Man-Kzin Wars XIV Read Free Page A

as the other covered it. Fresh ammunition supplies were being brought up and passed out methodically.
    The lesslocks found getting out of the stockade considerably more difficult than getting into it. Not many survived to get over the wall and back to the tree cover.
    Ruat was bleeding from numerous new bites and scratches, but his eyes were shining. He walked back to the humans with the kit on his shoulder and a positive swagger in his step. He contemplated his ear-ring, imagining how it would look adorned with many new ears. There would be an ear-ring for his son too. The judge would have slapped him on the back, but remembered in time never to touch an adult male kzin without permission. Still, there were plenty of cheers for him. It was hard to estimate exactly how many lesslocks had died, but it seemed unlikely that they would attack again for a long time. Wendy Cantor produced some fish-flavored ice cream that she had been secretly preparing as a treat for the kits. They purred and preened against her, already knowing enough not to press so hard as to knock her down.
    “I was an infantry trooper once,” Ruat said. “I never thought it would fall to my lot to be the one to give our battle-cry—and lead.”
    “You are truly a Hero now,” the judge told him. “But I think you will have the chance to lead us in battle again. That was a coordinated attack. I do not think it will be the last . . . We must heighten the wall, and make sure there are always sentries posted. The degree of organization behind the attack concerns me.”
    “Thinking of those days,” said Ruat, “I remember the Surrender Day.”
    “So do I,” said the judge. There was suddenly something very bleak in his voice. Then he laughed to cover it, but the laugh sounded forced and artificial to him.
    “Our officer gave me a kzinrett from his own harem and told me I was not permitted to die nobly in battle. He said I was to make for the forest and do what I could to keep our species alive. You say you remember those days? A bad time.”
    “My Hero, you do not know how bad. I was once Captain Jorg von Thoma, of the Patriarch’s human auxiliary police,” said the judge. “A kzin saved my life at the risk of his own, that day. That secret puts my life in your hands.”
    “Why do you tell me this, then?”
    “To seal the trust between us.”

    A month later there were four kzin families living in the village and Wendy had treated them successfully with antibiotics, which they now had in large quantities for both human and kzin. One single kzin had come in, had been made healthy as far as his body was concerned, and had subsequently killed a man who had laughed at him. Ruat had broken his neck with contemptuous ease: Darwin was working on the kzinti, too. The judge approved Ruat for maintaining Law and Order, and gave him a job as a policeman—the first the village had ever had. Some of the humans had grumbled at the appointment, but a larger number felt safer. Previously there hadn’t been much by way of crime beyond the odd drunken fight, but afterwards there wasn’t any.
    Wunderland, Southern Continent, 2438 AD
    “HEY, WHAT’S THAT?” Sarah pointed across the waves, high and roiling in Wunderland’s light gravity.
    Greg focused his binoculars on the object. “Looks a bit like a monster fin, doesn’t it?”
    Sarah shivered in her parka. The Southland was always cold, and with Wunderland between A and B, the biggest components of the Alpha Centauri triple star system, the planet was as far from A as it ever got. Winter on Wunderland was determined by the orbit, because the planetary axis inclination was small. And B sucked the aphelion out and made it precess. Coming here for a honeymoon was even more eccentric than the orbit.
    “It’s rolling a bit. Hold on, it’s coming more upright. There’s some letters on it,” Greg turned his head sideways to read them. “It says ‘UN’ something . . . You look at it, and tell me I