The Man-Kzin Wars 06

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He was a five-year-old human boy without membranous ears or fur, or even claws to defend himself, a boy severed from his family. For days in space he had been segregated, inspected, prodded, pricked, scanned, examined, and questioned by an unnerving assortment of kzin.

He endured these strangers dumbly, fear having muted every word of his Hero’s slave patois. Hushed, he recited his mother’s name to himself again and again, as if the inner sound of it would force her to stay alive. He didn’t want her to be dead. He called his mother by the kzin word for mommy, Prrt, the most comfortable word he knew-having forgotten that she had once told him fiercely never to forget her name, Nora. “Prrt!” he ordered her in his head like he sometimes did when she wasn’t paying attention. Often she didn’t pay attention.

But she only came to him in his dreams.

He was bewildered. Where had his colossal protector gone? Mellow Yellow would never desert them! Why had their master turned fanny and started calling himself by the name of a lord, Grraf-Nig? Where had their mother gone? Where had the babies and his five-armed Jotoki friends gone? What kind of world was this W’kkai place? But finally an officious orange kzin corralled the whole family together, younger siblings and mother. The room was gray but it shone with relief because she was there. “Prrt!” he purred. Her children were excited to see each other again. He was excited to see them again. The babies wailed. Their kzin guardian glowered.

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