[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]know it. Get moving, Captain. I'll be all right. Now go."
He started to protest and his finger throbbed unbearably. "All right, but I'll
wait as long as I can."
"You'll do nothing of the sort."
He hesitated for a second more, then walked to the tubeway entrance. A capsule
hissed within.
Ingrid turned to face the two men. "You males do grow up more slowly than we,"
she said with a dancing smile in her eyes. "But given enough time . . . there
are some decisions that should have been made fifty years ago. Not many get
another chance. Where are we going?"
Montferrat and Yarthkin glanced at each other, back at the woman, with an
identical look of helpless bewilderment that did not prevent the policeman
from setting the tube's guidance-plate.
"All three of us have a lot of catching up to do,"
she said, and swung the hatch down over herself.
"Well," Montferrat said dazedly. "Well." A shake of his head. "You next."
"Where did you send her?"
Montferrat grinned slightly. "You'll just have to trust me to send you there
too, won't you?" Much of the old tube system was still functioning.
"Claude-"
"You've been there. A landing stage, and then aircar
to my family's old lodge.
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I've kept it hidden from-from everyone." He laughed slightly. "You've already
had a head start with her. A few more days won't matter. But when I get there,
I'll expect equal time. Now get moving, I have to set the stage."
"Better come now."
"No. First I see that the Sol-Belter gets offworld.
Then I fix it so we can follow. Both will take time."
"Can you bring that off, Claude?"
"Yes." He straightened, and the look of the true
Herrenmann was unmistakable.
"It's good to be alive again."
Chapter 7
In the great courtyard of the Viceregal castle, the kzinti nobility of the
Alpha
Centauri system gathered to pay their last respects to Chuut-Riit. Stone and
spiked iron walls surrounded the court; edged metal and orange fur crowded the
wooden bier.
What was left of the body was wrapped in battle-banners atop a huge pile of
logs, precious and aromatic woods stacked in open lattices. The pyre was hung
with banners, honors awarded for past campaigns, the house emblems of nobles
Chuut-Riit had killed in duels. Raaiitiro and buffalo had been slaughtered and
heaped around the base, to add the blood-scent of victory. Other things lay
tumbled amid logs and flesh: fine weapons, ornaments, heirlooms, the bodies of
six household troopers who had volunteered to death-duel that they might
accompany their lord into the mind of God. Around and around the great heap of
treasure danced the warriors of Kzin, shuffling, leaping, twisting in midair
to snap fangs at the sky and land on all fours. Clangor
filled the air as they hammered the blades of four-foot swords on steel
shields and screeched their defiance and their grief. Many had shaved portions
of their pelts and thrown the braided hair upon the wood as well.
Traat-Admiral broke from the dance, stood, took the blade of his sword in both
hands and gashed his face above the muzzle, then snapped it across one
column-thick thigh. He cast the pieces onto the pyre;
one edge lodged quivering in a log of sandalwood, and the hilt rang off an
antique space helmet. The ginger smell of anger and the dark musk of pain were
everywhere in the air.
"Arreeeeeawreeeeeee!" he wailed, throwing his head back and letting his mouth
widen into the ninety-degree killing gape.
"Arreeeeawreeeeee!"
Conservor and an acolyte thrust burning torches into his hands. He thrust them
toward the sky and began to run around the pyre; the warriors and nobles
parted to make a path for him, smashing steel on steel and screaming.
Once, twice, thrice he made the circuit of the courtyard. Then he halted once
more by his starting point. Silence fell, broken only by the massed panting of
the crowd.
"Warriors of the Patriarchy," he shouted. "A Hero of
Heroes is fallen. God the
Hunter has taken the greatest of us. God has drunk of the blood of the Riit.
Howl for God!"
A huge wailing screech lifted and slammed back from the distant walls of the
courtyard.
"Chuut-Riit is fallen, sword in hand, fangs in his slayer's throat. So should
all Heroes fall. Howl for God!"
Another echoing screech.
"Chuut-Riit is fallen by kzinti claw, but the real slayers, the cowards who
set son against sire and dared not face him in honest war, are the monkeys of
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Sol system. As his chosen successor, I pledge my blood for vengeance. Who is
with me? Howl for God!"
This time the sound was a massed roar, an endless deep-toned belling snarl. He
threw both torches into the resin-soaked wood, and it caught with a throaty
pulsing bellow that matched the sound from a thousand carnivore throats. The
kzinti began to dance once more, swaying and dipping their muzzles in unison
to the ground, whirling, stamping forward. Others dragged out huge drums made
from the bones and skins of monsters and leaped up to dance on them, and the
rhythmic booming mixed with the chanting snarl of the crowd and the toning of
the fire. A
pillar of flame shot up into the darkening sky; Alpha
Centauri was down, and
Beta on the horizon cast steel-silver shadows across the wavering
black-and-crimson of the pyre.
Farewell, my brother. Hunt ever well, he thought.
Then he put loss from his mind; Chuut-Riit had indeed died as a Hero should,
and there was his work to continue.
With a monumental effort, Traat-Admiral pulled himself free of the hypnotic
cadence of the mourning dance. Long ago when chieftains had been mourned so,
their followers had danced themselves into madness and then rushed out upon
their enemies in an unstoppable berserker rage. Now they would simply continue
until they dropped from exhaustion; already a few were clawing their faces or
chests in frenzy, the blood-scent adding to the pull of the ritual. Come
morning
they would creep away, or drop into exhausted slumber, save for a few who
would lie dead of overstrain. . . .
The new governor stalked through the throng; they ignored him, glaze-eyed. He
passed between two of the huge drums, folding in his ears as the enormous
sound hammered at him, echoing against his lungs and making the shearing teeth
at the back of his mouth quiver painfully together. It was a relief when the
great doors of the castle's hall closed behind him, muffling the noise. A
relief despite what awaited him around the dais.
Ktrodni-Stkaa. The noble had left the ceremony as soon as was decent, and had
not so much as shaved a patch of fur in respect. Few of the other cushions
gathered about the stone block table of the banqueting hall were occupied yet,
but Ktrodni-Stkaa was there . . .
Disrespect, Traat-Admiral thought, hissing mentally.
Disrespect for Chuut-Riit, whose waste litter he is not fit to shovel.
Disrespect for the Patriarch, whose blood Chuut-Riit bore.
Stiff with anger, he stalked by the other kzin and threw himself down on the
slightly higher block at the head of the table. Lying there, he beckoned
Conservor to his side when the sage entered.
Ktrodni-Stkaa had half-lifted lips from fangs when Traat-Admiral took the
cushion of dominance; he rose to a crouch when the position of most honor was
given to another.
Traat-Admiral fixed his eyes on the other kzin's, in a gesture of naked
aggression, and maintained it until he reclined once more. On one elbow, the
posture of dining rather than a prostration, but still not open resistance.
That would be very foolish, here in the governor's mansion. Traat-Admiral had
already
given out that he would keep the entire household on, with no loss in status;
Ktrodni-Stkaa was a traditionalist of such proportions that he allowed no
uncastrated male past the outer wall of his household. Chuut-Riit's guard
corps were anxious to keep their testicles, and his cadre of administrators
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