there was a fuzzball under a rock, on account of temptation."
  Jonah flushed, conscious of Tyra's curiosity. "When will I be ready to
  ride?" he said.
 "Not for a week at least," Tyra said firmly.
  Hans tugged at his whiskers. "Funny you should ask; Spots said the same
  thing, more or less." His button blue eyes appraised the younger man.
  "Neither of ou was infected." Wunderland bacteria were not muY of a
  threat to humans; the native biochemistry lacked some elements essential
  to Terrestrial life, and vice versa. "He's healing real fast, seems to
  be natural for him. You're dehydrated, and those cuts shouldn't be put
  under much strain, sprayskin or no. Say three days, minimum."
  "One," Jonah said grimly. He held up a hand at Tyra, stopping her before
  the words left her lips. "It's not just what we-Montferrat-could do with
  the knowledge. It's what that tnuctipun could do, once it's out of its
  bottle. I think we badly underestimated it. I believe it's controlling
  Bigs, somehow. Control, hypnosis. Maybe what the Thrintun do for all I
  know. That thing is a deadly danger every instant it's free, never mind
  what the government or the ARM would do with it. I think it would be
  better if the ARM does get it. Maybe they can dispose of it."
  Hans nodded. "Can't say as I like it, but you're talking sense," he said.
  Slowly, reluctantly, Tyra nodded too. "I might have expected boldness
  like that from you," she murmured.
 "Tani. It's common sense."
 "Which is not common."

  Bigs shook his head again, trying to clear the stuffedwool feeling. It
  refused to go away, even though he was
 316The Best of All Possible Wars

 thinking more clearly again. More calmly, at least. The mule-beast brayed in
 his ear, then shied violently when he threatened its nose with outstretched
 claws.
  Stupid beast, he thought with a snarl, then exerted all his strength to
  haul it down again and hold it back; they were both very thirsty, but he
  could not let it run to the little watercourse ahead. It is does not even
  have enough brains to obey throughfear. The ruined manorhouse was half a
  kilometer ahead, and Neu Friborg beyond that. He would rest for the day in
  the ruins, and help Durvash when he emerged from the autodoc. Then he would
  pass the town in the dark and walk down the trail to Munchen until he could
  buy a ride on a vehicle.
  "And abandon this stinking, stupid mule-beast," he muttered to himself.
  With grim patience he led it down the steep clay bank to the slow-moving
  creek and moved upstream, throwing himself down to lap. It was the
  ground-scent that alerted him, since the wind was in his face. That and the
  clatter of pebbles as feet walked the bank behind him. He was up and
  turning in a flash, but his feet and hands were further away than they
  should have been, and he shook his head fretfully again. Spots. I snwll
  Spots. Stand by nw, brother. Bare is a back without brother to guard it.
  Spots was dead, he remembered, and forced his fur to bottle out.
  Four humans, all armed but scruffy and hungrylooking, their ribs standing
  out. The leader-beast a taller one with heavy facial pelt and the remains
  of a swollen belly. Bigs grinned and waited.
  "Hey, what's a ratcat doing here outback?" the leader asked. The voice had
  a haunting familiarity, except that the stuffing in his head got in the
  way.
  "Nice mule," one of the others said, examining the beast. It snapped at
  him, and he slapped its nose down
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KINC317

 with an experienced hand. "Hey, good saddle too."
  Bigs snarled. "Away from my possessions, monkeys," he said, backing
  toward the animal and retreating slightly to keep all the humans in his
  field of vision. They were ambling forward, not seeming to spread out
  deliberately but edging aroundbehind him all the same. His head swiveled.
  "Hey, that's not polite!" the big manbeast said, grinning insolently.
  "You shouldn't call us monkeys no more, on account of we kick your hairy
  asses."
  Bigs felt fury build within him and his tail stiffen, then inexplicably
  drain away. I must dominate them, he told himself.
  "We just poor bush-country men. You got any money? That's a fine
  strakkaker you got, and a nice beamer. Maybe I recognize the beamer-maybe
  we had one like it a while ago, before my luck got bad?" The leader's
  face convulsed. "Maybe Ed Gruedermann should boot some head, hey?"
  "Get back!" Bigs said. The monkeys continued their slinking, sidling
  advance.
  His hand blurred to the strakkaker, and he pivoted to spray the monkey
  nearest Durvash, he would turn and cut them all down. The weapon clicked
  and crackled-there was sand in the muzzle! He crouched to leap, but
  something very cold flashed across the small of his back. Something huge,
  like his father's hand, slapped him across the left side of his head, and
  he was failing. Falling for a very long time. Then he was lying, and he
  hurt very much, but his head seemed clear.
  "Forgive me, brother," he whispered. Soft hands reached (town out of time
  to lift and hold him, and a tongue washed his ears. A voice crooned
  wordlessly. He closed his eyes, and welcomed the long fall into night.

 "Hey, Ed-look at that!"
 Ed Gruederman glanced over to where a rifle muzzle
 318The Best of All Possible Wars

 prodded the huge wound on the dead kzin's head, right where his left ear
 would have been. Silvery threads were lifting out of the blood and grey
 matter, almost invisibly thin, twisting and questing in the light. He shd
 his cleaned machete back into the sheath behind his right hip and walked
 over to the mule.
  "Get back from that, you scheissekopf," he called to the man by their
  victim. Stupid ratcat, not to think we had a sniper ready. "That's some
  kzin shit, it may be catching, YOU know, like a fungus."
  The bandit jumped back and leveled his rifle, firing an entire cassette
  into the dead carnivore. When it clicked empty the torso had been cut in
  half, but the tendrils still waved slowly.
  "Watch it, fool, we're close to town-you want them to hear us and call the
  mounted police?" Then: "Yazus Kristus!"
  They all crowded around, until he beat them back with his hat. "Gold," he
  said reverentially, lifting one of the plastic sacks from that side of the
  packsaddle.
  They all recognized it, of course. Nobody could be in their line of work in
  the Jotuns and not recognize gold dust; for one thing, nothing else was
  that heavy for its size. They counted the bags, running their hands over
  them until their leader lashed the tarpaulin back.
  "Ten, fifteen thousand krona," one muttered. "Oh, the verguuz and bitches
  I can buy with this,"
  "Buy with your share, if Ed Gruedermann can keep your shitty head on your
  sisterfucking shoulders that long," their leader replied. "Back! There's an
  assessor's office in Neu Friborg. We'll stop there and get krona and seU
  the mule, and then head for Munchen or Arhuson-Donau, the Jotuns is no
  place for an honest man these days-too many police. Look at them, letting
  ratcats wander around attacking humans."
 That brought grins and laughter. "What's this, boss?"
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING319

 one asked, lifting the smooth featureless egg that balanced the mule's load.
  It shifted in his arms, and he dropped it with a cry of surprise. That
  turned to horror as it split open, and a spindly-limbed creature rose
  shakily from the twin halves; it was spider thin, blue-black and rubbery
  with three crimson eyes and a mouthful of teeth edged like a saw.
  "Scheisse!" the bandit screamed. The mobile lips moved, perhaps in the
  beginning of wait.
  The motion never had time to complete itself. A dozen rounds tore the
  little creature to shreds, until Gruedermann shouted the bandits into
  sense-they were in more danger from each other's weapons than from
  whatever-it-was. Even then three of them hacked it into unrecognizable bits
  with their machetes. Their fear turned to terror as the twin halves of the
  egg began to glow and collapse on themselves.
  "We get out of here," Gruedermann said. "The advokats will take care of the
  bodies." There were always a pack of them around a human settlement,
  waiting for garbage to scavenge, impossible to exterminate. "Come on. Money
  is waiting."

  "Not more than an hour or so," Jonah said, with an odd sense ofanticlimax.
  And yes, he thought. Sadness. The mangled remains of the tnuctipun were
  pathetically fragile in the bright light of Alpha Centauri. To come so far,
  so long, for this. There Ain't No justice.
  Tyra shied a stone at a lurking advokat that lingered, torn between greed
  and cowardice. It yelped and ran back a few paces; tears streaked her face.
  "Come look at this!" Hans said sharply. He reached down with a stick and
  turned the dead kzin's head to one side. Not much of the soft tissue was
  left after the advokat pack, but for some reason they had avoided the
  shattered bone.
 320The Best of All Possible Wars

  Spots began a snarl of anger, then stopped as he saw what was revealed. The
  others stood beside him, watching the silver tendrils move in their slow
  weaving. Hans probed with the stick; several of the threads lashed towards
  it and clung for a moment. A button-sized piece of the same material was
  embedded in the shattered remains of Bigs's inner ear.
 "Stand back," Spots said, unslinging his beamer.
  None of the others quarreled with that; they crowded back with the gaping
  outbackers as the kzin stood on the edge of the creekbank and fanned a
  low-set beam across the bodies until nothing was left but calcinated ash.
  The tendrils of the device in his brother's brain shriveled in the heat,
  and the central button exploded with a small fumf of released pressure.
  Spots kept up the fire until the wet clay was baked to stoneware, then
  threw the exhausted weapon aside.
  "That ... thing explains a good deal," Jonah said; Tyra nodded, reached out
  an hand and then withdrew it.
  "I am owed a debt of vengeance by a race three billion years dead," Spots
  said, in a voice that might have been of equal age. "How shall I requite
  it?"
  "There's a debt of vengeance only about three hours old," Hans said
  sharply. "Those tracks are heading for Neu Friborg."
 "Let's do it then," Jonah said grimly. "Let's go."

  "Hey, it's a good mule," Ed Gruedermann said. "But we don't need it any
  more-we had good luck up in the mountains."
  His men were on their best behavior; grinning like idiots with their hats
  clasped to their chests, and keeping their mouths silent the way he had
  told them. Gruedermarm felt a swelling of pride at their discipline; he'd
  had to boot plenty of head to get them so well-behaved. A big crowd had
  gathered around the mule with the unbalanced
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING321

 load as the four of them led it into town. Well, nothing ever happened in
 little arse-pimple outback towns like this, even if it did have a weekly
 run down to the lowlands. Fine well-set men like themselves were an event.
 He caught the eye of a young woman, scowling when she looked away.
  "This the assessor's office?" he said. It should be, the best building
  in the town and the only one of prewar rockmelt construction.
 "ja."
  A young girl of ten or so had slid under the mule, examining the girth
  and then running a hand down the neck. She seemed interested in the
  bar-code brand; not many of those out in the hills, he guessed. Then she
  ran up the stairs into the building.
  "How long did you say you'd been up in the jotuns?" a man said, his tone
  friendly.
  The crowd was denser now; Gruederman felt a little nervous, after so long
  in the bundu, but he kept his smile broad, even when he felt a plucking
  at his belt. Nothing there for a pickpocket to get, but in a few hours
  he'd be rich. With luck, he might be able to shed the others before he
  got to Munchen and cashed the assessor's draft. Pickings were slim in the
  jotuns these days. From what he heard, Munchen was a wide-open town with
  plenty of opportunities for a man with a little ready capital and not too
  many foolish scruples.
  A woman in a good suit came down the steps with the little girl and
  touched a reader to the mule's neck.
 "That's the one," she said quietly.
  Danger prickled at Gruedermann's spine. He shouted and leaped back,
  reaching for his machete. It was gone, hands gripped him, the honed point
  of his own weapon pricked behind his ear. He rolled his eyes wildly. All
  his men were taken, only one had unslung his weapon and it was wrestled
  away before he could do more than
 322The Best of All Possible Wars

 fire a round into the air. The crowd pushed in with a guttural animal snarl.
 "Kill the bandits!" someone shouted.
  The snarl rose, then died as the woman on the steps shouted and held tip
  her hands:
  "This is a civilized town, under law," she said firmly. "Put them in the
  pen-tie them, and two of you watch each of them. We'll call the police
  patrol back, they can't have gone far."
  "Take your hands off me!" Gruedermann screamed, as rawhide thongs lashed
  his wrists behind his back and a hundred hands pushed him through the
  welded steel bars of the livestock pen. "You can't do this to me!" He spat
  through the bars, snapping his teeth at an unwary hand and hanging on until
  a stick broke his nose. "Motherfuckers! Kzinshit eaters!"
  He screamed and spat through the strong steel until the square emptied.
  "What do we do now, boss?" one of the men asked, from his slumped position
  on the floor of the cage.
  "We fuckin'die," Gruedermann shouted, kicking him in the head. His skull
  bounced back against the metal; it rang, and the bandit feU senseless.

  Neu Friborg seemed deserted in the early evening gloaming, as Jonah and his
  party rode down the rutted main street. He stood in the saddle-painfully,
  since riding was not something a singleship pilot really had to study
  much-and craned his neck about. He could hear music, a slow mournful march,
  coming from the sidestreet ahead, down by the church.
  A little ahead of the riders, Spots lifted his head and sniffed. "They are
  there," he said flatly. "Also a large crowd of monke-of humans. Many armed.
  They do not smell of fear, most of them; only the ones we hunt."
 "Odd," Jonah said.
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING323

  He swung down from the saddle. Finagle, but that beast was trying to saw
  me in halffrom the crotch up, he thought. It had been downright
  embarrassing in front of Tyra, who seemed to have been born in the saddle
  from the way she managed it. She'd said something, about how a spacer
  must know more real skills than riding, though ... quite a woman.
  "Cautious but polite," Jonah said, leading the way. "Remember that." For
  Spots'benefit; the kzin seemed to be in a fey mood, bloodthirsty as usual
  but relieved. Perhaps that his brother hadn't broken an oath entirely
  under his own power, although Jonah suspected the tall l(zin had been a
  willing victim at the start. The temptation was simply too great. There
  are times when I think Early is right, he mused. But they never last.
  The little laneway opened out into a churchyard, and a field beyond that;
  the crowd stood in an are about the outer wall of the graveyard. There,
  outside the circle of consecrated ground, four men were digging graves.
  A double file of armed men and women faced them, with Provisional
  Gendarmerie brassards. Seeing the genuine article, Jonah wondered how he
  could have been taken in by the bandits, even for a moment. He also
  decided that the mounted police were decidedly more frightening than the
  freelance killers had ever been. Beside him, Tyra checked for a moment
  at the sight of the tall crop-haired blond officer who led the firing
  party.
  Jonah scanned the slab-sided Herrenmann face, and reluctantly conceded
  the family resemblance. If you subtract all the humor and half the
  brains, he decided. Aloud, in a whisper: "Your brother?"
 "Ib," she confinned.
  One of the digging men swung his shovel too enthusiastically, and a load
  of dirt ended up in the middle grave. The man there climbed out and
  leaned over to swat the culprit with his hat, cursing with
 324The Best of All Possible Wars

imaginative obscenity. Hans shaped a soundless whistle. "Seems the Provisionals
 got in before us," he said. "Can't say as I'm sorry-"
 "Neither am V' Jonah said.
 "I am," Spots grinned.
  The bandits stood in front of the graves they had dug. The rifles of the
  squad came up and Ib Nordbo's hand swung down with a blunt finality~.
  Whack. The bodies fell backward, and dust spurted up from the adobe wall of
  the churchyard behind. A sighing murmur went over the watching townsfolk,
  and they began to disperse. The Gendarmerie officer cleaved through them
  like a walking ramrod, marching up to the little party of pursuers.
  "So," he said, with a little inclination of his head. "Sister."
  "Brother," she replied, standing a little closer to Jonah. Ib's pale brows
  rose.
  "This is most irregular," he said, and turned to Jonah, ignoring the kzin
  and Hans as an obvious commoner. "You are the owner of the stolen mule and
  gold?"
 "We are," Jonah said with a nod.
  "You understand, everything must be impounded pending final adjudication,"
  he said crisply. "Proper reports must be filed with the relevant-why are
  you laughing?"
  "You wouldn't understand," Jonah wheezed. Beside him, Tyra fought hiccups,
  and Hans's face vanished into a nest of wrinkles. Even Spots flapped his
  ears, although his teeth still showed a little as he watched the workcrew
  shovel the dirt in on the dead bandits.
  "Ali, life," Jonah said at last; twin red spots of anger stood out on the
  young policeman's cheeks. "Tanj. And now, we'd like a line to Herrenmann
  Claude MontferratPalme, and transport to Munchen-if you please, Herrenmannn
  Leutnant Nordbo."
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING325

  "Except for me," Hans said, turning his horse's head. He leaned down to
  shake hands. "Goin' back. These people, they need me. You know where to
  reach mealways more fried chicken and rum for visitors!"

  Jonah began to laugh again as the old man touched a heel to his horse and
  the outbackers fell in behind him. "One happy ending at least," he said.
 "Oh, perhaps more," Tyra said.
 "Perhaps," Spots murmured.
  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Buford Early's laughter rolled across the broad veranda of the
  Montferrat-Palme manor. Evening had fallen, purple and dusky across the
  formal gardens, still with a trace of crimson on the terraced vineyards and
  coffee fields in the hills beyond. The ARM general leaned back in his
  chair, puffing at his cigar until it was a red comet in the darkness. The
  others looked at him silently; Montferrat calm and sardonic as always,
  Jonah stonyfaced, Tyra Nordbo openly hostile. Only Harold Yarthkin and his
  wife seemed to be amused as well, and they were not so closely involved in
  this matter. With the human-style food out of the way Spots had joined
  them, curled in one of the big wicker chairs with saucers of Jersey cream
  and cognac, still licking his whiskers at the memory of the live zianya
  that had somehow, miraculously, been found for him.
  "Glad you're happy," Harold said sardonically, pouring himself a glass of
  verguuz and clipping the end off a cigar.
  "Why shouldn't I be?" Early said. "An excellent dinner-it always is, here,
  Herrenmann MontferratPahne-"

               326
     IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING327

 "Please, Claude."
  "-Claude. And fascinating table talk, also as usual. Politics aside, I
  enjoy the company here more than I have on Earth for a long, long time.
  But you said you bad something to negotiate! It seems to me you've wound
  this affair up very neatly, and just as 1 would have wanted. All the
  evidence buried or gone, the bandits conveniently dead, and nothing of
  the tnuctipun but rumors. You might," he added to Jonah, "consider
  writing this up as a holo script. It'd make a good one."
 "Not my field," the ex-pilot said with a tight smile.
  "You're forgetting something, my dear fellow," Montferrat said with
  wholehearted enjoyment. "You know the approximate location of the
  tnuctipun spaceship. We know the exact location, and as you love to point
  out, you don't believe in swift direct action. We can get to it before
  you can-in fact, we just might have secured and moved it already. In
  which case you could look forever, it's a big planet. Treasure-trove law
  is clearly on our side too, for what that's worth. We could decipher some
  of those secrets you're so afraid of, and send them off-to We Made It and
  jinx, for example. Think of the joy you'd have trying to suppress it
  there."
  "No joy at all," Early sighed, taking the cigar out of his mouth and
  concentrating on the tip. "I don't suppose an appeal to your sense of
  responsibility for interstellar stability ... no. You might try not to
  be so gleeful," he went on. "What terms did you have in mind?"
  "Well, my young friends here-" Montferrat nodded at Jonah, Tyra and ifie
  kzin --and their rather older friend back in the outback, have all gone
  to a great deal of trouble and expense. I think they should be
  compensated. To about the extent of a hundred thousand krona each, after
  tax."
  "Agreed," Early said, sounding slightly surprised. "What's the real
  price?"
 328The Best of All Possible Wars

  "Well, in addition, you might get the blacklisting on Jonah removed-and
  have him and Fra Nordbo given security clearance for interstellar travel."
  Tyra's face lit up with an inner glow at the ARM general's nod.
  "And?" he said with heavy patience, sipping at his Cognac.
  "And you go home. Or to another star system, but you get out of Alpha
  Centauri."
  Early laughed again, more softly, and set the snifter down. "I hope you
  don't think I'm the only agent the ... ARM has?" he said.
  Jonah cut in: "No. But you're the smartest-or if you're not, we're hopeless
  anyway. It's a start."
  "It will win me time, which I will use," Montferrat added.
  Early sat in silence, puffing occasionally, while the sun set finally; the
  stars came out, and a quarter moon, undimmed by Beta Centauri. A flash of
  shooting stars lit up the night, ghostly soft lightning across the hills
  and the faces of humans and the kzin.
  "More time than you might expect," he said. "Bureaucracies tend to get
  slower as they age, and mine . . ." More silence. "Agreed," he said. "It's
  time for me to move on, anyway. I'm getting too well known here. Lack of
  discretion was always my besetting sin. There's still the war-we have to
  organize the ex-kzin slave worlds we're taking as reparations-and doubtless
  other work will be found for me. Ich deinst, as they say." He looked over
  at Montferrat. "Checkmate-for now," he said, rising and extending his hand.
  "For now," Montferrat agreed. "Harold here to hold the stakes?"
  "Agreed; we can settle the details at our leisure." He bowed to the ladies,
  an archaic gesture he might have picked up on Wunderland. Or not, if he was
  what they
      IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING329

 suspected. "And now, I won't put a damper on your victory celebrations."
  He strolled like a conqueror out to the waiting aircar, the stub of his
  cigar a comet against the night as he threw it away and climbed through
  the gullwing door. The craft lifted and turned north and west, heading
  for Munchen, an outline covering a moving patch of stars.
  "I doubt he's going to accept defeat gracefully," Jonah said, sipping
  moodily at his coffee. Montferrat had winced a bit when the younger man
  dumped his cognac into it. "Especially when he discovers the interior of
  the spaceship melted down into slag when the tnuctipun bastard died."
  "The hull alone is a formidable secret; he'll have the satisfaction of
  putting that in the archives," Montferrat said judiciously. "You know,
  I could almost pity him."
  That brought the heads around, even Spots's. '-Why?" Harold demanded,
  pulling himself out of reverie.
  "Because he's so able, and so determined-and his cause is doomed to
  inevitable defeat," Montferrat said. At their blank looks, he waved his
  cigarillo at the stars.
  "Look at them, my friends. We can count them, but we cannot really know
  how many. The number is too huge for our minds to grasp! With the
  outsider's gift of the hyperdrive, we have access to them all-and the
  kzinti will too, in their turn, you cannot keep a law of nature secret
  forever, despite what the ARM thinks."
  His voice deepened. "The universe is too big to understand; vastly too
  big to control even by the most subtle and powerful means, even this
  little corner of it we call Known Space. There is an age of exploration
  coming-as it was in the Renaissance, or the twentyfirst century. Nothing
  can Stop it. Nothing can stop what we-all the sentient species-will do,
  and venture, and become. That is why I pity Buford Early-and why I never
  despair of our cause, no matter how bleak the
 330The Best of All Possible Wars

 situation looks. Tactically we may lose, but strategically, we cannot."
  Jonah looked thoughtful, and Harold grinned across his basset-hound face.
  Tyra Nordbo laughed, and leaned forward to put a hand on his arm. The
  jewels in her tiara glistened amid the artfully-arranged piles of blond
  hair, and the shimmering silk of her gown clung.
 "Thank you for everything," she said.
  "Nonsense," he said, watching Jonah's gaze on her, warm and fond. Bless
  you, my children, he thought sardonically. And if I wasn't a middle-aged
  eighty and didn't have commitments elsewhere, you wouldn't have a chance,
  Jonah the Hero.
 "The stars," she said. "For both of us."
 "Perhaps," Montferrat said. "Someday."
 "Someday."
  Jonah laughed. -Myself, after the past couple of years, I'm not so sure
  I'll ever want to leave the confines of Greater Munchen again."
  Tyra laughed, but Montferrat had a suspicion the SolBelter might mean what
  he said; he sounded very tired, at a level below the physical.
  "May," Jonah added, standing and extending his crooked arm, -I show you the
  gardens, Fra Nordbo?'
 "I would be delighted, sir," she said.
  Montferrat watched them go. "A satisfactory conclusion, all things
  considered," he said. "Very satisfactory indeed."
 EPILOGUE:

  Harold's Terran Bar was far too noisy and crowded and smelled of tobacco
  smoke. Spots-Son of ChotrzShaa still felt it was appropriate, in memory
  of his brother. He had taken the same booth for the evening, and the
  remains of a grouper lay clean-picked on his plate. Glen Rorksbergen and
  Jersey mingled in yellow and amber delight in it saucer, beside his belt
  computer.
  It will take nwny years to decode that download, he thought. There had
  been far more in the tnuctipun spaceship's system than the mere fifty
  terabytes his belt model could hold, as well. Piecing together the
  operating code with nothing but fragmentary hints and sheer logic would
  be a torment.
 Still, he had time.
  To you, my brother, he thought silently, dipping his muzzle towards the
  drink. I dedicate the hunt.

            THE END
                                    