Iron mw-1

by Poul Anderson

  Ryan shrugged. “He’d know I was not going to be their Judas goat, no matter what they did. Therefore they won’t do it.”

  Saxtorph’s right hand half reached out. “Kam, old son—” he croaked. The hand dropped.

  Dorcas rose and confronted the rest, side by side with her husband. “I’m sorry, but time is rationed for us and you must decide at once,” she said. “If you think you’d better stay, then do. We won’t consider you a coward or anything. You may be right. We can’t be sure at this stage. All we are certain of is that we don’t have time for debate. Who’s going?”

  Hands went up, Carita’s, Yoshii’s, and after an instant Laurinda’s.

  “Okay,” Dorcas continued. “Now we’re not about to put our bets on a single number. The boats will go separate ways. Which ways, we’ll decide by tight beam once we’re alone in space. You understand, Kam, Arthur, Landholder Markham. What you don’t know, a telepath or a torturer can’t get out of you. Bob and I have already considered the distribution.

  “Carita and Juan will take Fido. We thought Kam would ride with them, but evidently not. Laurinda, you’ll be with Bob and me in Shep.”

  “Wait a minute!” Yoshii protested. The girl brought fingertips to open mouth.

  “Sorry, my dears,” Dorcas said. “It’s a matter of practicality, as nearly as we could estimate on short notice. Not that we imagine you two would play Romeo and Juliet to the neglect of your duties. However, Juan and Carita are our professional pilots, rockjacks, planetside prospectors. Together they make our strongest possible team. They can pull stunts Bob and I never could. We need that potential, don’t we? Bob and I are no slouches, but we do our best work in tandem. To supply some of what we lack as compared to Juan and Carita, Laurinda has knowledge, including knowledge of how to use instruments we plan to pack along, Don’t forget, more is involved than us. The whole human race needs to know what the kzinti are up to. We must maximize our chances of getting the news home. Agreed?”

  Yoshii clenched his free hand into a fist, stared at it, raised his head, and answered, “Aye. And you can take better care of her.”

  The Crashlander flushed. “I’m no piece of porcelain!” immediately contrite, she stroked the Belter’s cheek while she asked unevenly, “How soon do we leave?”

  Dorcas smiled and made a gesture of blessing. “Let’s say an hour. We’ll need that much to stow gear. You two can have most of it to yourselves.”

  The kzin warship was comparatively small, Prowling Hunter class, but not the less terrifying a sight. Weapon pods, boat bays, sensor booms, control domes studded a spheroid whose red hue, in the light of this sun, became like that of clotted blood. Out of it and across the kilometers between darted small fierce gleams that swelled into space-combat armor enclosing creatures larger than men. They numbered a dozen, and each bore at least two firearms.

  Obedient to orders, Ryan operated the main personnel airlock and cycled four of them through. The first grabbed him and slammed him against the bulkhead so hard that it rang. Stunned, he would have slumped to the deck were it not for the bruising grip on his shoulders. The next two crouched with weapons ready. The last one took over the controls and admitted the remaining eight.

  At once, ten went off in pairs to ransack the ship. It was incredible how fast they carried the mass of metal upon them. Their footfalls cast booming echoes down the passageways.

  Markham and Tregennis, waiting in the saloon, were frisked and put under guard. Presently Ryan was brought to them. “My maiden aunt has better manners than they do,” he muttered, and lurched toward the bar. The kzin used his rifle butt to push him into a chair and gestured for silence. Time passed.

  Within an hour, which felt longer to the humans, the boarding party was satisfied that there were no traps. Somebody radioed a report from the airlock; the rest shed their armor and stood at ease outside the saloon. Its air grew full of their wild odor.

  A new huge and ruddy-gold form entered. The guard saluted, sweeping claws before his face. Markham jumped up. “For God’s sake, stand,” he whispered. “That’s the captain.”

  Tregennis and, painfully, Ryan rose. The kzin’s gaze flickered over them and came back to dwell on Markham, recognizing leadership. The Wunderlander opened his mouth. Noises as of a tiger fight poured forth. Did the captain register surprise that a man knew his language? He heard it out and spat a reply. Markham tried to continue. The captain interrupted, and Markham went mute. The captain told him something.

  Markham turned to his companions. “He forbids me to mangle the Hero’s Tongue anymore,” he related wryly. “He grants my request for a private talk—in the communications shack, where our translator is, since I explained that we do have one and it includes the right program. Meanwhile you may talk with each other and move freely about this cabin. If you must relieve yourselves, you may use the sink behind the bar.”

  “How gracious of him,” Ryan snorted.

  Markham raised brows. “Consider yourselves fortunate. He is being indulgent. Don’t risk provoking him. High-ranking kzinti are even more sensitive about their honor than the average, and he has earned a partial name, Hraou-Captain.”

  “We will be careful,” Tregennis promised. “I am sure you will do your best for us.”

  The commander went majestically out. Markham trailed. Ryan gusted a sigh, sought the bar, tapped a liter of beer, and drained it in a few gulps. The guard watched enviously but then also left. Discipline had prevented him from shoving the human aside and helping himself. He and a couple of his fellows remained in the passage. They conversed a bit, rumbling and hissing.

  “We’ll be here a while,” Ryan sighed. “Care for a round of gin?”

  “It would be unwise of us to drink,” Tregennis cautioned. “Best you be content with that mug full you had.”

  “I mean gin rummy.”

  “What is that, if not a, ah, cocktail?”

  “A card game. They don’t play it on Plateau? I can teach you.”

  “No, thank you. Perhaps I am too narrow in my interests, but cards bore me.” Tregennis brightened. “However, do you play chess?”

  Ryan threw up his hands. “You expect me to concentrate on woodpushing now? Hell, let’s screen a show. Something light and trashy, with plenty of girls in it. Or would you rather seize the chance to at last read War and Peace?”

  Tregennis smiled. “Believe it or not, Kamehameha, I have my memories. By all means, girls.”

  The comedy was not quite finished when a kzin appeared and jerked an unmistakable gesture. The men followed him. He didn’t bother with a companion or with ever glancing rearward. At the flight deck he proceeded to Saxtorph’s operations cabin, waved them through, and closed the door on them.

  Markham sat behind the desk. He was very pale and reeked of the sweat that stained his tunic, but his visage was set in hard lines. Hraou-Captain loomed beside him, too big to use a human’s chair, doubtless tired of being cramped in the comshack and maybe choosing to increase his dominance by sheer height. Another kzin squatted in a far corner of the room, a wretched-looking specimen, fur dull and unkempt, shoulders slumped, eyes turned downward.

  “Attention,” rasped Markham. “I wish I did not have to tell you this—I hoped to avoid it—but the commander says I must. He… feels deception is pointless and… besmirches his honor. His superior on Secunda agrees; we have been in radio contact.”

  The newcomers braced themselves.

  Nonetheless it was staggering to hear: “For the past five years I have been an agent of the kzinti. Later I will justify myself to you, if your minds are not totally closed. It is not hatred for my species that drove me to this, but love and concern for it, hatred for the decadence that is destroying us. Later, I say. We dare not waste Hraou-Captain’s time with arguments.”

  Regarding the faces before him, Markham made his tone dry. “The kzinti never trusted me with specific information, but after I began sending them information about hyperdrive technology, they gave m
e a general directive. I was to use my position as commissioner to forestall, whenever possible, any exploration beyond the space containing the human occupied worlds. That naturally gave me an inkling of the reason—to prevent disclosure of their activities and it became clear to me that some of the most important must be in regions distant from kzin space. When hope was lost of keeping you from this expedition, I decided my duty was to join it and stand by in case of need. Not that I anticipated the need, understand. The star looked so useless. But when you did get those radio indications, I knew better than you what they could mean, and was glad I had provided against the contingency, and beamed a notice of our arrival.”

  “Your parents were brothers,” Ryan said.

  Markham laid back his ears. “Spare the abuse. Remember, by forewarning the kzinti I saved your lives. If you had simply blundered into detector range.”

  “They may be impulsive,” Tregennis said, “but they are not idiotic. I do not accept your assertion that they would reflexively have annihilated us.”

  Markham trembled. “Silence. Bear in mind that I am all that stands between you and—It has been a long time since the kzinti in this project tasted fresh meat.”

  “What are they doing?” Ryan asked.

  “Constructing a naval base. They chose the system precisely because it seemed insignificant—the dimmest star in the whole region, devoid of heavy elements and impoverished in the light—though it does happen to have a ready source of iron and certain other crucial materials, together with a strategic location. They never expected humans to seek it out. They underestimated the curiosity of our species. They are… cats, not monkeys.”

  “Uh-huh. Not noisy, sloppy, free-swinging monkeys like you despise. Kzinti respect rank. Once they’ve overrun us, they’ll put the niggers back in their proper place. From here they can grab off Beta Hydri, drive a salient way into our space—How many more prongs will there be to the attack? When is the next war scheduled for?”

  “Silence!” Markham shouted. “Hold your mouth! One word from me, and—”

  “And what? You need us, Art and me, you need us, else we wouldn’t be having this interview. Kill us, and your boss just gets a few meals.”

  “Killing can be in due course. I imagine he would enjoy your testicles for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

  Ryan rocked on his feet. Tregennis’ lips squeezed together till they were white.

  Markham’s voice softened. “I am warning, not threatening,” he said in a rush. “I’ll save you if I can, unharmed, but if you don’t help me I can promise nothing.”

  He leaned forward. “Listen, will you? Obviously you can’t be released to spread the news, not yet but some years of detention are better than death.” He could not quite hold back the sneer. “In your minds, I suppose. You’re lucky, lucky that I was aboard. Once my status has been verified, the high commandant can let me bring home a convincing tale of disaster. Else he would probably have had to kill us and make our bodies stage props, as Saxtorph suggested. I think he will spare you if I ask; it will cost him little, and kzinti reward faithful service. They also keep their promises. But you must earn your lives.”

  “The boats,” Tregennis whispered.

  Ryan nodded. “You’ve got a telepath on hand, I see,” he said flat-voiced. “He could make sure that my call in Hawaiian tells how everything is hearts and flowers. Except if he reads my mind, he’ll see that I ain’t gonna do it, no matter what. Or, okay, maybe they can break me, but Bob will hear that in his old pal’s voice.”

  “I’ve explained this to Hraou-Captain,” Markham said, cooler now. “It is necessary to neutralize those boats, but they don’t pose any urgent threat, so we will start with methods less time-consuming than… interrogation and persuasion. Later, though, when we are on Secunda—that’s where we are going—later your cooperation in working up a plausible disaster for me to return with, that is what will buy you your lives. If you refuse, you’ll die for nothing, because we can always devise some deception which will keep humans away from here. You’ll die for nothing.”

  “What the hell can we do about the boats? We don’t know where they’ve gone.”

  Markham’s manner became entirely impersonal. “I have explained this to Hraou-Captain. I went on to explain that their actions will not be random. What Captain Saxtorph decides—has decided to do is a multivariable function of the logic of the situation and of his personality. You and he are good friends, Ryan. You can make shrewd guesses as to his behavior. They won’t be certain, of course, but they will eliminate some possibilities and assign rough probabilities to others. Your input may have some value, too, Professor. And even mine—in the course of establishing that I have been telling the truth.”

  “Sit down on the deck. This will not be pleasant, you know.” Hraou-Captain, who had stood like a pillar, turned his enormous body and growled a command. The telepath raised his head. Eyes glazed by the drug that called forth his total abilities came to a focus.

  In their different ways, the three humans readied for what was about to happen. They’d have sundering headaches for hours afterward, too.

  Small though it was, at its distance from Prima the sun showed more than half again the disc which Sol presents to Earth. Blotches of darkness pocked its sullen red. Corona shimmered around the limb, not quite drowned out of naked-eye vision.

  Yoshii ignored it. His attention was on the planet which Fido circled in high orbit. Radar, spectroscope, optical amplifier, and a compact array of other instruments fed data to a computer which spun forth interpretations on screen and printout. Click and whirr passed low through the rustling ventilation, the sometimes uneven human breath within the control cabin. Body warmth and a hint of sweat tinged the air. Yoshii’s gaze kept drifting from the equipment, out a port of the globe itself. “Unbelievable,” he murmured.

  Airless, it stood sharp-edged athwart the stars, but the illuminated side was nearly a blank, even at first and last quarter when shadows were long. Then a few traces of hill and dale might appear, like timeworn Chinese brush strokes. Otherwise there was yellowish-white smoothness, with ill-defined areas of faint gray, brown, or blue. The whole world could almost have been a latex ball, crudely made for a child of the giants.

  “What now?” Carita asked. She floated, harnessed in her seat, her back to him. They had turned off the gravity polarizer and were weightless, to eliminate that source of detectability. Her attention was clamped to the long-range radar with which she swept the sky, to and fro as the boat swung around.

  “Oh, everything,” said the Belter.

  “Any ideas? You’ve had more chance to think, these past hours, than I have.”

  “Well, a few things look obvious, but I wouldn’t make book on their being what they seem.”

  “Why don’t you give me a rundown?” proposed the Jinxian. “Never mind if you repeat what I’ve already heard. We should try putting things in context.”

  Yoshii plunged into talk. It was an escape of sorts from their troubles, from not knowing what the fate of Shep and those aboard her might be.

  “The planet’s about the mass of Earth but only about half as dense. Must be largely silicate, some aluminum, not enough iron to form a core. Whatever atmosphere and hydrosphere it once outgassed, it lost—weak gravity, and temperatures around 400 K at the hottest part of the day. That day equals 131 of Earth’s; two-thirds rotational lock, like Mercury. No more gas comes out, because vulcanism, tectonics, all geology ended long ago. Unless you want to count meteoroid erosion wearing down the surface; and I’d guess hardly any objects are left that might fall on these planets.

  “Then what is that stuff mantling the surface? The computer can’t figure it out. Shadows of what relief there is indicate it’s thin, a few centimeters deep, with local variations. Reflection spectra suggest carbon compounds but that’s not certain. It just lies there, you see, doesn’t do anything. Try analyzing a lump of some solid plastic across a distance. Is that what we have here, a natural
polymer? I wish I knew more organic chemistry.”

  “Can’t help you, Juan,” Carita said. “All I remember from my class in it, aside from the stinks in the lab, is that the human sex hormones are much the same, except that the female is ketonic and the male is alcoholic.”

  “We’ll have time to look and think further, of course.” Yoshii sighed. “Time and time and time. I never stopped to imagine how what fugitives mostly do is sit. Hiding, huddling, while—” He broke off and struggled for self-command.

  “And we don’t dare let down our guard long enough to take a little recreation,” Carita grumbled.

  Yoshii reddened. “Uh, if we could, I—well—”

  She chuckled and said ruefully, “I know. The fair Laurinda. Don’t worry, your virtue will be safe with me till you realize it can’t make any possible diff—Hold!” she roared.

  He tensed where he floated. “What?”

  “Quiet. No, secure things and get harnessed.”

  For humming minutes she studied the screen and meters before her. Yoshii readied himself. Seated at her side he could see the grimness grow. Pale hair waved around sable skin when at last she nodded. “Yes,” she said, “somebody’s bound this way. From the direction of the sun. About ten million klicks off. He barely registered at first, but it’s getting stronger by the minute. He’s boosting fast, we’d tear our hull apart if we tried to match him, supposing we had that kind of power. Definitely making for Prima.”

  “What… is it?”

  “What but a kzin ship with a monster engine? I’m afraid they’ve caught on to our strategy.” Carita’s tone grew wintry. “I’d rather not hear just how they did.”

  “G-guesswork?” Yoshii faltered.

  “Maybe. I don’t know kzin psych. How close to us can they make themselves think?” She turned her head to clamp her vision on him. “Well, maybe the skipper’s plan failed and it’s actually drawn the bandits to us. Or maybe it’s the one thing that can save us.

  (Saxtorph’s words drawled through memory:) “We don’t know how much search capability the kzin have, but a naval vessel means auxiliaries, plus whatever civilian craft they can press into service. A boat out in the middle of the far yonder, drifting free, would be near-as-damn impossible to find. But as soon as she accelerates back toward where her crew might do something real, she screams the announcement to any alert, properly organized watchers optical track, neutrino emission, the whole works till she’s in effective radar range. After that she’s sold to the licorice man, as they say in Denmark. On the other hand, if she can get down onto a planetary surface, she can probably make herself almost as invisible as out in the deep. A world full of topography, which the kzinti cannot have had time or personnel to map in anything but the sketchiest way. So how about one of ours goes to Prima, the other to Tertia, and lies low in orbit? Immediately when we get wind of trouble, we drop down into the best hidey-hole the planet has got, and wait things out.”