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That was a risk they must take, she said. Some woods
burned more cleanly than others. He argued that they should at least build
their fires far from the cave, and while they were at it, the cave entrance
might be better disguised. She agreed, impressed with his strategy, and then
went down on all-fours to inspect the dirt near a dry wash. As he admired her
lithe movements, she shook her head in an almost human gesture. "No good for
clay."
"It's not important."
"It is vitally important!" Now she wheeled upright, impressive and fearsome.
"Rockear, if any kzintosh return here, we must be ready. For that, we must
have the help of others-the two prret. And believe me, they will be helpful
only if they see us as their (something)."
She explained that the word meant, roughly, "paired household leaders." The
basic requirements of a household, to a kzin female, included sleeping
bowers-easily come by-and enough pottery for that household. A male kzin
needed one more thing, she said, her eyes slitting: a wtsai.
"You mean one of those knives they all wear?"
"Yes. And you must have one in your belt." From the waggle of her ears, he
decided she was amused by her next statement: "It is a-badge, of sorts. The
edge is usually sharp but I cannot allow that, and the tip must be dull. I
will show you why later."
"Dammit, these things could take weeks!"
"Not if we find the clay, and if you can make a wtsai somehow. Trust me,
Rockear; these are the basics. Other kzinrret will not obey us otherwise. They
must see from the first that we are proper providers, proper leaders with the
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pottery of a settled tribe, not the wooden implements of wanderers. And they
must take it for granted that you and I," she added,
"are (something)." With that, she rubbed lightly against him.
He caught himself moving aside and swallowed hard.
"Miss Kitty, I don't want to offend you, but, uh, humans and kzinti do not
mate."
"Why do they not?"
"Uhm. Well, they never have."
Her eyes slitted, yet with a flicker of her ears:
"But they could?"
"Some might. Not me."
"Then they might be able to," she said as if to herself. "I thought I felt
something familiar when we were sleeping." She studied his face carefully.
"Why does your skin change color?"
"Because, goddammit, I'm upset!" He mastered his breathing after a moment and
continued, speaking as if to a small child, "I don't know about kzinti, but a
man can not, uh, mate unless he is, uh-"
"Unless he is intent on the idea?"
"Right!"
"Then we will simply have to pretend that we do mate, Rockear. Otherwise,
those two kzinrret will spend most of their time trying to become your mate
and will be useless for work."
"Of all the . . ." he began, and then dropped his chin and began to laugh
helplessly. Human tribal customs had been just as complicated, once, and she
was probably the only functioning expert in known space on the customs of
ancient kzinrret. "We'll pretend, then, up to a point. Try and make that
point, ah, not too pointed."
"Like your wtsai," she retorted. "I will try not to make your face change
color."
"Please," he said fervently, and suggested that he might find the material for
a wtsai inside the cave while she sought a deposit of clay. She bounded away
on
all-fours with the lope of a hunting leopard, his jacket a somehow poignant
touch as it flapped against her lean belly.
When he looked back from the cave entrance, she was a tiny dot two kilometers
distant, coursing along a shallow creekbed. "Maybe you won't lie, and I've got
no other ally," he said to the swift saffron dot.
"But you're not above misdirection with your own kind. I'll remember that."
* * *
Locklear cursed as he failed to locate any kind of tool chest or lab
implements in those inner corridors. But he blessed his grooming tool when the
tip of its pincer handle fitted screwheads in the cage that had held Miss
Kitty prisoner for so long. He puzzled for minutes before he learned to turn
screwheads a quarter-turn, release pressure to let the screwheads emerge, then
another quarter-turn, and so on, nine times each. He felt quickening
excitement as the cage cover detached, felt it stronger when he disassembled
the base and realized its metal sheeting was probably one of a myriad
stainless steel alloys. The diamond coating on his nail file proved the sheet
was no indestructible substance. It was thin enough to flex, even to be dented
by a whack against an adjoining cage. It might take awhile, but he would soon
have his wtsai blade.
And two other devices now lay before him, ludicrously far advanced beyond an
ornamental knife. The gravity polarizer's main bulk was a doughnut of ceramic
and metal. Its switch, and that of the stasis field, both were energized by
the sliding cage floor he had disassembled. The switches worked just as well
with fingertip pressure. They boasted separate energy sources which Locklear
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dared
not assault; anything that worked for forty thousand years without harming the
creatures near it would be more sophisticated than any fumble-fingered
mechanic.
Using the glasslike cage as a test load, he learned which of the two switches
flung the load into the air. The other, then, had to operate the stasis
field-and both devices had simple internal levers for adjustments. When he
learned how to stop the cage from spinning, and then how to make it hover only
a hand's breadth above the device or to force it against the ceiling until it
creaked, he was ecstatic. Then he energized the stasis switch with a chill of
gooseflesh. Any prying paws into those devices would not pry for long, unless
someone knew about that inconspicuous switch.
Locklear could see no interconnects between the stasis generator and the
polarizer, but both were detachable. If he could get that polarizer
outside-Locklear strode out of the cave laughing. It would be the damnedest
vehicle ever, but its technologies would be wholly appropriate. He hid the
device in nearby grass; the less his ally knew about such things, the more
freedom he would have to pursue them.
Miss Kitty returned in late afternoon with a sopping mass of clay wrapped in
greenish-yellow palm leaves. The clay was poor quality, she said, but it would
have to serve-and why was he battering that piece of metal with his stone axe?
If she knew a better way to cut off a wtsai-sized strip of steel than bending
it back and forth, he replied, he'd love to hear it.
Bickering like an old married couple, they sat near the cave mouth until dark
and pursued their separate
Stone-Age tasks. Locklear, whose hand calluses were
still forming, had to admit that she had been wonderfully trained for domestic
chores; under those quick four-digited hands of hers, rolled coils of clay
soon became shallow bowls with thin sides, so nearly perfect they might have
been turned on a potter's wheel.
By now he was calling her "Kit," and she seemed genuinely pleased when he
praised her work. Ah, she said, but wait until the pieces were sun-dried to
leather hardness; then she would make the bowls lovely with talon-etched
decoration. He objected that decoration took time.
She replied curtly that kzinrret did not live for utility alone.
He helped pull flat fibers from the stalks of palm leaves, which she began to
weave into a mat. "For bedding," he asked? "Certainly not," she said
imperiously; "for the clothing which modesty required of kzinrret." He pursued
it: "Would they really care all that much with only a human to see them?" "A
human male," she reminded him; if she considered him worthy of mating, the
others would see him as a male first, and a non-kzin second. He was
half-amused but more than a little uneasy as they bedded down, she curled
slightly facing away, he crowded close at her insistence, "-For
companionship," as she put it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]