CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 4
BACK FROM THE RHINEHOLD Strasse delivery, Gopher rode the gravity lift to the brewery’s fifth floor office. In the reception area, the monkey—the human—named Vilt Kirkland glanced up from the infocomp on his desk. Gopher detached the satchel, and the monkey took it from his paw without flinch or hesitation. Gopher approved—too many monkeys showed too much fear when dealing with Heroes.
The monkey rifled the contents: flat plant matter covered with writing. Gopher peered at the papers with an unaccustomed curiosity. In a world of instant point-to-point communication, why these monkeys would use such a flimsy physical medium left Gopher in a track without scent.
“Payday for you,” Kirkland said in halting Heroes’ Tongue. Gopher tensed—the mangling of the kzin language by a foul monkey used to mean immediate death. Gopher’s tail flicked in frustration as he willed himself calm. Immediate death—in better times. In better times.
The monkey rubbed his oily hands together. He opened a drawer, cracked an ancient strongbox, and consulted one of the papers from the satchel. “Three hundred krona a week, correct?”
“Yes.” Gopher’s tail twitched in disgust at the monkey’s zeal over shiny tokens.
“Minus thirty-two in . . . taxes.” The monkey eyed Gopher. “You’re still paying for your webbing vest?”
“It was to be paid off after three periods. That was five periods ago.”
“Are you sure? It says here you’re still paying. Do you have anything in writing to show you paid it off?”
“You have given me no such writing.”
“Then I have to go by what it says here.” Kirkland smiled, but with lips sealed. The kzin took bared teeth as a challenge to fight. “You agree, rules are rules, don’t you?”
“I consent that is the case.”
“Good then!” The monkey nodded relief, a hint of glee in his eyes. “Minus fifteen for the webbing, which leaves two fifty-three. Now, your kind works in base eight, correct?”
Gopher flexed his four-digit paws. “Yes. Base eight.”
“So, converting two fifty-three to base eight . . .” Kirkland worked the infocomp. “We owe you one hundred seventy krona.” He kept his eyes fixed on the screen and held his breath. Gopher rumbled deep in his chest.
“Do not try to trick me, monkey.” The kzin leaned forward and whipped his tail in vexation. The small office filled with orange hackles and the threat-scent of ginger “The conversion math is easy and needs nothing but the quick mind of a Hero. The amount is one seventy-one.”
The greasy monkey breathed a ragged sigh. Then rallied his anger. “Verdammt, be easy!” He counted krona from the strongbox. “There. One hundred seventy-one krona. One lousy coin. A mistake I make, ja? Are we set then?”
Gopher lowered his hackles and said with disdain, “You are to tell me where to go.”
The monkey covered his mouth to hide his teeth, bared in a nervous laugh. “Tell you where to go. . . . Tell you where to go. . . .” The monkey rocked in his mirth. “I could tell you where to go.”
“Yes, please.” Gopher whipped his tail, revolted by the monkey’s incomprehensible humor.
The monkey coughed and hid his whole face in his hands. His body shuddered. Finally he gasped, “Go home. No more work for today. Just go home.”
Gopher rumbled assent and left the office.
Still chuckling, Kirkland dipped into the strong-box and pocketed 129 krona.
As he loped back to his apartment, Gopher puzzled over the strange math used by the monkeys for their money. An amount in base ten should be paid in base ten, but the monkeys insisted in paying in base eight. Yet the same monkeys demanded payment in base ten. The kzin system—debts of honor—while never simple, would at least balance out. There was no honor in the monkey money.
Prakk-Invalid stirred on his fooch when Gopher stooped into the dark basement apartment. The usual smells assaulted: mold on the stone behind the rotting wallboards; stale urine from the shabby recycler; iron and salt from the improvised autokitchen. And Prakk-Invalid. Gopher sniffed.
“Monkey beer.” Not an accusation, not an admonition; a simple statement of fact.
“Just a little.” Prakk-Invalid’s eyes glowed violet with pain. “Enough to keep the tremors from. . . .” He rumbled into silence. He licked the stub of his missing left forearm.
“You stink. Worse than a wet kz’eerkt on a hot day.”
Prakk-Invalid bared his bloody teeth and growled. “Your mother whelped sthondat excrement. Come closer, and I’ll wipe away her dishonor.”
Gopher slid his claws in and out, then waggled his ears in amusement. “A Hero once taught me that insults are the fangs and claws of the weak. Have you eaten today?” He turned to the autokitchen as Prakk-Invalid collapsed into himself in despair.
“Not as such.” The old kzin shook his dirty mane to soothe himself. “Nothing smells right.”
“No,” Gopher agreed. The autokitchen—ripped from a kzin ship—never worked right. And ship’s food, the bare minimum for sustenance during long years in space, tasted of carrion and offal.
“Do you remember our first hunt together?” Gopher dialed two meals. “In the park?”
Prakk-Invalid paused to fold an ear in a chuckle. “That monkey who refused to run.”
“Yes! Two eights of his monkey brothers run past, seeking shelter in the forest like proper prey. And he sits. Sits!”
“His back to us.” Prakk-Invalid slashed the air with a paw. “Do you think he thought, if he could not see us, we could not see him?”
“I would put nothing beyond the thoughts of these monkeys.” Gopher pulled two warm slabs of raw “meat” from the autokitchen and tossed one to his former officer. He settled himself on his own fooch and licked some blood from the bottom of the ration before it could drip. “He chanted something in their foul language. What did he say?”
“Some monkey prayer. I understood only a very little: ‘valley of death’ or some such. Inspiring for a monkey, I suppose, but nothing for a Hero.”
“A Hero would face death, claws and fangs ready.”
“A scream and a leap, a scream and a leap.” Prakk-Invalid stared. The slab dripped from his paw onto his brittle fur.
“The blood . . .” Gopher said. Prakk-Invalid started, then licked at the slab. “The blood from his neck.”
“A lovely stream. I never knew a single blow could sever a monkey head from his neck. We nearly missed the rest of the hunt.”
“His head made a marvelous sklernak ball—until you broke it open.”
“I stepped on it.” Prakk-Invalid furled his ears in laughter and shred a chunk of his slab. “It parted at the nose cavity in perfect symmetry. The monkeys have thick heads—but only when it comes to thinking!”
Gopher furled his ears and flicked his tail in bemusement as he watched his old officer chew, swallow, and rend another bite. He would stay with the old kzin, distract him from his drink. Maybe later that night, when Prakk-Invalid slept, Gopher might find and smash the stash of monkey beer. Then, tomorrow perhaps, a kzin could once again be a Hero.