by Dean Ing
“Damn right they are,” Locklear insisted. “As you'll soon find out, if we can get their trust again. I've even taught a few of'em some of our language. And that's not all. But hey, I'm dying of curiosity without any news from outside. Is the war over?”
Commander Stockton coughed lightly for attention and the others seemed as attentive as Locklear. “It looks good around the core worlds, but in the Rim sectors it's still anybody's war.” He jerked a thumb toward the two-hundred-ton craft, twice the length of a Kzin lifeboat, that rested on its repulser jacks at the edge of the clearing with its own small pinnacle clinging to its back. “The Anthony Wayne is the kind of cruiser escort they don't mind turning over to small combat teams like mine. The big brass gave us this mission after we captured some Kzinti files from a tabby dreadnought. Not as good as R & R back home, but we're glad of the break.” Stockton's grin was infectious.
“I haven't had time to set up a distillery,” Locklear said, “or I'd offer you drinks on the house.”
“A man could get parched here,” said a swarthy little private.
“Good idea, Gazho. You're detailed to get some medicinal brandy from the med stores,” said Stockton.
As the private hurried out, Locklear said, “You could probably let the rest of the crew out to stretch their legs, you know. Not much to guard against on Newduvai.”
“What you see is all there is,” said a compact private with high cheekbones and a Crashlander medic patch. Locklear had not heard him speak before. Softly accented, laconic; almost a scholar's diction. But that's what you might expect of a military medic.
Stockton's quick gaze riveted the man as if to say, “that's enough.” To Locklear he nodded. “Meet Soichiro Lee; an intern before the war. Has a tendency to act as if a combat team is a democratic outfit but,” his glance toward Lee was amused now, “he's a good sawbones. Anyhow, the Wayne can take care of herself. We've set her auto defenses for voice recognition when the hatch is closed, so don't go wandering closer than ten meters without one of us. And if one of those hairy apes throws a rock at her, she might just burn him for his troubles.”
Locklear nodded. “A crew of seven; that's pretty thin.”
Stockton, carefully: “You want to expand on that?”
Locklear: “I mean, you've got your crew pretty thinly spread. The tabbies have the same problem, though. The bunch that marooned me here had only four members.”
Sergeant Gomulka exhaled heavily, catching Stockton's glance. “Commander, with your permission: Locklear here might have some ideas about those tabby records.”
“Umm. Yeah, I suppose,” with some reluctance. “Locklear, apparently the Kzinti felt there was some valuable secret, a weapon maybe, here on Zoo. They intended to return for it. Any idea what it was?”
Locklear laughed aloud. “Probably it was me. It ought to be the whole bleeding planet,” he said. “If you stand near the force wall and look hard, you can see what looks like a piece of the Kzin homeworld close to this one. You can't imagine the secrets the other compounds might have. For starters, the life forms I found in stasis had been here forty thousand years, near as I can tell, before I released'em.”
“You released them?”
“Maybe I shouldn't have, but—” He glanced shyly toward Lieutenant Agostinho. “I got pretty lonesome.”
“Anyone would,” she said, and her smile was more than understanding.
Gomulka rumbled in evident disgust, “Why would a lot of walking fossils be important to the tabby war effort?”
“They probably wouldn't,” Locklear admitted. “And anyhow, I didn't find the specimens until after the Kzinti left.” He could not say exactly why, but this did not seem the time to regale them with his adventures on Kzersatz. Something just beyond the tip of his awareness was flashing like a caution signal.
Now Gomulka looked at his commander. “So that's not what we're looking for,” he said. “Maybe it's not on this Newduvai dump. Maybe next door?”
“Maybe. We'll take it one dump at a time,” said Stockton, and turned as the swarthy private popped into the cabin. “Ah. I trust the Armagnac didn't insult your palate on the way, Nathan,” he said.
Nathan Gazho looked at the bottle's broken seal, then began to distribute nested plastic cups, his breath already laced with his quick nip of the brandy. “You don't miss much,” he grumbled.
But I'm missing something, Locklear thought as he touched his half-filled cup to that of the sloe-eyed, languorous lieutenant. Slack discipline? But combat troops probably ignore the spit and polish. Except for this hotsy who keeps looking at me as if we shared a secret, they've all got the hand calluses and haircuts of shock troops. No, it's something else…
He told himself it was reluctance to make himself a hero; and next he told himself they wouldn't believe him anyway. And then he admitted that he wasn't sure exactly why, but he would tell them nothing about his victory on Kzersatz unless they asked. Maybe because I suspect they'd round up poor Scarface, maybe hunt him down and shoot him like a mad dog no matter what I said. Yeah, that's reason enough. But something else, too.
Night fell, with its almost audible thump, while they emptied the Armagnac. Locklear explained his scholarly fear that the gentles were likely to kill off animals that no other ethologist had ever studied on the hoof; mentioned Ruth and Minuteman as well; and decided to say nothing about Loli to these hardbitten troops. Anse Parker, the gangling belter, kept bringing the topic back to the tantalizingly vague secret mentioned in Kzin files. Parker, Locklear decided, thought himself subtle but managed only to be transparently cunning.
Austin Schmidt, the wide-shouldered blond, had little capacity for Armagnac and kept toasting the day when “… all this crap is history and I'm a man of means,” singing that refrain from an old barracks ballad in a surprisingly sweet tenor. Locklear could not warm up to Nathan Gazho, whose gaze took inventory of every item in the cabin. The man's expensive wristcomp and pinky ring mismatched him like earrings on a weasel.
David Gomulka was all noncom, though, with a veteran's gift for controlling men and a sure hand in measuring booze. If the two officers felt any unease when he called them “Curt” and “Grace,” they managed to avoid showing it. Gomulka spun out the tale of his first hand-to-hand engagement against a Kzin penetration team with details that proved he knew how the tabbies fought. Locklear wanted to say, “That's right; that's how it is,” but only nodded.
It was late in the evening when the commander cut short their speculations on Zoo, stood up, snapped the belt flash from its ring and flicked it experimentally. “We could all use some sleep,” he decided, with the smile of a young father at his men, some of whom were older than he. “Mr. Locklear, we have more than enough room. Please be our guest in the Anthony Wayne tonight.”
Locklear, thinking that Loli might steal back to the cabin if she were somewhere nearby, said, “I appreciate it, commander, but I'm right at home here. Really.”
A nod, and a reflective gnawing of Stockton's lower lip. “I'm responsible for you now, Locklear. God knows what those Neanderthals might do, now that we've set fire to their nests.”
“But—” The men were stretching out their kinks, paying silent but close attention to the interchange.
“I must insist. I don't want to put it in terms of command, but I am the local sheriff here now, so to speak.” The engaging grin again. “Come on, Locklear, think of it as repaying your hospitality. Nothing's certain in this place, and—” his last phrase bringing soft chuckles from Gomulka, “they'd throw me in the brig if I let anything happen to you now.”
* * *
The taciturn Parker led the way, and Locklear smiled in the darkness thinking how Loli might wonder at the intensely bright, intensely magical beams that bobbed toward the ship. After Parker called out his name and a long number, the ship's hatch steps dropped at their feet and Locklear knew the reassurance of climbing into an Interworld ship with its familiar smells, whines, and beeps.
P
arker and Schmidt were loudly in favor of a nightcap, but Stockton's, “Not a good idea, David,” to the sergeant was met with a nod and barked commands by Gomulka. Grace Agostinho made a similar offer to Locklear.
“Thanks anyway. You know what I'd really like?”
“Probably,” she said, with a pursed-lipped smile.
He was blushing as he said, “Ham sandwiches. Beer. A slice of thrill cake,” and nodded quickly when she hauled a frozen shrimp teriyaki from their food lockers. When it popped from the radioven, he sat near the ship's bridge to eat it, idly noting a few dark food stains on the bridge linolamat and listening to Grace tell of small news from home. The Amazon dam, a new “must-see” holo musical, a controversial cure for the common cold; the kind of tremendous trifles that cemented friendships.
She left him briefly while he chased scraps on his plate, and by the time she returned most of the crew had secured their pneumatic cubicle doors. “It's always satisfying to feed a man with an appetite,” said Grace, smiling at his clean plate as she slid it into the galley scrubber. “I'll see you're fed well on the Wayne.” With hands on her hips, she said, “Well: Private Schmidt has sentry duty. He'll show you to your quarters.”
He took her hand, thanked her, and nodded to the slightly wavering Schmidt who led the way back toward the ship's engine room. He did not look back but, from the sound of it, Grace entered a cubicle where two men were arguing in subdued tones.
Schmidt showed him to the rearmost cubicle but not the rearmost dozen bunks. Those, he saw, were ranked inside a cage of duralloy with no privacy whatever. Dark crusted stains spotted the floor inside and outside the cage. A fax sheet lay in the passageway. When Locklear glanced toward it, the private saw it, tried to hide a startle response, and then essayed a drunken grin.
“Gotta have a tight ship,” said Schmidt, banging his head on the duralloy as he retrieved the fax and balled it up with one hand. He tossed the wadded fax into a flush-mounted waste receptacle, slid the cubicle door open for Locklear, and managed a passable salute. “Have a good one, pal. You know how to adjust your rubberlady?”
Locklear saw that the mattresses of the two bunks were standard models with adjustable inflation and webbing. “No problem,” he replied, and slid the door closed. He washed up at the tiny inset sink, used the urinal slot below it, and surveyed his clothes after removing them. They'd all seen better days. Maybe he could wangle some new ones. He was sleepier than he'd thought, and adjusted his rubberlady for a soft setting, and was asleep within moments.
He did not know how long it was before he found himself sitting bolt-upright in darkness. He knew what was wrong, now: everything. It might be possible for a little escort ship to plunder records from a derelict mile-long Kzin battleship. It was barely possible that the same craft would be sent to check on some big Kzin secret — but not without at least a cruiser, if the Kzinti might be heading for Zoo.
He rubbed a trickle of sweat as it counted his ribs. He didn't have to be a military buff to know that ordinary privates do not have access to medical lockers, and the commander had told Gazho to get that brandy from med stores. Right; and all those motley shoulder patches didn't add up to a picked combat crew, either. And one more thing: even in his halfblotted condition, Schmidt had snatched that fax sheet up as though it was evidence against him. Maybe it was…
He waved the overhead lamp on, grabbed his ratty flight suit, and slid his cubicle door open. If anyone asked, he was looking for a cleaner unit for his togs.
A low thrum of the ship's sleeping hydraulics; a slightly louder buzz of someone sleeping, most likely Schmidt while on sentry duty. Not much discipline at all. I wonder just how much commanding Stockton really does. Locklear stepped into the passageway, moved several paces, and eased his free hand into the waste receptacle slot. Then he thrust the fax wad into his dirty flight suit and padded silently back, cursing the sigh of his door. A moment later he was colder than before.
The fax was labeled, “PRISONER RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES”, and had been signed by some Provost Marshall — or a doctor, to judge from its illegibility. He'd bet anything that fax had fallen, or had been torn, from those duralloy bars. Rust-colored crusty stains on the floor; a similar stain near the ship's bridge; but no obvious damage to the ship from Kzin weapons.
It took all his courage to go into the passageway again, flight suit in hand, and replace the wadded fax sheet where he'd found it. And the door seemed much louder this time, almost a sob instead of a sigh.
Locklear felt like sobbing, too. He lay on his rubberlady in the dark, thinking about it. A hundred scenarios might explain some of the facts, but only one matched them all: the Anthony Wayne had been a prisoner ship, but now the prisoners were calling themselves “commander” and “sergeant,” and the real crew of the Anthony Wayne had made those stains inside the ship with their blood.
He wanted to shout it, but demanded it silently: So why would a handful of deserters fly to Zoo? Before he fell at last into a troubled sleep, he had asked it again and again, and the answer was always the same: somehow, one of them had learned of the Kzin records and hoped to find Zoo's secret before either side did.
These people would be deadly to anyone who knew their secret. And almost certainly, they'd never buy the truth, that Locklear himself was the secret because the Kzinti had been so sure he was an Interworld agent.
* * *
Locklear awoke with a sensation of dread, then a brief upsurge of joy at sleeping in modern accommodations, and then he remembered his conclusions in the middle of the night, and his optimism fell off and broke.
To mend it, he decided to smile with the innocence of a Candide and plan his tactics. If he could get to the Kzin lifeboat, he might steer it like a slow battering ram and disable the Anthony Wayne. Or they might blow him to flinders in midair — and what if his fears were wrong, and despite all evidence this combat team was genuine? In any case, disabling the ship meant marooning the whole lot of them together. It wasn't a plan calculated to lengthen his life expectancy; maybe he would think of another.
The crew was already bustling around with breakfasts when he emerged, and yes, he could use the ship's cleaning unit for his clothes. When he asked for spare clothing, Soichiro Lee was first to deny it to him. “Our spares are still-contaminated from a previous engagement,” he explained, with a meaningful look toward Gomulka.
I bet they are, with blood, Locklear told himself as he scooped his synthesized eggs and bacon. Their uniforms all seemed to fit well. Probably their own, he decided. The stylized winged gun on Gomulka's patch said he could fly gunships. Lee might be a medic, and the sensuous Grace might be a real intelligence officer — and all could be renegades.
Stockton watched him eat, friendly as ever, arms folded and relaxed. “Gomulka and Gazho did a recon in our pinnacle at dawn,” he said, sucking a tooth. “Seems your apemen are already rebuilding at another site; a terrace at this end of the lake. A lot closer to us.”
“I wish you could think of them as people,” Locklear said. “They're not terribly bright, but they don't swing on vines.”
Chuckling: “Bright enough to be nuisances, perhaps try and burn us out if they find the ship here,” Stockton said. “Maybe bright enough to know what it is the tabbies found here. You said they can talk a little. Well, you can help us interrogate'em.”
“They aren't too happy with me,” Locklear admitted as Gomulka sat down with steaming coffee. “But I'll try on one condition.”
Gomulka's voice carried a rumble of barely hidden threat. “Conditions? You're talking to your commander, Locklear.”
“It's a very simple one,” Locklear said softly. “No more killing or threatening these people. They call themselves 'gentles,' and they are. The New Smithson, or half the Interworld University branches, would give a year's budget to study them alive.”
Grace Agostinho had been working at a map terminal, but evidently with an ear open to their negotiations. As Stockton and Gomulka gazed at each
other in silent surmise, she took the few steps to sit beside Locklear, her hip warm against his. “You're an ethologist. Tell me, what could the Kzinti do with these gentles?”
Locklear nodded, sipped coffee, and finally said, “I'm not sure. Study them hoping for insights into the underlying psychology of modern humans, maybe.”
Stockton said, “But you said the tabbies don't know about them.”
“True; at least I don't see how they could. But you asked. I can't believe the gentles would know what you're after, but if you have to ask them, of course I'll help.”
Stockton said it was necessary, and appointed Lee acting corporal at the cabin as he filled most of the pinnacle's jumpseats with himself, Locklear, Agostinho, Gomulka, and the lank Parker. The little craft sat on downsloping delta wings that ordinarily nested against the Wayne's hull, and had intakes for gas-reactor jets. “Newest piece of hardware we have,” Stockton said, patting the pilot's console. It was Gomulka, however, who took the controls.
Locklear suggested that they approach very slowly, with hands visibly up and empty, as they settled the pinnacle near the beginnings of a new gentles camp site. The gentles, including their women, all rushed for primitive lances but did not flee, and Anse Parker was the only one carrying an obvious weapon as the pinnacle’s canopy swung back. Locklear stepped forward, talking and smiling, with Parker at their backs.
He saw Ruth waiting for old Gimp, and said he was much happy to see her, which was an understatement. Minuteman, too, had survived the firing on their village.
Cloud had not. Ruth told him so immediately. “Locklear make many deaths to gentles,” she accused. Behind her, some of the gentles stared with faces that were anything but gentle. “Gentles not like talk to Locklear, he says. Go now. Please,” she added, one of the last words he'd taught her, and she said it with urgency. Her glance toward Grace Agostinho was interested, not hostile but perhaps pitying.