“It was great fun. The fusion reaction motors used by humans leave a hot ionized wake, a line that shouts in X-rays. We found such a line, aimed for the converging point of it, popped up next to a ship, and shot off the drive module. We invaded the shell, took four cringing humans—the first we’d seen, much smaller than we’d supposed from the messages alone. Took what else we wanted most, marked the shell as our own property, and went off to do it again.

“It worked once.

“Then, moving at a few hundred klicks per second, Creditor ran through a stream of pebbles. Humans have been defending their turf with all manner of reaction motor. This was an electromagnetic accelerator, part of an asteroid mining concern. Humans take the metal and use the slag for reaction mass, and they sprayed us with that. Creditor was shredded. My companions fought the invaders and died. I hid, but in a pressure suit I was too bulky.

“They found me with our human prizes, all battered but safe in the shielded room we use for hiding and for a pantry. For sparing their lives I may have been given better treatment.

“For a time they kept me in a small dome, in free-fall. Later, here on a little moon of a gas giant planet. But they didn’t know what I was!”

This burst forth in a shout, for the surprise had never left Creditor’s Telepath. He sensed his listener’s startlement. “I felt their fear. At first I didn’t understand it. I was the last of my crew, and the first kzin they had ever seen. There were no other kzinti about. In this system-wide series of battles there have been other captive Heroes, but my own captors saw us only on screens. They did not see that I am stunted. I mass three or four times what they do, though I’m half the mass of a Hero.