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  “I beg your pardon?” asked Tregennis, shocked.

  “Markham.” Dorcas grinned. “Sorry. You haven’t been toe-to-toe with him, over and over, the way Bob and I have. Never mind. Don’t let him or a quantum-beaded kzin spoil our evening. Let’s enjoy. We’re going!”

  The office of Ulf Reichstein Markham was as austere as the man himself. Apart from a couple of chairs, a reference shelf, and a desk with little upon it except the usual electronics, its largeness held mostly empty space. Personal items amounted to a pair of framed documents and a pair of pictures. On the left hung his certificate of appointment to the Interworld Space Commission and a photograph of his wife with their eight-year-old son. On the right were his citation for extraordinary heroism during the war and a portrait painting of his mother. Both women showed the pure bloodlines of Wunderland aristocracy, the older one also in her expression; the younger looked subdued.

  Markham strove to maintain the same physical appearance. His father had been a Belter of means, whom his mother married after the family got in trouble with the kzinti during the occupation and fled to the Swarm. At age 50 he stood a slender, swordblade-straight 195 centimeters. Stiff gray-blond hair grew over a narrow skull, above pale eyes, long nose, outthrust chin that sported the asymmetric beard, a point on the right side. Gray and closefitting, his garb suggested a military uniform. “I trust you have recovered from your experience, Captain Saxtorph,” he said in his clipped manner.

  “Yah, I’m okay, aside from puzzlement.” The spaceman settled back in his chair, crossed shank over thigh. “Mind if I smoke?” He didn’t wait for an answer before reaching after pipe and tobacco pouch.

  Markham’s lips twitched the least bit in disdain of the uncouthness, but he replied merely, “We will doubtless never know what caused the incident. You should not allow it to prey on your mind. The resident kzinti are under enormous psychological stress, still more so than humans would be in comparable circumstances. Besides uprootedness and culture shock, they must daily live with the fact of defeat. Acceptance runs counter to an instinct as powerful in them as sexuality is in humans. This individual, whoever he is, must have lashed out blindly. Let us hope he doesn’t repeat. Perhaps his friends can prevail on him.”

  Saxtorph scowled. “I thought that way, too, at first. Afterward I got to wondering. I hadn’t been near any kzinti my whole time here, this trip. They don’t mingle with humans unless business requires, and then they handle it by phone if at all possible. This fellow was way off the reservation. He lurked till I arrived, in that empty place. He was wearing a phone. Somebody else, shadowing me, could have called to tell him I was coming and the coast was clear.”

  “Frankly, you are being paranoid. Why in creation should he, or anyone, wish you harm? You specifically, I mean. Furthermore, conspiracy like that is not kzin behavior. It would violate the sense of honor that the meanest among them cherishes. No, this poor creature went wandering about, trying to walk off his anger and despair. When you chanced by, like a game animal on the ancestral planet passing a hunter’s blind, it triggered a reflex that he lost control of.”

  “How can you be sure? How much do we really know about that breed?”

  “I know more than most humans.”

  “Yah,” drawled Saxtorph, “I reckon you do.”

  Markham stiffened. His glance across the desk was like a leveled gun. For a moment there was silence.

  Saxtorph got his pipe lit, blew a cloud of smoke, and through it peered back in more relaxed wise. He could afford to; somatic presence does make a difference. Barely shorter than the Wunderlander, he was hugely broader of shoulders and thicker of chest. His face was wide, craggy-nosed, shaggy-browed, with downward-slanted blue eyes and reddish hair that, at age 45, was getting thin. Whatever clothes he put on, they soon looked rumpled, but this gave the impression less of carelessness than of activity.

  “What are you implying, Captain?” Markham asked low.

  Saxtorph shrugged. “Nothing in particular, Commissioner. It’s common knowledge that you have quite a lot to do with’em.”

  “Yes. Certain among the rabble have called me ’kzin-lover.’ I did not believe you shared their sewer mentality.”

  “Whoa, there.” Saxtorph lifted a palm. “Easy, please. Of course you’d take a special interest. After all, the kzin empire, if that’s what we should call it, it’s still out yonder, and we still know precious little about it. Besides handling matters related to kzin comings and goings, you have to think about the future in space. Getting a better handle on their psychology is a real service.”

  Markham eased a bit. “Learning some compassion does no harm either,” he said unexpectedly.

  “Hm? Pardon me, but I should think that’d be extra hard for you.” Markham’s history flitted through Saxtorph’s mind. His mother had apparently married his commoner father out of necessity. Her husband died early, and she raised their son in the strictest aristocratic and martial tradition possible. By age 18 Markham was in the resistance forces. As captain of a commando ship, he led any number of raids and gained a reputation for kzin-like ruthlessness. He was 30 when the hyperdrive armada from Sol liberated Alpha Centauri. Thereafter he was active in restoring order and building up a Wunderland navy. Finally leaving the service, he settled on the planet, on a restored Reichstein estate granted him, and attempted a political career; but he lacked the needful affability and willingness to compromise. It was rumored that his appointment to the Space Commission had been a way of buying him off—he had been an often annoying gadfly—but he was in fact well qualified and worked conscientiously.

  The trouble was, he had his own views on policy.

  With his prestige and connections, he had managed in case after case to win agreement from a voting majority of his colleagues.

  Saxtorph smiled and added, “Well, Christian charity is all the more valuable for being so rare.”

  Markham pricked up his ears. The pale countenance flushed. “Christian!” he snapped. “A religion for slaves. No, I learned to respect the kzinti while I fought them. They were valiant, loyal, disciplined and in spite of the propaganda and horror stories, their rule was by no means the worst thing that ever happened to Wunderland.”

  He calmed, even returned the smile. “But we have drifted rather far off course, haven’t we? I invited you here for still another talk about your plans. Have I no hope of persuading you the mission is wasteful folly?”

  “You’ve said the same about damn near every proposal to do any real exploring,” Saxtorph growled.

  “You exaggerate, Captain. Must we go over the old, trampled ground again? I am simply a realist. Ships, equipment, trained crews are in the shortest supply. We need them closer to home, to build up interstellar commerce and industry. Once we have that base, that productivity, yes, then of course we go forward. But we will go cautiously, if I have anything to say about it. Was not the kzin invasion a deadly enough surprise? Who knows what dangers, mortal dangers, a reckless would-be galaxy trotter may stir up?”

  Saxtorph sighed. “You’re right, this has gotten to be boringly familiar territory. I’ll spare you my argument about how dangerous ignorance can be. The point is, I never put in for anything much. For a voyage as long as we intend, we need adequate supplies, and our insurance carrier insists we carry double spares of vital gear. The money Professor Tregennis wangled out of his university for the charter won’t stretch to it. So we all rendezvoused here to apply for a government donation of stuff sitting in the warehouses.

  “It just might buy you a scientific revolution.”

  He had rehashed this with malice, to repay Markham for the latter’s own repetition. It failed to get the man’s goat. Instead, the answer was, mildly, “I saw it as my duty to persuade the Commission to deny your request. Please believe there was no personal motive. I wish you well.”

  Saxtorph grinned, blew a smoke ring, and said, “Thanks. Want to come wave goodbye? Because we are going.”

  Markham
took him off guard with a nod. “I know. Stefan Brozik has offered you a grant.”

  “Huh?” Saxtorph grabbed his pipe just before it landed in his lap. He recovered his wits. “Did you have the hyperwave monitored for messages to members of our party?” His voice roughened. “Sir, I resent that.”

  “It was not illegal. I was… more concerned than you think.” Markham leaned forward. “Listen. A man does not necessarily like doing what duty commands. Did you imagine I don’t regret choking off great adventures, that I do not myself long for the age of discovery that must come? In my heart I feel a certain gratitude toward Brozik. He has released me.

  “Now, since you are inevitably going, it would be pointless to continue refusing you what you want. That can only delay, not stop you. Better to cooperate, win back your goodwill, and in return have some influence on your actions. I will contact my colleagues. There should be no difficulty in getting a reversal of our decision.”

  Saxtorph sagged back in his chair. “Judas… priest.”

  “There are conditions,” Markham told him. “If you are to be spared a long time idle here, prudent men must be spared nightmares about what grief you might bring, on us all by some blunder. Excuse my blunt language. You are amateurs.”

  “Every explorer is an amateur. By definition.”

  “You are undermanned.”

  “I wouldn’t say so. Captain; computerman; two pilots, who’re also experienced rockjacks and planetsiders; quartermaster. Everybody competent in a slew of other specialties. And, this trip, two scientists, the prof and his student. What would anybody else do?”

  “For one thing,” Markham said crisply, “he would counsel proper caution and point out where this was not being exercised. He would keep official policy in your minds. The condition of your obtaining what you need immediately is this. You shall take along a man who will have officer status—”

  “Hey, wait a minute. I’m the skipper, my wife’s the mate as well as the computerman, and the rest have shaken down into a damn good team. I don’t aim to shake it back up again.”

  “You needn’t,” Markham assured him. “This man will be basically an observer and advisor. He should prove useful in several additional capacities. In the event of… disaster to the regular officers, he can take command, bring the ship back, and be an impartial witness at the inquiry.”

  “M-m-m.” Saxtorph frowned, rubbed his chin, pondered. “Maybe. It’ll be a long voyage, you know, about ninety days cooped up together, with God knows what at the end. Not that we expect anything more than interesting astronomical objects. Still, you’re right, it is unpredictable. We’re a close-knit crew, and the scientists seem to fit in well, but what about this stranger?”

  “I refer you to my record,” Markham replied. When Saxtorph drew a sharp breath, the Wunderlander added, “Yes, I am doubtless being selfish. However, my abilities in space are proven, and in spite of everything, I share the dream.”

  In her youth, before she became a tramp, Rover was a naval transport, UNS Ghost Dance. She took men and materiel from their sources to bases around the Solar System, and brought some back for furlough or repair. A few times she went into combat mode. They were only a few. The kzinti hurled a sublight fleet out of Alpha Centauri at variable intervals, but years apart, since one way or another they always lost heavily in the sanguinary campaigns that followed. Ghost Dance would release her twin fighters to escort her on her rounds. Once they came under attack, and were the survivors.

  Rover might now be less respectable, maybe even a bit shabby, but was by no means a slattern. The Saxtorphs had obtained her in a postwar sale of surplus and outfitted her as well as their finances permitted. On the outside she remained a hundred-meter spheroid, its smoothness broken by airlocks, hatches, boat bays, instrument housings, communications boom, grapples, and micrometeoroid pocks that had given the metal a matte finish. Inboard, much more had changed. Automated as she was, she never needed more than a handful to man her; on a routine interplanetary flight she was quite capable of being her own crew. Most personnel space had therefore been converted for cargo stowage. Those people who did travel in her had more room and comfort than formerly. Instead of warcraft she carried two Prospector class boats, primarily meant for asteroids and the like but well able to maneuver in atmosphere and set down on a fair-sized planet. Other machinery was equally for peaceful, if occasionally rough use.

  “But how did the Saxtorphs ever acquire a hyperdrive?” asked Laurinda Brozik. “I thought licensing was strict in the Solar System, too, and they don’t seem to be terribly influential.”

  “They didn’t tell you?” replied Kamehameha Ryan. “Bob loves to guffaw over that caper.”

  Her lashes fluttered downward. A tinge of pink crossed the alabaster skin. “ I don’t like to… pry—ask personal questions.”

  He patted her hand. “You’re too sweet and considerate, Laurinda. Uh, okay to call you that? We are in for a long haul. I’m Kam.”

  The quartermaster was showing her around while Rover moved up the Alpha Centaurian gravity well until it would be safe to slip free of Einsteinian space. Her holds being vacant, the acceleration was several g, but the interior polarizer maintained weight at the half Earth normal to which healthy humans from every world can soon adapt. “You want the grand tour, not a hasty look-around like you got before, and who’d be a better guide than me?” Ryan had said. “I’m the guy who takes care of inboard operations, everything from dusting and polishing, through mass trim and equipment service, on to cooking, which is the real art.” He was a stocky man of medium height, starting to go plump, round-faced, dark-complexioned, his blue-black hair streaked with the earliest frost. A gaudy sleeveless shirt bulged above canary-yellow slacks and thong sandals.

  “Well, I—well, thank you, Kam,” Laurinda whispered.

  “Thank you, my dear. Now this door I’d better not open for you. Behind it we keep chemical explosives for mining-type jobs. But you were asking about our hyperdrive, weren’t you?

  “Well, after the war Bob and Dorcas—they met and got married during it, when he was in the navy and she was helping beef up the defenses at Ixa, with a sideline in translation—they worked for Solar Minerals, scouting the asteroids, and did well enough, commissions and bonuses and such, that at last they could make the down payment on this ship. She was going pretty cheap because nobody else wanted her. Who’d be so crazy as to compete with the big Belter companies? But you see, meanwhile they’d found the real treasure, a derelict hyperdrive craft. She wasn’t UN property or anything, she was an experimental job a manufacturer had been testing. Unmanned; a monopole meteoroid passed close by and fouled up the electronics; she looped off on an eccentric orbit and was lost; the company went out of business. She’d become a legend of sorts, every search had failed, on which basis Dorcas figured out where she most likely was, and she and Bob went looking on their own time. As soon as they were ready they announced their discovery, claimed salvage rights, and installed the drive in this hull. Nobody had foreseen anything like that, and besides, they’d hired a smart lawyer. The rules have since been changed, of course, but we come under a grandfather clause. So here we’ve got the only completely independent starship in known space.”

  “It is very venturesome of you.”

  “Yeah, things often get precarious. Interstellar commerce hasn’t yet developed regular trade routes, except what government-owned lines monopolize. We have to take what we can get, and not all of it has been simple hauling of stuff from here to there. The last job turned out to be a lemon, and frankly, this charter is a godsend. Uh, don’t quote me. I talk too much. Bob bears with me, but a tongue-lashing from Dorcas can take the skin off your soul.”

  “You and he are old friends, aren’t you?”

  “Since our teens. He came knocking his way around Earth to Hawaii, proved to be a good guy for a hole, I sort of introduced him to people and things, we had some grand times. Then he enlisted, had a real yeager of a war career, but y
ou must know something about that. He looked me up afterward, when he and Dorcas were taking a second honeymoon, and later they offered me this berth.”

  “You had experience?”

  “Yes, I’d gone spaceward, too. Civilian. Interesting work, great pay, glamour to draw the girls, because not many flatlanders wanted to leave Earth when the next kzin attack might happen anytime.”

  “It seems so romantic,” Laurinda murmured. “Superficially, at least, and to me.”

  “What do you mean, please?” Ryan asked, in the interest of drawing her out. Human females like men who will listen to them.

  “Oh, that is—What have I done except study? And, well, research. I was born the year the Outsiders arrived at We Made It, but of course they were gone again long before I could meet them. In fact, I never saw a nonhuman in the flesh till I came to Centauri and visited Tigertown. You and your friends have been out, active, in the universe.”

  “I don’t want to sound self-pitying,” Ryan said, unable to quite avoid sounding smug, “but it’s been mostly sitting inboard, then working our fingers off, frantic scrambles, shortages of everything, and moments of stark terror. A wise man once called adventure ’somebody else having a hell of a tough time ten light-years away’.”

  She looked at him from her slightly greater elevation and touched his arm. “Lonely too. You must miss your family.”

  “I’m a bachelor type,” Ryan answered, forbearing to mention the ex-wives. “Not that I don’t appreciate you ladies, understand—”

  At that instant, luck brought them upon Carita Fenger. She emerged from a cold locker with a hundred-liter keg of beer, intended for the saloon, on her back, held by a strap that her left hand gripped. High-tech tasks were apportioned among all five of Rover’s people, housekeeping chores among the three crewmen. This boat pilot was a jinxian. Her width came close to matching her short height, with limbs in proportion and bosom more so. Ancestry under Sirius had made her skin almost ebony, though the bobbed hair was no longer sun-bleached white but straw color. Broad nose, close-set brown eyes, big mouth somehow added up to an attractive face, perhaps because it generally looked cheerful. “Well, hi,” she hailed. “What’s going on here?”