Iron mw-1

by Poul Anderson

  No, Ryan thought, a city of workers in the service of future warriors. Thus far few professional fighters would be present except the crew of Vengeful Slasher. They weren’t needed… yet. The warship was on hand against unlikely contingencies. Well, in this case kzin paranoia had paid off. The pilot made an instrument landing into a cradle. Ryan spied more such units, three of them holding shuttles. The field on which they stood, though paved, must often be treacherous because of drifted dust. Secunda had no unfrozen water to cleanse its air; and the air was a chill wisp. Most of the universe is barren. Hawaii seemed infinitely far away. A gang tube snaked from a ziggurat-like terminal building. Airlocks linked. An armed kzin entered and saluted. Hraou-Captain gestured at the humans and snarled an imperative before he went out.

  Markham unharnessed. “I am to follow him,” he said. “You go with this guard. Quarters are prepared. Behave yourselves and… I will do my best for you.”

  Ryan rose. Two-thirds Earth weight felt good. He collected his and Tregennis’ bags in his right hand and gave the astronomer his left arm for support. Kzinti throughout a cavernous main room stared as the captives appeared. They didn’t goggle like humans, they watched like cats. Several naked tails switched to and fro. An effort had been made to brighten the surroundings, a huge mural of some hero in hand-to-hand combat with a monster; the blood jetted glaring bright.

  The guard led his charges down corridors which pulsed with the sounds of construction. At last he opened a door, waved them through, and closed it behind them. They heard a lock click shut.

  The room held a bed and a disposal unit, meant for kzinti but usable by humans; the bed was ample for two, and by dint of balancing and clinging you could take care of sanitation. “I better help you till you feel better, Prof,” Ryan offered. “Meanwhile, why don’t you lie down? I’ll unpack.” The bags and floor must furnish storage space. Kzinti seldom went in for clothes or for carrying personal possessions around.

  They did hate sensory deprivation, still more than humans do. There was no screen, but a port showed the spacefield. The terminator storm was dying out as the sun rose higher, and the view cleared fast. Under a pale red sky, the naval complex came to an end some distance off. Tawny sand reached onward, strewn with boulders. In places, wind had swept clear the fused crater floor. It wasn’t like lava, more like dark glass. Huge though the bowl was, Secunda much less dense than Earth, but significantly larger had a wide enough horizon that the nearer wall jutted above it in the west, a murky palisade. Tregennis took Ryan’s advice and stretched himself out. The quartermaster smiled and came to remove his shoes for him. “Might as well be comfortable,” Ryan said, “or as nearly as we can without beer.”

  “And without knowledge of our fates,” the Plateaunian said low. “Worse, the fates of our friends.”

  “At least they are out of Markham’s filthy hands.”

  “Kamehameha, please. Watch yourself. We shall have to deal with him. And he—I think he too is feeling shocked and lonely. He didn’t expect this either. His orders were merely to hamper exploration beyond the limits of human space. He wants to spare us. Give him the chance.”

  “Ha! I’d rather give a shark that kind of chance. It’s less murderous.”

  “Oh, now, really.”

  Ryan thumped fist on wall. “Who do you suppose put that kzin up to attacking Bob Saxtorph back in Tiamat? It has to have been Markham, when his earlier efforts failed. Nothing else makes sense. And this, mind you, this was when he had no particular reason to believe our expedition mattered as far as the kzinti were concerned. They hadn’t trusted him with any real information. But he went ahead anyway and tried to get a man killed to stop us. That shows you what value he puts on human life.”

  “Well, maybe… maybe he is deranged,” Tregennis sighed. “Would you bring me a tablet, please? I see a water tap and bowl over there.”

  “Sure. Heart, huh? Take it easy. You shouldn’t’ve come along, you know.” Tregennis smiled. “Medical science has kept me functional far longer than I deserve.

  ‘But fill me with the old familiar Juice,

  ‘Methinks I might recover by-and-by!’ ”

  Ryan lifted the white head and brought the bowl, from which a kzin would have lapped, carefully close to the lips. “You’ve got more heart than a lot of young bucks I could name,” he said.

  Time crept past.

  The door opened. “Hey, food?” Ryan asked.

  Markham confronted them, an armed kzin at his back. He was again pallid and stiff of countenance. “Come,” he said harshly.

  Rested, Tregennis walked steady-footed beside Ryan. They went through a maze of featureless passages with shut doors, coldly lighted, throbbing or buzzing. When they encountered other kzinti they felt the carnivore stares follow them.

  After a long while they stopped at a larger door. This part of the warren looked like officer country, though Ryan couldn’t be sure when practically everything he saw was altogether foreign to him. The guard let them in and followed.

  The chamber beyond was windowless, its sole ornamentation a screen on which a computer projected colored patterns. Kzin-type seats, desk, and electronics suggested an office, but big and mostly empty. In one corner a plastic tub had been placed, about three meters square. Within stood some apparatus, and a warrior beside, and the drug-dazed telepath huddled at his feet.

  The prisoners’ attention went to Hraou-Captain and another—lean and grizzled by comparison—seated at the desk. “Show respect,” Markham directed. “You meet Werlith-Commandant.”

  Tregennis bowed, Ryan slopped a soft salute.

  The head honcho spat and rumbled. Markham turned to the men. “Listen,” he said. “I have been in… conference, and am instructed to tell you. Fido has been found.”

  Tregennis made a tiny noise of pain. Ryan hunched his shoulders and said, “That’s what they told you.”

  “It is true,” Markham insisted. “The boat went to Prima. The interrogation aboard Rover led to a suspicion that the escapers might try that maneuver. Ya-Nar-Ksshinn—call it Sun Defter, the asteroid tug, was prospecting. The commandant ordered it to Prima, since it could get there very fast. By then Fido was trapped on the surface. Fenger and Yoshii broadcast a call for help, so Sun Defter located them. Just lately, Fido has made a new broadcast which the kzinti picked up. You will listen to the recording.”

  Werlith-Commandant condescended to touch a control. From the desk communicator, wavery through a seething of radio interference, Juan Yoshii’s voice came forth.

  “Hello, Bob, Dorcas, Laurinda—Kam, Arthur,… If, if you hear—hello from Carita and me. We’ll set this to repeat on different bands, hoping you’ll happen to tune it in somewhere along the line. It’s likely goodbye.”

  “No,” said Carita’s voice, “it’s ’good luck.’ To you. Godspeed.”

  “Right,” Yoshii agreed. “Before we let you know what the situation is, we want to beg you, don’t ever blame yourselves. There was absolutely no way to foresee it. And the universe is full of much worse farms we could have bought.

  “However—” Unemotionally, now and then aided by his companion, he described things as they were. “We’ll hang on till the end, of course,” he finished. “Soon we’ll see what we can rig to keep us alive. After the hull collapses altogether, we’ll flit off in search of bare rock to sit on, if any exists. Do not, repeat do not risk yourselves in some crazy rescue attempt. Maybe you could figure out a safe way to do it if you had the time and no kzinti on your necks. Or maybe you could talk them into doing it. But neither one is in the cards, eh? You concentrate on getting the word home.”

  “We mean that,” Carita said.

  “Laurinda, I love you,” Yoshii said fast. “Farewell, fare always well, darling. What really hurts is knowing you may not make it back. But if you do, you have your life before you. Be happy.”

  “We aren’t glum.” Carita barked a laugh. “I might wish Juan weren’t quite so noble, Laurinda, dear. But it’s n
o big thing either way, is it? Not any more. Good luck to all of you.”

  The recording ended. Tregennis gazed beyond the room—at this new miracle of nature? Ryan stood swallowing tears, his fists knotted.

  “You see what Saxtorph’s recklessness has caused,” Markham said. “No!” Ryan shouted. “The kzinti could lift them off! But they—tell his Excellency yonder they’re afraid to!”

  “I will not. You must be out of your mind. Besides, Sun Defter cannot land on a planet, and carries no auxiliary.”

  “A shuttle—No. But a boat from the warship.”

  “Why? What have Yoshii and Fenger done to merit saving, at hazard to the kzinti for whom they only want to make trouble? Let them be an object lesson, gentlemen. If you have any care whatsoever for the rest of your party, help us retrieve them before it is too late.”

  “I don’t know where they are. Not on P-prima, for sure.”

  “They must be found.”

  “Well, send that damned tug.”

  Markham shook his head. “It has better uses. It was about ready to return anyway. It will take Secunda orbit and wait for an asteroid that is due in shortly.” He spoke like a man using irrelevancies to stave off the moment when he must utter his real meaning.

  “Okay, the warship.”

  “It too has other duties. I’ve told them about Saxtorph’s babbling of kamikaze tactics. Hraou-Captain must keep his vessel prepared to blow that boat out of the sky if it comes near—until Saxtorph’s gang is under arrest, or dead. He will detach his auxiliaries to search.”

  “Let him,” Ryan jeered. “Bob’s got this whole system to skulk around in.”

  “Tertia is the first place to try.”

  “Go ahead. That old fox is good at finding burrows.”

  Werlith-Commandant growled. Markham grew paler yet, bowed, turned on Ryan and said in a rush: “Don’t waste more time. The master wants to resolve this business as soon as possible. He wants Saxtorph and company preferably alive, dead will do, but disposed of, so we can get on with the business of explaining away at Wunderland what happened to Rover. You will cooperate.”

  Sweat studded Ryan’s face. “I will?”

  “Yes. You shall accompany the search party. Broadcast your message in Hawaiian. Persuade them to give themselves up.”

  Ryan relieved himself of several obscenities.

  “Be reasonable,” Markham almost pleaded. “Think what has happened with Fido. The rest can only die in worse ways, unless you bring them to their senses.”

  Ryan shifted his feet wide apart, thrust his head forward, and spat, “No surrender.”

  Markham took a backward step. “What?”

  “Your mother’s motto, ratcat-lover. Have you forgotten? How proud of you she’s going to be when she hears.”

  Markham closed his eyes. His lips moved. He looked forth again and said in a string of whiperacks: “You will obey. Werlith-Commandant orders it. Look yonder. Do you see what is in the comer? He expected stubbornness.”

  Ryan and Tregennis peered. They recognized fiume and straps, pincers and electrodes; certain items were less identifiable. The telepath slumped at the feet of the torturer.

  “Hastily improvised,” Markham said, “but the database has a full account of human physiology, and I made some suggestions as well. The subject will not die under interrogation as often happened in the past.”

  Ryan’s chest heaved. “If that thing can read my mind, he knows—”

  Markham sighed. “We had better get to work.” He glanced at the kzin officers. They both made a gesture. The guard sprang to seize Ryan from behind. The Hawaiian yelled and struggled, but that grip was unbreakable by a human.

  The torturer advanced. He laid hands on Tregennis.

  “Watch, Ryan,” Markham said raggedly. “Let us know when you have had enough.”

  The torturer half dragged, half marched Tregennis across the room, held him against the wall, and, claws out on the free hand, ripped the clothes from his scrawniness.

  “That’s your idea, Markham!” Ryan bellowed. “You unspeakable—”

  “Hold fast, Kamehameha,” Tregennis called in his thin voice. “Don’t yield.”

  “Art, oh, Art—”

  The kzin secured the man to the frame. He picked up the electrodes and applied them. Tregennis screamed. Yet he modulated it: “Pain has a saturation point, Kamehameha. Hold fast!”

  The business proceeded.

  “You win, you Judas, okay, you win,” Ryan wept.

  Tregennis could no longer make words, merely noises.

  Markham inquired of the officers before he told Ryan, “This will continue a few minutes more, to drive the lesson home. Given proper care and precautions, he should still be alive to accompany the search party.” Markham breathed hard. “To make sure of your cooperation, do you hear? This is your fault!” he shrieked.

  “No,” Saxtorph had said. “I think we’d better stay put for the time being.” Dorcas had looked at him across the shoulder of Laurinda, whom she held close, Laurinda who had just heard her man say farewell. The cramped command section was full of the girl’s struggles not to cry. “If they thought to check Prima immediately, they will be at Tertia before long,” the captain’s wife had stated.

  Saxtorph had nodded. “Yah, sure. But they’ll have a lot more trouble finding us where we are than if we were in space, even free-falling with a cold generator. We could only boost a short ways, you see, else they’d acquire our drive-spoor if they’ve gotten anywhere near. They’d have a fairly small volume for their radars to sweep.”

  “But to sit passive! What use?”

  “I didn’t mean that. Thought you knew me better. Got an idea I suspect you can improve on.”

  Laurinda had lifted her head and sobbed, “Couldn’t we… m-make terms? If we surrender to them… they rescue Juan and, and Carita?”

  “Afraid not, honey,” Saxtorph had rumbled. Anguish plowed furrows down his face. “Once we call‘em, they’ll have a fix on us, and what’s left to dicker with? Either we give in real nice or they lob a shell. They’d doubtless like to have us for purposes of faking a story, but we aren’t essential—they hold three as is—and they’ve written Fido’s people off. I’m sorry.”

  Laurinda had freed herself from the mate’s embrace, stood straight, swallowed hard. “You must be right,” she had said in a voice taking on an edge.

  “What can we do? Thank you, Dorcas, dear, but, I’m ready now… for whatever you need.”

  “Good lass.” The older woman had squeezed her hand before asking the captain: “If we don’t want to be found, shouldn’t we fetch back the relay from above?”

  Saxtorph had considered. The same sensitivity which had received, reconstructed, and given to the boat a radio whisper from across more than two hundred million kilometers, could betray his folk. After a moment: “No, leave it. A small object, after all, which we’ve camouflaged pretty well, and its emission blends into the sun’s radio background. If the kzinti get close enough to detect it, they’ll be onto us anyway.”

  “You don’t imagine we can hide here forever.”

  “Certainly not. They can locate us in two, three weeks at most if they work hard. However, meanwhile they won’t know for sure we are on Tertia. They’ll spread themselves thin looking elsewhere, too, or they’ll worry. Never give the enemy a free ride.”

  “But you say you have something better in mind than simply distracting them for a while.”

  “Well, I have a sort of a notion. It’s loony as it stands, but maybe you can help me refine it. At best, we’ll probably get ourselves killed, but plain to see, Markham’s effort to cut a deal has not worked out, and—we can hope for some revenge.”

  Laurinda’s albino eyes had flared.

  – “Aloha, hoapilina.—”

  Crouched over the communicator, Saxtorph heard the Hawaiian through. English followed, the dragging tone of a broken man: “Well, that was to show you this is honest, Bob, if you’re listenin
g. The kzinti don’t have a telepath along, because they know they don’t need the poor creature. They do require me to go on in a language their translator can handle. Anyway, I don’t suppose you remember much Polynesian.

  “We’re orbiting Tertia in a boat from the Prowling Hunter warship. ’We’ are her crew, plus a couple of marines, plus Arthur Tregennis and myself. Markham stayed on Secunda. He’s a kzin agent. Maybe you’ve gotten the message from Fido. I’m afraid the game’s played out, Bob. I tried to resist, but they tortured not me—poor Art. I soon couldn’t take it. He’s alive, sort of. They give you three hours to call them. That’s in case you’ve scrammed to the far ends of the system and may not be tuned in right now. You’ll’ve noticed this is a powerful planar ’cast. They think they’re being generous. If they haven’t heard in three hours, they’ll torture Art some more. Please don’t let that happen!” Ryan howled through the wail that Laurinda tried to stifle. “Please call back!” Saxtorph waited a while, but there was nothing further, only the hiss of the red sun. He took his finger from the transmission key, which he had not pressed, and twisted about to look at his companions. Light streaming wanly through the westside port found Dorcas’ features frozen. Laurinda’s writhed; her mouth was stretched out of shape.

  “So,” he said. “Three hours. Dark by then, as it happens.”

  “They hurt him,” Laurinda gasped. “That good old man, they took him and hurt him.”

  Dorcas peeled lips back from teeth. “Shrewd,” she said. “Markham in kzin pay? I’m not totally surprised. I don’t know how it was arranged, but I’m not too surprised. He suggested this, I think. The kzinti probably don’t understand us that well.”