Man-Kzin Wars XI by Hal Colbatch (ereader manga txt) 📗

warning of their existence. And even as these thoughts flashed through his head he was conscious of Karan's eyes upon him.

"More humble!" came the voice.

"I speak to you in the Tense of Equals," said Vaemar. He fought down a plainly futile urge to leap at the screen and destroy it. "And I am Riit. What do you wish?"

"That you should know us. There are still some Jotoki left," said the old Jotok, "who lived on this ship as slaves of the smelly-furred kzinti. We"—one of its arms gestured towards itselves—"rose to the position of fuse-setter and maintainer of secondary gravity motors. Scuttling to do our master's bidding before we roused its wrath. Waiting to be torn apart and eaten when we became too old to serve. But that was not to be . . .

"Many of us died when the ship came down in this swamp, and our kzin masters were killed. The other kzinti abandoned the ship. They cared nothing for us, of course. Had they been in less haste they might well have taken us with them as a dependable food source.

"We were alone. Time passed. We hunted and survived. Those of us who could operate the ship's radios listened for orders from our masters, for words of others of our kind, but we heard nothing.

"Many more Jotoki died then of masterlessness. We, and some like us, did not. We knew we had no living masters. And we and those who are like us prepared to strike back.

"We have journeyed far from the ship. We have killed the kz'eerkti and the kzinti. We feast on them and on the swimming creatures. This realm we make our own.

"We see the pictures that the kz'eerkti transmit. We have learnt from them a little of what was taken from us. We, and the Jotoki species, have learnt of revenge!"

Swirl-Stripes moaned again. Vaemar was suddenly aware of Anne beside him. "Keep him talking," she mouthed. His acute hearing just picked up the words. He wondered if the Jotok could lip-read human speech. It seemed highly unlikely. Everything so far had been said by it—by them?—in an odd blend of the slave's patois with additional odd and insolent importations from the Heroes' Tongue.

"This realm we make our own . . ." Hardly. And perhaps he could do worse than point that out right away.

"The disappearances in Grossgeister Swamp are already starting to attract attention," he said. He spoke straight up at the image, though he did not know from where he was actually being observed. "That is partly why we are here. If we do not return without further harm, more will come in greater force. Your realm will not last long."

"I see you have kz'eerki slaves working for you now that you have abandoned us," said the Jotok. Vaemar disentangled resentment in the scrambled tenses. Have these Jotok become jealous of humans? Certainly, it was plain they had no idea how things really stood on Wunderland. I can hardly expect them to think like us. And then he thought: They have only seen the world from the point-of-view of kzinti techno-slaves. They know nothing of how things really are. And almost like us when we collided with the humans, no real experience of war except the old style of kzin wars of conquest. Ambushing paddlers in the swamp is not war. Even at the very first, they were traders, not warriors . . . And that led to another thought.

"Do you seek to trade?" he asked.

"Trade?"

"Your ancestors traded."

"We seek revenge for our ancestors. We are angry. We have much to avenge."

"So do we!" He thought of the flayed kzinti corpses in the compartment below. But vengefulness was the most dangerous of all emotions for a kzin on Wunderland. There was a lost war to avenge, and for all kzinti that was a demon living in their minds that needed strong caging. It sometimes escaped.

"Our vengeance has begun," the Jotok replied. "As we begin to understand what we have lost."

"Your ancestors were traders. We offer you trade again." So, I must become an instant expert on another alien psychohistory, he thought. As if having to learn to live among humans as an equal was not enough. Yet perhaps what he had learned among humans was a help. He was practiced in thinking the unthinkable, in saying the unsayable, in dealing with members of an alien species rather than taking them automatically as slaves and prey. He could at least talk to the Jotok. The creatures were silent for a moment, as if in thought. Then they asked: "What have you to trade?"

"The oldest trade there is. Our lives for yours."

"Say on, kzin."

"Kill us, and others will follow us to this ship. Next time they will be shooting as they come. Release us, and you may live."

"Zrrch! So a kzin begs for its life!" Could there be a deadlier insult? Vaemar felt his ears knotting with the effort as he again fought down the urge to scream and leap at the image. I am Vaemar! I am Vaemar-Riit! I am Son of Chuut-Riit! I can control my emotions!

"For the lives of others!"

The Jotok seemed to hesitate. Presumably its brains were conferring among themselves.

"We have killed kzinti," it/they replied. "We know kzinti. Kzinti will not forgive!"

That was true.

"Also we have killed kz'eerkti, kzinti's new favorite slaves. Kzinti will not forgive."

A certain information gap there, thought Vaemar. But basically this monstrosity is right. They have done too much to be allowed to live. Besides, I have no authority to make a binding deal with them. And the monkey-trick of lying is not available to me.

"And I have no authority to deal," added the Jotok, as if echoing Vaemar's own thoughts. Was that some dim race-memory of a civilization that had had organization, consultation, hierarchy? "Only to kill." This was in the Heroes' Tongue, nearly pure. "And to tell you, kzinti, before you die, of the wrath and vengeance of the Jotoki, whom you have twice betrayed!