by Larry Niven
Why Orion had given it to Silver I had no idea, but its effect on the crew was extraordinary. They leapt upon it and passed it from one to the other with excitement. You would have thought they imagined they had the key to the universe and were home and dry with the treasure. “Yes, that be K’zarr’s pad, I seen it before.”
“Very pretty,” said Rraangar sourly. “But what use be it wi’ no ship?”
Silver motioned me and we walked away. I remembered that the thing had been booby-trapped, and thought that maybe it was still lethal, so I caught up with Silver quickly.
“Cap’n, where be you goin’?” one of the crew whined.
“Oh, I knows where I’m not wanted. I resigns, I does. Ye’ve got another Cap’n now, Rraangar wants the job, I’m thinkin’. Well, ye’re welcome to him is all I says. But I wouldn’t want him for my leader. He ain’t safe is what I be thinkin’, ’cos he got no gumption, and has no ideas worth half a damp fart in a thunderstorm, he don’t. He’s got the invention of a sthondat, so he do. So I be leavin’ ye all, an’ I wishes ye well, but I doesn’t expect ye to have much luck, no, I doesn’t. Still, we goes our separate ways wi’ no ill feelin’, I hopes.”
“No, Cap’n, don’t leave us. You is our Cap’n, be sure of it,” one of them cried, and the murmurs from the others supported him. Only Rraangar seemed uncertain. I think he liked the thought of being in charge, but he didn’t care at all for the responsibility. Pirate captains who can’t show success have a short lifespan.
“So that’s the toon, is it?” cried Silver. “Rraangar, I reckons you’ll have to wait your turn, friend, and lucky for you I’m not revengeful, but ’twas never my way. And now this here death claw, what does we do with it? ’Tain’t much use now, is it? And never was a lot, what with it comin’ from a trusty. Ye’ve crossed your luck there, I’m thinkin’.” Silver threw it derisively on the ground, and I was tempted to pick it up, but I remembered what one had done to Skel, and I had noted the care with which Silver had handled it, using only his claw tips, which he then wiped surreptitiously on a bit of fabric from a pouch.
That was the end of the business, and the crew took a drink all round, and retreated to the wreck. Silver’s only revenge was to appoint Rraangar as sentry, and threaten him with death if he should prove unfaithful. Silver and I stayed outside, while he cat-napped and I eventually fell asleep in the broad daylight, huddling under a part of the wreck so as to keep the sun out of my eyes. It took some time to get to sleep. I had matter enough for thought in my perilous position, and above all in the remarkable game that I saw Silver engaged upon—keeping the mutineers together with one hand, and grasping with the other every means possible and impossible to make his peace and save his miserable life. He sat there, as relaxed and peaceful as if he had no care in the world, one eye closed, and a soft droning sound coming from his throat—he was actually purring. Yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he was, to think on the dark perils that awaited him, and the shameful death he faced and no doubt deserved.
I was awakened by a hail; the voice was human and one I recognized. I stood up yawning and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I have to say, nearly perpetual daylight is very wearing. With the sun always high in the sky, you feel as though you have been very late to awake and faintly guilty in consequence. The sun may have moved perceptibly during our time here, but it was by very little.
The hail came again: “Ho there, mutineers and pirates, it is your friendly neighborhood doctor come to visit!”
And indeed it was. Doctor Lemoine stood there, where Silver had stood under flag of truce. The Doctor carried no flag, but he waved his little black bag in token of coming in peace. He looked his usual fresh self, in dark suit and white linen, with his long pipe in his hand.
Silver stretched and made himself agreeable.
“Welcome, doctor, and top o’ the mornin’ to ye, and how be yourself this live-long day?” He was cheery and welcoming, as he could be when he set his mind to it. “Your patients spent a quiet night, I’m glad to tell ye. Leastaways, they didn’t make no noise to speak of.”
That was the first time I realized that there were wounded kzin in the wreck of the lander and the Doctor had been giving them medicines to keep them alive. It says much about the man that he took it for granted that his duty was to help all who were sick, without reference to their species or their allegiance. And that he put his own life at hazard to do so, for a wounded kzin might not be entirely rational.
I was confused as to how to treat him, for our insubordinate conduct had caused a deal of trouble. I saw what it had brought me, among what companions and surrounded by what dangers, and I felt unable to look him in the face.
“Rraangar, help the good Doctor up the hill, blast ye for a lazy oaf.” Silver was quite the old agreeable tutor, in voice, manner and expression.
“We’ve a surprise for ye, Doctor, and a pleasant one, to be sure. We’ve a little stranger come among us, a new boarder and lodger, sir, and looking taut and fit as a fiddle. Slep’ like a supercargo he did, right alongside o’ Silver, for the whole night, so we be talkin’ ship’s time, o’course.”
By this time, Doctor Lemoine was close to the wreck, and I could hear the change in his voice as he said: “Not Peter?” He saw me at the same moment, and his eyes widened. He stopped and looked at me strangely.
“Well, well,” he said at last. “Duty first and then pleasure as you might have said yourself, Silver. Let us overhaul our patients.”
A moment later he had followed Silver into the wreck, with one grim look at me before he did so. He was as cool as always, though he must have known that his life among these treacherous demons depended on a hair. I followed him in, getting a black look from Rraangar, though he said nothing.
The Doctor rattled on to his patients as though they were ordinary Thoma’stowners and he paying an everyday professional call; his manner reacted on the kzin, who treated him as if he were the ship’s Doctor and they faithful hands, and as though nothing uneventful had occurred. “You’re doing well my friend,” he told one with a bandaged head. “You must have a skull of stainless steel, for it was close to finishing you, that cutlass blow. Did you take your medicine?” The kzin said little. “Well men, did he take his medicine?” the Doctor asked in good humor, and they rumbled that he had indeed done so.
“And did you pass up on the rum, as I told you?” There was less agreement on this, some of them looking almost shamefaced. “Well, it is important that I keep you all in good condition, for I want every last one of you to come to trial for mutiny and piracy in deep space, I’d not lose one of you. The Lord Vaemar would never forgive me. And as you may be aware, on Wunderland he has co-jurisdiction in criminal cases involving kzin. The kidnapping, risk and insult to his son and grand-daughter will doubtless interest him. Perhaps you know that he was kidnapped himself when not much more than a kit—by crazed humans who had risen under Chuut-Riit during the Occupation and wanted him to lead them again. Poor creatures! Or perhaps, now that the peace treaty is holding, you’ll be handed over to the Patriarchy—though I’m an honorary magistrate, I’m afraid interspecies law is not my specialty.”
They looked at each other, but swallowed the thrust in silence. ARM would perhaps not wish to get involved, but remembering what I had heard of Silver’s boasting of their exploits during the war, and of Chuut-Riit’s vow of vengeance to the death and the generations, it seemed to me that neither Vaemar nor the Patriarchy could be expected to err on the side of leniency. He carried on binding their wounds.
“There, that’s done, and I should warn you not to displace those bandages, for there are bacteria here which can get into an open wound, not to mention some nasty fungal things that would take your insides out and turn your guts into green rot. And you’d be better using that rum for antiseptic than for drinking, for it affects your livers, and under these conditions you need all the liver function you can get. But then, when did anyone take medical advice, eh? All right, an
d now I shall go and talk to Master Peter Cartwright, if you please.”
“No!” cried Rraangar, and drew his wtsai. Silver knocked it aside and roared like a lion, shaking his mane about as he looked around.
“Doctor,” he went on in his usual tones, “I was a-thinking of that, knowing as how ye had a liking for the man-kit. We’re all humbly grateful for your kindness, and as ye see we puts faith in ye, and we takes our medicines down like so much grog, so we does. And I take it I’ve found a way as’ll suit all of us. Peter, young monkey, will ye gi’ us your word as a Hero, for though ye be but a monkey and by no means rich, I can see ye ha’ the sperrit o’ one o’ the nobility, would ye give us yer word of honor not to slip your cable?”
I readily gave the pledge required. A human could not outrun a kzin anyway.
“Then Doctor,” said Silver, “ye may step down the hill a little way, and when ye’re there, why, I’ll bring the man-kit down to ye, so I will, within an easy talkin’ distance. Good day to ye, sir, and all our dooties to Lord Orion-Riit and S’maak-Captain.”
The Doctor looked at him, then at me, with no expression on his face, then nodded and left the wreck. As he did, the explosion of disapproval which nothing but Silver’s black looks had contained erupted in roars and hisses. Silver was roundly accused of playing double—of trying to make a separate peace for himself, of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and victims, and in short, of exactly the thing he was indeed doing. I found it impossible to imagine how he could conceal it from them, but he was twice the kzin any of the rest were, and his victory of the previous day had given him an enormous preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dolts you can imagine, as well as other of the Heroes’ Tongue’s remarkable range of suggestive insults and said it was necessary I should talk to the Doctor. He waved K’zarr’s memo pad in their faces, and asked them if they could afford to break the treaty the very day they could hope to take the ship back.
“No, by thunder,” he cried, “it’s us must break the treaty when the time is ripe; ’til then, I’ll gammon that Doctor if I have to polish his boots wi’ brandy.”
Then he admonished them to contain themselves, threw them the memo pad, which one of them caught, and stalked out, his paw upon my shoulder, using his great cutlass as a support. He left them in disarray, silenced by his volubility rather than convinced.
“Slow, Peter, slow,” he said quietly. “They might round upon us in the twinkle of an eye if we was seen to hurry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We walked slowly towards the Doctor, who stood at some distance, waiting patiently. When we were within talking range Silver called out: “You’ll make a note of this here also, Doctor, and the man-kit will confirm it; I saved his life at risk to me own, and was deposed for it, too, and ye may lay to that. Doctor, when a Hero is steerin’ as close to the wind as what I am, ye wouldn’t think it too much, mayhap, to give him one good word? You’ll please bear in mind, ’tis not only my life now, ’tis the kit’s as well. And you’ll give me a bit o’ hope to go on, for the sake o’ mercy.” At the back of my mind I noted that expression ‘close to the wind’. The kzin had picked up many nautical terms from their former employers, the Jotok.
Silver was desperately earnest, his voice trembled. It was the third time I had heard a kzin use the word “mercy.” Trust Silver to know it.
“Why Silver, were you not a kzin Hero, I might think you afraid,” Doctor Lemoine said quizzically. This was a risky thing to say to any kzin.
“Doctor, I will willingly die for somethin’ worth dyin’ for, d’ye see? Even for the chance to make a healthy profit. But I face torture and for what? For nothin’. For standing up for the young man-kit here in the face of ignorance and stupidity, maybe. For nothin’ a kzin can take pride in, save that. Now ye are a good man, and true; one o’ the best o’ humankind to be sure. And you’ll not forget what I done that’s good, no more than you’ll forget what’s bad, I know. So I steps aside, see? And I leaves Peter and you alone, and you will put that down for me too, I hope, for it’s a long stretch, is that!”
So saying, he stepped back a little way until he was out of earshot, and leaned against his great cutlass with the hilt under his arm, waiting. He would turn away to look at the ruffians in the wreck, and back again to regard the Doctor and me.
“So, Peter,” the Doctor said sadly. “Here you are. And yet you have done much good; Marthar has returned with this old kzin Bengar, and has shown us hope to get off this accursed planet. And yet here you are, a hostage in the hands of the enemy. A sad lack of judgment, you have to admit.”
I was greatly cheered to hear that Marthar and the others had met up and that, whatever my follies, they would be safe. But I was mortified that I had been captured through lack of thought and admitted as much.
“Doctor,” I told him, my lip quivering, “I have paid the price. My life is forfeit, I know it, and I should have been dead by now had not Silver stood by me. And Doctor, believe this, I can die—and I daresay I deserve it—but what I fear is torture. If they come to torture me—”
“Peter,” the Doctor interrupted, and his voice was quite changed. “Peter, I can’t have this. Whip over here and we’ll run for it.”
“Doctor,” I said, “I gave my word.”
“I know, I know,” he cried. “We can’t help that, Peter. I’ll take the whole thing on my shoulders, blame and shame, my boy; but I cannot let you stay here. Jump, and we’ll run like antelopes.”
“No,” I replied. “You know right well you would never do the same thing yourself and no more will I. Silver trusted me; I gave my word and back I go. But, Doctor, you did not let me finish. What I fear is that under torture I might lead them through the discs to where the pinnace is. Or was, at least. So I beg you to move it somewhere safe, somewhere I don’t know about, else all is lost.”
The Doctor looked at me for a few seconds. “Peter,” he said at length, “you have saved our lives and above all you have saved Marthar; she told us the details. It would be a poor return were we to let you lose yours. You found old Bengar, the two of you, the best deed you’ll ever do; but that reminds me, talking of Bengar. Silver!” he cried out. “Silver, I’ll give you a piece of advice,” he continued as the kzin drew near. “Don’t you be in any great hurry to take the treasure.”
“Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain’t. I can only save my life and the boy’s by leading my Heroes to that treasure, and ye may lay to that.”
“Well, Silver,” replied the Doctor, “if that be so, I’ll go one step further: look out for squalls when you take it.”
“Sir, as between legal entities, that’s too much and too little. What you’re after, why you took up in the tower, why ye gave me Kzarr’s pad, that I don’t know now, do I? But no, this here’s too much; if you’ll not tell me what you mean, just say so and I’ll quit the helm.”
“No,” said the Doctor musingly. “I’ve no right to say more, it’s not my secret, you see, Silver, or I give you my word I’d tell you. But this I will say, if we all get out of this tigripard-trap alive, if you save the boy, I’ll do my best to save you, short of perjury.”
Silver’s face lit up. “You couldn’t say more, sir, I’m sure, and my grateful thanks for it.”
“Well, that’s my first concession. My second is a bit of advice: keep the boy close beside you and when you need help, call for it. I’m off now to seek it for you both. Farewell, Peter.”
And Doctor Lemoine shook hands with me, nodded to Silver and strode off at a brisk pace into the bushes.
The Doctor was gone for a few minutes when Silver looked at me. “If I saved your life, Peter, then you saved mine, and I’ll not forget it. I seen you out of the tail of me eye when the Doctor begged ye to run for it, so I did; and I seen ye say no, as plain as hearing it. That’s one to you, that is, and the first glimmer o’ hope I had since the attack failed, and I owe it to you. And now, we have to go on this treasure hunt, wit
h sealed orders too, and I don’t like it. You and me we must stay close, back to back like, and mayhap we’ll save our necks in spite o’ fate and fortune.”
Just then one of the crew tumbled out of the wrecked lander and hailed us. “Silver-Captain, what was the password that K’zarr had on his pad?” he called.