“I need to consult.”
“The one called Rick is nearby. I suppose I could put you together.”
“Is he well.”
“He says nothing.”
“I must talk with him.”
“I do not think talking would be useful. He is a coward. His mind and liver are only fear now. Not like you. But you are more a monkey-expert than I and I will bring him if you think it would help.”
“No, take me to him. That is the way it is done with us. I am the female and I must go to him.”
Being dragged here by that thing might well be the last straw for him, her real thought flashed out to me. If that was what she thought, why did she not say so? Her thoughts and her words were not in synchronization. She spoke things that were not—lied—as no Warrior or Hero would.
But as a Telepath might.
It was useful to be reminded that these monkeys were but honorless omnivores. But why should I need reminding of that?
Then a speaker boomed.
“Telepath to the Bridge!”
“Wait,” I told it. “If your Bearded God owes you anything, ask him to pay that debt to you now.”
“We have the other monkey-ship! It is surely the so-called Writing Stick!” Telepath blundered onto the Bridge, looking as always sick and disheveled. The officers drew instinctively away from him, but Weeow-Captain beckoned him instantly to one of the Command couches.
“Get them, Telepath!” Weeow-Captain ordered. “Confirm!”
Telepath sank into the position of the Mind-hunt.
“This is truly the Writing Stick and truly the ship that destroyed Tracker,” he reported after a moment. “They have detected us. They speculate that we are Tracker’s companion... They call us something like... Big Specialized Four-Legged Solitary Carnivorous Hunting Animal...“ Zraar-Admiral and Weeow-Captain had expected an obscenely abusive monkey-name. The Kzin felt surprised and mildly gratified that, clumsy as it was, the name these fighting monkeys had given to Disemboweling Claw was nothing offensive. Some monkey might receive an honorable death as an acknowledgment of the politeness.
A pause then: “They have Heroes’ dead bodies on board, and machinery from Tracker. The gravity motor...
Then a strangled cry. A brother Telepath might have detected that Telepath was torn between the compulsion of the drug and a desire not to reveal what he had discovered. “They have Tracker’s missiles! They have mounted them and rigged Tracker’s launching console!”
“Urrr. Can they run?”
“They seem to be near maximum speed now. We steadily overtake them.”
“Shall we detonate their missiles?” Weeow-Captain asked Zraar-Admiral.
“Not yet. We should be able to intercept such a battery if necessary. But if possible they are to be boarded. There is vengeance to be exacted. And Heroes’ bodies should be recovered for honorable disposal. Unless we must we should not send the bodies of Heroes and Monkeys to the Fanged God together in such circumstances. Let the monkeys responsible be properly laid out upon our Heroes’ funeral pyres. The meat of the rest will be ours.”
Zraar-Admiral stood still in thought for a moment. Telepath seemed unconscious now.
“Weeow Captain, we will not chase them from behind. Divert your course. A large arc.” He swiped his claws across the screen, indicating the angle. “I wish to approach this prey from the flank.”
He went on: “It will be slower, but it will give the prey more time for anticipation.” Zraar-Admiral could feel his officer’s keen joy that he was prepared to prolong the pleasure of all concerned. And keep us out of the way of that drive... Zraar-Admiral thought to himself.
There was more that might be learnt about the enemy, but Zraar-Admiral, seeing Telepath lying prone on the deck, was aware that he would have to be conserved.
He was the last of the three the squadron had begun with. He gestured to an orderly who dragged Telepath away by one foot and dumped him on a shelf in a nearby corridor, slack-limbed, twitching, breathing in shallow gasps.
The orderly had no thought for Telepath. Having to touch the addict’s ill-smelling fur was distasteful enough. He hastened back to Zraar-Admiral’s side and did not see how quickly the little Kzin seemed to recover, then sprang to his feet, and ran.
Zraar-Admiral had been on the bridge a long time as their quarry was slowly overhauled. He gave orders that he was to be called in the event of any developments and went to rest. Weeow-Captain and the rest could do with a demonstration of the value of the ability to relax before action. Perhaps there would be a monkeymeat feast later, before the final pounce, and, with new monkey-prisoners, a larger celebratory one after the victory.
No-one from the bridge saw Telepath pass by again shortly after, hauling a loaded gravity-sledge. He headed first for the boat-deck, then back to the now nearly depopulated live-meat lockers.
Rick Chew was almost catatonic. Telepath pulled the door closed behind them, curled himself down and knotted his ears for a moment. Then he straightened again.
“It is as I said,” he told Selina after a moment. “Its mind is blank. I read nothing. It is male, but it is not a monkey like you.”
“Can you bring him round?” asked Selina. Telepath had to probe her own mind to understand what she meant.
“Comfort it? Like kitten? Comforting monkeys is nothing I know. Who has comforted me?”
“Try. Project your mind. Try the ideas of ‘Friend’ and ‘Safety.’”
“I do not put into minds. I take from them. I cannot tell a piece of quivering monkeymeat that it is a useful companion or that it is safe when it is neither. If that is what you want you must do it.”
It took Selina a long time to bring Rick Chew to full consciousness, holding and stroking him. It was therapy by instinct. Perhaps the sight of her and Telepath together played some part in helping him accept what was before him.
He could do little more than nod at first as Selina tried to give him a euphemistic and reassuring account of their situation, and when she tried to explain that Telepath was an ally. But Telepath told her that he understood.
Finally, at Selina’s instruction, Telepath withdrew and left them, muttering to the effect that time was limited. Rick turned to Selina and, to her surprise, made an attempt at a tearful smile. There was little of the Rick she had known in that gaunt haggard face.
“Aren’t you going to say: ‘I told you so’?” He asked. Selina felt tears starting in her own eyes at the attempted joke. But she knew it might be fatal to give way to emotion now. She did not realize that something was making her more receptive to emotion. He is tougher than I imagined, she thought. Perhaps tougher than he imagined, too. Is there hope in that? If not for us personally, perhaps for our kind? Arthur, can you hear me? Can anybody hear me? She held Rick close, touching his sunken cheek tentatively.
“At least,” she said, “we have added a great deal to our knowledge of the universe. We wanted to find out what Space contained. Now we know.”
“Yes. And it would be nice to have the results of our research published. Though I must confess the prospects that originally motivated us seem somewhat secondary to me now.”
“What a learned paper we could write: ‘Notes towards tentative conclusions regarding preliminary results of an investigation into certain inter-stellar gravity and radio anomalies.’”
Rick grabbed her hard. “We’ve got to warn Earth!”
“I know.” Selina suspected the Angel’s Pencil was already sending off warnings, but this would give him a further motive for action.
“That thing!” he shook uncontrollably as his mind filled with an image of Telepath.
“You’ll get used to him,” Selina told him with a kind of grotesque matter-of-factness. “He’s not so bad for a... for whatever they are...” She repeated slowly that Telepath wanted them to escape with him. She had wondered if this was some cruel equivalent of a house-cat playing with mice, but something told her it was not. Again she wondered at ho
w much she seemed to know about Telepath.
“Yes, he would need us with him to get the Pencil to take him aboard: But how?” The voice had relapsed into tonelessness but the words at least suggested Rick was handling data again.
He would not have been selected for this crew If he had not been one of the best, Selina reminded herself. It Is easy to forget that we were an elite. She told him again what Telepath had said and all she had worked out about Telepath’s position. After a time Rick spoke in a different voice.
“It is a question of getting a sufficient start. We must place some distance between ourselves and the ship before our absence is noticed. Given enough distance from the source of a beam, it might be possible to avoid it. They must have counter-measures to beams, too. Devices to throw out dust-clouds, perhaps.”
“Yes, he mentioned something about that.”
“But if we do somehow get to the Angel’s Pencil, what then?”
“We are better off there than here. Telepath tells me they used the comm-laser as a weapon of their own, and that they have evidently taken missiles from another cat-ship they destroyed. And there is the ramscoop-field.”
“The ramscoop-field is generated ahead. The laser points behind. Neither can be moved much... Not fast enough...”
“We’ll have to hope they’ve got other weapons operational by now. They’ve had time to think...”
They were still struggling with plans when Telepath returned. “Now you have awakened the cowardly monkey, what have you achieved?” he demanded.
They discussed anti-beam defenses and how they could gain time to escape. There were intact hexagons of logic-lattice on the arms and torso of Selina’s suit, and on Rick’s, which Telepath also retrieved, but at present there was nothing they could ask them.
“No choice but action now!” said Telepath. “We close with the Writing Stick! Battle soon! Place for us in that battle! Urrr!”
He struck an heroic attitude. “Let us urinate from the heights on fear! What do all our legends and epics tells us? Lord Chmeee, Krrarrit, Lord Dragga-Skrull, Lost Skragga-Chrnee, Ffeelillth-Wirrh! Zirrow-Graff Grragz’s Third Gunner! Kzintosh Heroes without number, all defied prodigious enemies and great odds! So our race may face the Fanged God without fear! Does not even your Bearded God approve of courage?”
“Let us see what capital we have,” said Rick at last. “Selina is a navigator-pilot. I know both computers and reasoning machines.
“If I could have one of this ship’s main computer outlets to work on, it is just possible something could be done. Is there an input to a central data-base?”
“Of course. They are all over the ship.”
“And in the boats? They are connected?”
“Of course. The boats and also the cruisers and other ships riding in the hull.”
“And reasoning machines? Planar lattices?”
Telepath read his mind.
“No,” he said. “Heroes use machines when large numbers must be dealt with at great speed, or to enhance hunting senses. We do not use machines to tell us how to make decisions. We are not monkeys.”
“That is what I hoped. So you have computers only, with a central computer net?”
“Yes.”
“Could that be jinxed somehow? To create an impression that things are not what they seem? We need a... diversion. Something to give us time.”
“What diversion?”
A simulated emergency. Computer failure might be easiest. But it would have to be a lifesystem-threatening situation that would occupy all attention.”
“The lifesystem has ample back-ups. So does the computer system. This ship was built for battle, though it has never fought aliens in deep space. There are redundancies in all essential systems.”
“Never fought aliens?”
“No. Only your Plant Eater. We have beaten down planetary defenses and we have landed infantry on some primitive worlds. Some aboard have fought other Kzin. But that does not matter now.”
“Oh, yes it does! You mean this is actually a crew without much experience of war! What hazards does your kind fear?”
“None! Heroes fear nothing save dishonor!” The reply was automatic and instantaneous, but Selina felt somehow sure that it was not completely true.
“Then what hazards does your command bear most in mind now?”
“Tracker is in many minds. Unknown weapons. Zraar-Admiral and Weeow-Captain are puzzled still how weaponless monkeys could react in time to destroy a Kzin scout-cruiser. They thought your ship would fight, though it did not. Zraar-Admiral has wondered if you monkeys are controlled by hidden masters. There are some who fear ambushes. Even Zraar-Admiral has wondered in secret lately if the recording we found in Tracker was not part of a trap to make us think that that battle was a freak only—that the real enemy is formidable and different.”
“Then an attack on this ship,” said Rick. “That would be a diversion.”
“An attack with what?” asked Telepath. “Who would attack?”
“We would. We need to paint a picture of an attack.”
“I do not understand, monkey. Is your mind still sick?” Telepath lashed his tail in frustration and disgust. “Heal him!” He ordered Selina. “You may mate with him if that will calm him, but be swift!”
“I don’t think his mind is sick,” said Selina. “Let him explain.”
“We cannot attack a...“ Telepath spoke for all the control he could muster. There were no words for “capital ship” or “Dreadnought” left in the humans’ vocabularies. “Even if we obtained weapons. Suicide gesture only. Urrr. Is that what you intend?... Suicide gesture might,” he added thoughtfully, “be best option.”
“We could attack it through its computers.” said Rick. Telepath stared at him. “Go on,” he said at last, “but I do not understand. We could, perhaps, shut down main computers for short time. But back-up computers phase in automatically. I told you there are many redundancies. We would have time to do nothing.”
“I would need your help,” said Rick, “Can you extract knowledge from the minds of your computer programmers so that they are unaware of it.”
“I believe so. I am good Telepath. You hear how well I speak your language. I am good at taking knowledge from Kzintosh or monkey.”
“What weapons does this ship carry inside itself?”
“The infantry weapons—guns, beams, chemical weapons, missile launchers... The ship’s heavy weapons are under Weapons Officer’s control.”
“The infantry weapons... they would have to be comparatively low-yield?”
“There are some chemical bombs, yes. Weapons the infantry carry...“
Rick was speaking quickly now: “Any diversion should combine events: bombs exploded inside the hull to simulate missile impacts, and from the boat a program loaded into the main computers. With your knowledge of your computers that should be possible. The bomb-damage would also help disguise the fact the boat was missing.”
“Where would we get bombs?”
“Would not the boats carry weapons? The very boat you plan to escape in?”
“How do you know this?”
“I don’t know. There is a kind of inevitability about it, once you begin to think in these terms. It would naturally have weapons.”
“Your own boat did not.”
“No, of course not.”
“Yes,” Telepath nodded. “It may be as I suspected. But they would not believe if I told them. May be wrong cave at last. Stupid. Stupid.”
“Meanwhile,” said Rick, “We must do some creative programming. Not disable the main computers of this ship, but Tanj them: place an image of an attacker in them. It must appear on the screens suddenly as we escape. Can you know the ship’s computers well enough to do that?”
“I told you I am good Telepath. I can know them for a time. I can read the programmers’ and system controllers’ minds, take years of knowledge and training and make them my own. Also Navigator, who has access to Fleet compu
ter banks. Everything.
“What none aboard deign to realize is that only I, the addict, may know everything about this ship if I choose. I have the ability to read Kzintosh minds by stealth, if need be, stealthy as any lurker in tall grass. For I also have a war, though they do not know it... If a computer can be programmed, I can extract knowledge to program it. If boat is to be flown, if weapon is to be operated, I can extract knowledge to do it!
“And yet they would not let me breed. I have read in your minds of monkeys on your homeworld who have a distant glimmering of the World of the Eleventh Sense, the smallest hint of Telepath’s power. And you give these monkeys recognition and place and encourage them to breed!”
“I am also a programmer,” said Rick. His voice had become calm and precise now, no longer with the need to control fear but with the need to discipline and marshal rapid thoughts. Perhaps even to calm Telepath, wondered Selina How quickly things are changing! “You can read my mind as well. Given this cognitive array, can you place the image of an attacking ship in the system?”
“It is possible. Displays are diagrammatic. But I do not know how long such a false image would go undetected. Not long, I think.”
“Each moment that it was maintained would improve our chances.”
“Better if our attacker had alien design-style,” said Telepath. “It should not be ship of the Heroic Race, for signatures of all nearby are recorded. Nor could it be another defenseless monkey-ship.”
“But what of the thing that waits behind the defenseless monkeyship! The fighting ship that sent it as a lure!” exclaimed Selina. “Let them see that and fear!”
Telepath whirled upon her, claws out.
‘What is this? Have you deceived me! Where is this warship?”
“There is none,” said Selina. “Read my mind if you would see whether or not I speak truth.”
She paused, looking fixedly at the alien carnivore towering over her. “There is none save this,” she said. She held up the ancient model of HMS Nelson. “Is this strange enough?”
The others stared at her.