An alert yowled. Ghrul-Captain sprang from his lair, down a passage and up a companionway to the main control chamber. He shoved aside the watchkeeper, a kzin currently known as Sub-officer. "Sire," the underling told him, "the optics and nucleonics register a spacecraft approaching."
"What else would it be?" Ghrul-Captain snarled. "Do you take me for a sthondat?"
"No, sire, of course not—"
"Silence till you have something worth saying, if ever." Ghrul-Captain crouched into the central command seat.
The other drew back, submissive but poised. Bristling whiskers, broadened pupils, and half-folded ears showed anger. It was purely reflexive, not directed at his superior. This was what happened to one of his standing, like harsh weather on a planet. He may have counted himself lucky not to be punished.
Actually, while Ghrul-Captain had needed to vent some wrath, he could not afford to disable personnel for anything less than outright insubordination. The Strong Runner was undercrewed, underweaponed, alone. And his instruments were identifying the stranger as a human warship.
For a heartbeat he glared at the scene in the viewscreen. The target sun was a small disc, its luminance selectively dulled till an extravagant corona was eye-visible. Undimmed, a big world much farther out shone brighter than the true stars. They sprawled in strange constellations—seen at more than thirty light-years from the Father Sun and well off the galactic plane. The Ice River itself looked slightly different, against the background blackness of space.
His gaze focused on the meters and readouts before him, and then on the image a computer program was constructing. He had been taught to know that lean shape, those rakish lines of gun turrets and launch tubes. A lancer, a light naval vessel but easily able to annihilate this wretched carrier. It was about five million kilometers off, adjusting its vectors with an acceleration he could merely envy. A proper warcraft would have spotted it immediately when it emerged from hyperspace, wherever in this system that had been. Surely it had picked him up then, and set about reducing the gap between.
Ghrul-Captain forced steadiness on himself, as he might have donned a pressure suit too tight for him. He would have to communicate with the monkeys and offer them no threat. The necessity was foul in his mouth. He could have voice-ordered a beam in the standard band to lock on; instead, his claw stabbed the manual board.
They were obviously awaiting it yonder. In some thirty interminable seconds, the time for electromagnetic waves to go back and forth, his comboard lighted up. He sent a "Ready" signal—make them introduce themselves to him—and activated the translator program.
The screen came to life with a human face. Those always suggested to him the faces of flayed corpses. "United Nations Navy unit Samurai calling kzin vessel," it gabbled, while the translator gave forth decent growls and hisses. "Request conference with your commanding officer."
"I am he," Ghrul-Captain answered. "I will speak to none but your own master." They could kill him, but they could not make him lower himself.
In the time lag he felt a ventilator breeze stir his hair. It bore a sharp tinge of ozone. But no cleansing thunderstorm was going to break. Not now. Not yet.
The scan switched to another den and another face, dark brown. From its delicate lines and glabrous cheeks he decided it belonged to a female. Ruch! Still, human females were supposed to have as much consciousness as the males, and often held important positions. He must accept the perverted fact and cope with it.
"Captain Indira Lal Bihari, commanding UNN Samurai," she was saying. "Our intentions are peaceful. We trust they can remain so."
"Ghrul-Captain, master of Strong Runner." He would volunteer no more. If that piqued her, and if he could know it did, he would have won a tiny satisfaction.
Full lips drew back, upward. Ghrul-Captain had studied many views of human faces but never learned to tell whether a baring of teeth meant amusement, conciliation, or anger. "Apparently you prefer that I take the initiative. Very well. Your people announced they would send an expedition here like us. We were not quite certain of its nature or its timing. I am not much surprised that you arrived first. Kzinti are . . . quick to act; and our preparations have doubtless been more elaborate.
"We have ascertained that you have one large vessel carrying boats and probes. Our basic arrangements are similar. However, this ship has gone in advance of the civilian to make sure all is well, and will remain in her vicinity after rendezvous. I assume you agree it's wise to take precautions against possible contingencies." That smile again. "Do you wish to respond now, or shall I proceed?"
"We will not tolerate interference with our undertakings. That includes too close an approach to any unit or work of ours."
While the time lag hummed, Ghrul-Captain considered what else to say. He had better not antagonize her, for he did need information. Fortunately, humans were devoid of true pride.
"None is intended, Ghrul-Captain. Should any of you be in distress, we will gladly give assistance." He lashed his bare pink tail but held his ears up under the insult, realizing it was unwitting. "Otherwise we will keep as separated as feasible. Let us establish a few rules between us to this end. We can begin by spelling out our plans to each other."
"What are yours, then?"
She must have prepared the speech that followed the silence:
"While at hyperspacing distance, our civilian mother ship will unload a disassembled hyperwave transceiver, with radio relays to the inner system, and leave a gang to make it ready. The job should not take long, given their robots. They'll have a boat and rejoin the rest of us when they are done.
"Subject to change as circumstances warrant, the mother ship and escort will take ecliptic orbit around the sun at approximately three-fourths of an astronomical unit. The scientists will make observations from there, but naturally will also dispatch probes and boats on appropriate courses. These will include visits to the stable planets and their satellites, for survey, and landings if closer investigation seems warranted. We propose to notify you in advance of these, as well as any important maneuvers of the ships themselves.
"Early on, the scientists will put three small robotic observatories in polar orbit around the sun, at about the same radius, 120 degrees apart, to keep the inmost planet under constant study from that angle.
"We . . . request . . . noninterference, too. We will always be open to communication with you. Let neither party judge hastily. Correct, Ghrul-Captain?
"This is our basic plan. May I ask what yours is?"
Ghrul-Captain did not answer for a minute or two. First he must overcome his rage. He wanted to scream and leap. But he had nothing to kill, only this phantom of a monkey five million kilometers out of reach. Useless, anyway, for anything but one instant of release, which would bring down his mission and his dreams.
The humiliation, though! Her words had come like one whip flick after the next. Not that the she-monkey intended it. She was totally insensitive. It never occurred to her how she flaunted those capabilities—a hyperwave station brought along, a swarm of lesser craft, three solar watchposts—before his poor little expedition—wealth and power such as belonged to the race of Heroes, before her rabble overran and robbed them.
There would be a day of justice, a night of revenge.
Not for years.
Meanwhile, he remembered, and helped congeal his feelings thereby, meanwhile I may do a deed they cannot and dare not match, to shame them whether they know it or not—we will know, at home—and, possibly, bring back a prize they are also unaware of, which may possibly hold within it the making of some mighty weapon for their destruction. Yes, possibly I will.
First he must reach an accommodation with them, at least for immediate purposes. Grand Lord Narr-Souwa and he had developed some ideas about that back on Kzin.
"You may ask," he said, as the stranglehold on his throat slackened. "For the present, I deem it best that my ship take the same orbit as yours, 90 degrees ahead. That should be a safe distance, while leaving you able to communicate with me on short notice when necessary." And for us to keep an eye on you. "You understand that we will dispatch our own lesser craft as we see fit."
He cooled further during the time lag.
Bihari didn't seem to notice how she had been disdained. He didn't want to believe that she had noticed and simply didn't care. "A question, if you please. We have detected activity of yours at a certain satellite of an outer planet. May I inquire what the purpose is?"
"Supply operations," Ghrul-Captain snapped. He would give her no more. Let the monkeys discover the rest as it happened.
She didn't push the matter. Evidently she had been briefed on kzin ways. Or did she have direct experience? Had she fought in the war? Ghrul-Captain almost hoped so. One prefers an enemy for whom one can feel a trifle of respect. "I see. If you don't wish to speak further for the time being, shall we close?"
He replied by cutting off transmission.