Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - The Houses of the Kzinti

by Larry Niven

  The man’s eyes flicked open. Locklear could see the heavy muscles tense, yet the man moved only his eyes, looking from him to Ruth, then to him again. When he did move, it was as though he’d been playing possum for forty thousand years, and his movements were as oddly graceful as Ruth’s. He held up both hands, smiling, and it was obvious that some silent message had passed between them.

  Locklear advanced with the same posture. A flat touch of hands, and then the man turned to Ruth with a burst of throaty speech. He was no taller than Locklear, but immensely more heavily boned and muscled. He stood as erect as any man, unconcerned in his nakedness, and after a double handclasp with Ruth he made a smiling motion toward her breasts.

  Again, Locklear saw the deeper color of flushing over her face and, after a head-down gesture of negation, she said something while staring at the young man’s face. Puzzled, he glanced at Locklear with a comical half-smile, and Locklear tried to avoid looking at the man’s budding erection. He told the man his name, and got a reply, but as usual Locklear gave him a name that seemed appropriate. He called him “Minuteman.”

  After a quick meal of fruit and water, Ruth did the translating. From the first, Minuteman accepted the fact that Locklear was one of the “new” people. After Locklear’s demonstrations with the kzin memo screen and a levitation of the scooter, Minuteman gave him more physical space, perhaps a sign of deference. Or perhaps wariness; time would tell.

  Though Loli showed no fear of Minuteman, she spoke little to him and kept her distance—with an egg-sized stone in her little fist at all times. Minuteman treated Loli as a guest might treat an unwelcome pet. Oh yes, thought Locklear, he knows her, all righty…

  The hunt, Locklear claimed, was a celebration to welcome Minuteman, but he had an ulterior motive. He made his point to Ruth, who chattered and gestured and, no doubt, silently communed with Minuteman for long moments. It would be necessary for Minuteman to accompany Locklear on the scooter, but without Ruth if they were to lug any sizeable game back to the cabin.

  When Ruth stopped, Minuteman said something more. “Yes, no problem,” Ruth said then.

  Minuteman, his facial scars writhing as he grinned, managed, “Yef, no pobbem,” and laughed when Locklear did. Amazing how fast these people adapt, Locklear thought. He wakes up on a strange planet, and an hour later he’s right at home. A wonderful trusting kind of innocence; even childlike. Then Locklear decided to see just how far that trust went, and gestured for Minuteman to sit down on the scooter after he wrestled the empty stasis cage to the ground.

  Soon they were scudding along just above the trees at a pace guaranteed to scare the hell out of any sensible Neanderthal, Minuteman desperately trying to make a show of confidence in the leadership of this suicidal shaman, and Locklear was satisfied on two counts, with one count yet to come. First, the scooter’s pace near trees was enough to make Minuteman hold on for dear life. Second, the young Neanderthal would view Locklear’s easy mastery of the scooter as perhaps the very greatest of magics—and maybe Minuteman would pass that datum on, when the time came.

  The third item was a shame, really, but it had to be done. A shaman without the power of ultimate punishment might be seen as expendable, and Locklear had to show that power. He showed it after passing over specimens of aurochs and horse, both noted with delight by Minuteman.

  The goat had been grazing not far from three does until he saw the scooter swoop near. He was an old codger, probably driven off by the younger buck nearby, and Locklear recalled that the gestation period for goats was only five months—and besides, he told himself the Outsiders could be pretty dumb in some matters. You didn’t need twenty bucks for twenty does.

  All of the animals bounded toward a rocky slope, and Minuteman watched them as Locklear maneuvered, forcing the old buck to turn back time and again. When at last the buck turned to face them, Locklear brought the scooter down, moving straight toward the hapless old fellow. Minuteman did not turn toward Locklear until he heard the report of the kzin sidearm which Locklear held in both hands, and by that time the scooter was only a man’s height above the rocks.

  At the report, the buck slammed backward, stumbling, shot in the breast. Minuteman ducked away from the sound of the shot, seeing Locklear with the sidearm, and then began to shout. Locklear let the scooter settle but Minuteman did not wait, leaping down, rushing at the old buck, which still kicked in its death agony.

  By the time Locklear had the scooter resting on the slope, Minuteman was tearing at the buck’s throat with his teeth, trying to dodge flinty hooves, the powerful arms locked around his prey. In thirty seconds the buck’s eyes were glazing and its movements grew more feeble by the moment. Locklear put away the sidearm, feeling his stomach churn. Minuteman was drinking the animal’s blood; sucking it, in fact, in a kind of frenzy.

  When at last he sat up, Minuteman began to massage his temples with bloody fingers—perhaps a ritual, Locklear decided. The young Neanderthal’s gaze at Locklear was not pleasant, though he was suitably impressed by the invisible spear that had noisily smashed a man-sized goat off its feet leaving nothing more than a tiny hole in the animal’s breast. Locklear went through a pantomime of shooting, and Minuteman gestured his “yes.” Together, they placed the heavy carcass on the scooter and returned to the cabin. Minuteman seemed oddly subdued for a hunter who had just chewed a victim’s throat open.

  Locklear guffawed at what he saw at the cabin: in the cage so recently vacated by Minuteman was Loli, revolving in the slow dance of stasis. Ruth explained, “Loli like little house, like sleep. Ruth like for Loli sleep. Many like for Loli sleep long time,” she added darkly.

  It was Ruth who butchered the animal with the wtsai, while talking with Minuteman. Locklear watched smugly, noting the absence of flies. Damned if he was going to release those from their cages, nor the mosquitoes, locusts and other pests which lay with the predators in the crypt. Why would any god worth his salt pester a planet with flies, anyhow? The butterflies might be worth the trouble.

  He was still ruminating on these matters when Ruth handed him the wtsai and entered the cabin silently. She seemed preoccupied, and Minuteman had wandered off toward the oaks so, just to be sociable, he said, “Minuteman see Locklear kill with magic. Minuteman like?”

  She built a smoky fire, stretching skewers of stringy meat above the smoke, before answering. “No good, talk bad to magic man.”

  “It’s okay, Ruth. Talk true to Locklear.”

  She propped the cabin door open to adjust the draft, then sat down beside him. “Minuteman feel bad. Locklear no kill meat fast, meat hurt long time. Meat feel much, much bad, so Minuteman feel much bad before kill meat. Locklear new person, no feel bad. Loli no feel bad. Minuteman no want hunt with Locklear.”

  As she attended to the barbecue and Locklear continued to ferret out more of this mystery, he grew more chastened. Neanderthal boys, learning to kill for food, began with animals that did not have a highly developed nervous system. Because when the animal felt pain, all the gentles nearby felt some of it too, especially women and girls. Neanderthal hunt teams were all-male affairs, and they learned every trick of stealth and quick kills because a clumsy kill meant a slow one. Minuteman had known that, lacking a club, he himself would feel the least pain if the goat bled to death quickly.

  And large animals? You dug pit traps and visited them from a distance, or drove your prey off a distant cliff if you could. Neanderthal telepathy did not work much beyond twenty meters. The hunter who approached a wounded animal to pierce its throat with a spear was very brave, or very hungry. Or he was one of the new people, perfectly capable of irritating or even fighting a gentle without feeling the slightest psychic pain. The gentle Neanderthal, of course, was not protected against the new person’s reflected pain. No wonder Ruth took care of Loli without liking her much!

  He asked if Loli was the first “new” Ruth had seen. No, she said, but the only one they had allowed in the tribe. A hunt team had found her wand
ering alone, terrified and hungry, when she was only as high as a man’s leg. Why hadn’t the hunters run away? They had, Ruth said, but even then Loli had been quick on her feet. Rather than feel her gnawing fear and hunger on the perimeter of their camp, they had taken her in. And had regretted it ever since, “…long time. Long, long, long time!”

  Locklear knew that he had gained a crucial insight; a Neanderthal behaved gently because it was in his own best interests. It was, at least, until modern Cro-Magnon man appeared without the blessing, and the curse, of telepathy.

  Ruth’s first telepathic greeting to the waking Minuteman had warned that he was in the presence of a great shaman, a “new” but nonetheless a good man. Minuteman had been so glad to see Ruth that he had proposed a brief roll in the grass, which involved great pleasure to participants—and it was expected that the audience could share their joy by telepathy. But Ruth knew better than that, reminding her friend that Locklear was not telepathic. Besides, she had the strongest kind of intuition that Locklear did not want to see her enjoying any other man. Peculiar, even bizarre; but new people were hard to figure…

  It was clear now, why Ruth’s word “new” seemed to have an unpleasant side. New people were savage people. So much for labels, Locklear told himself. Modern man is the real savage!

  Ruth took Loli out of stasis for supper, perhaps to share in the girl’s pleasure at such a feast. Through Ruth, Locklear explained to Minuteman that he regretted giving pain to his guest. He would be happy to let gentles do the hunting, but all animals belonged to Locklear. No animals must be hunted without prior permission. Minuteman was agreeable, especially with a mouthful of succulent goat rib in his big lantern jaws. Tonight, Minuteman could share the cabin. Tomorrow he must choose a site for a camp, for Locklear would soon bring many, many more gentles.

  Locklear fell asleep slowly, no thanks to the ache in his jaws. The others had wolfed down that barbecued goat as if it had been well-aged porterhouse, but he had been able to choke only a little of it down after endless chewing because, savory taste or not, that old goat had been tough as a kzin’s knuckles.

  He wondered how Kit and Scarface were getting along, on the other side of those force walls. He really ought to fire up the lifeboat and visit them soon. Just as soon as he got things going here. With his mind-bending discovery of the truly gentle nature of Neanderthals, he was feeling very optimistic about the future. And modestly hungry. And very, very sleepy.

  Minuteman spent two days quartering the vast circular expanse of Newduvai while Locklear piloted the Scooter. In the process, he picked up a smatter of modern words though it was Ruth, in the evenings, who straightened out misunderstandings. Minuteman’s clear choice for a major encampment was beside Newduvai’s big lake, near the point where a stream joined the “big water.” The site was a day’s walk from the cabin, and Minuteman stressed that his choice might not be the choice of tribal elders. Besides, gentles tended to wander from season to season.

  Though tempted by his power to command, Locklear decided against using it unless absolutely necessary. He would release them all and let them sort out their world, with the exception of excess hunting or tribal warfare. That didn’t seem likely, but: “Ruth,” he asked after the second day of recon, “see all people in little houses in cave?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Many many in tribe of Minuteman and Ruth. Many many in other tribe.”

  But “many many” could mean a dozen or less. “Ruth see all in other tribe before?”

  “Many times,” she assured him. “Others give killstones, Ruth tribe give food.”

  “You trade with them,” he said. After she had studied his face a moment, she agreed. He persisted: “Bad trades? Problem?”

  “No problem,” she said. “Trade one, two man or woman sometime, before big fire.”

  He asked about that, of course, and got an answer to a question he hadn’t thought to ask. Ruth’s last memory before waking on Newduvai—and Minuteman’s too—was of the great fire that had driven several tribes to the base of a cliff. There, with trees bursting into flame nearby, the men had gathered around their women and children, beginning their song to welcome death. It was at that moment when the Outsiders must have put them in stasis and whisked them off to the rim of Known Space.

  Almost an ethical decision, Locklear admitted. Almost. “No little gentles in cave,” he reminded Ruth. “Locklear much sorry.”

  “No good, think of little gentles,” she said glumly. And with that, they passed to matters of tribal leadership. The old men generally led, though an old woman might have followers. It seemed a loose kind of democracy and, when some faction disagreed, they could simply move out—perhaps no farther than a short walk away.

  Locklear soon learned why the gentles tended to stay close: “Big, bad animals eat gentles,” Ruth said. “New people take food, kill gentles,” she added. Lions, wolves, bears—and modern man—were their reasons for safety in numbers.

  Ruth and Minuteman had both seen much of Newduvai from the air by now. To check his own conclusions, Locklear said, “Plenty food for many people. Plenty for many, many, many people?”

  “Plenty,” said Ruth, “for all people in little houses; no problem.” Locklear ended the session on that note and Minuteman, perhaps with some silent urging from Ruth, chose to sleep outside.

  Again, Locklear had a trouble getting to sleep, even after a half-hour of delightful tussle with the willing, homely, gentle Ruth. He could hardly wait for morning and his great social experiment.

  His work would have gone much faster with Minuteman’s muscular help, but Locklear wanted to share the crypt’s secrets with as few as possible. The lake site was only fifteen minutes from the crypt by scooter, and there were no predators to attack a stasis cage, so Locklear transported the gentles by twos and left them in their cages, cursing his rotten time-management. It soon was obvious that the job would take two days and he’d set his heart on results now, now, now!

  He was setting the scooter down near his cabin when Minuteman shot from the doorway, began to lope off, and then turned, approaching Locklear with the biggest, ugliest smile he could manage. He chattered away with all the innocence of a ferret in a birdhouse, his maleness in repose but rather large for that innocence. And wet.

  Ruth waved from the cabin doorway.

  “Right,” Locklear snarled, too exhausted to let his anger kindle to white-hot fury. “Minuteman, I named you well. Your pants would be down, if you had any. Ahh, the hell with it.”

  Loli was asleep in her cage, and Minuteman found employment elsewhere as Locklear ate chopped goat, grapes, and gruel. He did not look at Ruth, even when she sat near him as he chewed.

  Finally he walked to the pallet, looking from it to Ruth, shook his head and then lay down.

  Ruth cocked her head in that way she had. “Like Ruth stay at fire?”

  “I don’t give a good shit. Yes, Ruth stay at fire. Good.” Some perversity made him want her, but it was not as strong as his need for sleep. And rejecting her might be a kind of punishment, he thought sleepily…

  Late the next afternoon, Locklear completed his airlift and returned to the cabin. He could see Minuteman sitting disconsolate, chin in hands, at the edge of the clearing. Apparently, no one had seen fit to take Loli from stasis. He couldn’t blame them much. Actually, he thought as he entered the cabin, he had no logical reason to blame them for anything. They enjoyed each other according to their own tradition, and he was out of step with it. Damn right, and I don’t know if I could ever get in step.

  He called Minuteman in. “Many, many gentles at big water,” he said. “No big bad meat hurt gentles. Like see gentles now?” Minuteman wanted to very much. So did Ruth. He urged them onto the scooter and handed Ruth her woven basket full of dried apricots, giving both hindquarters of the goat to Minuteman without comment. Soon they were flitting above conifers and poplars, and then Ruth saw the dozens of cages glistening beside the lake.

  “Gentles,
gentles,” she exclaimed, and began to weep. Locklear found himself angry at her pleasure, the anger of a wronged spouse, and set the scooter down abruptly some distance from the stasis cages.

  Minuteman was off and running instantly. Ruth disembarked, turned, held a hand out. “Locklear like wake gentles? Ruth tell gentles, Locklear good, much good magics.”

  “Tell ’em anything you like,” he barked, “after you screw ’em all!”

  In the distance, Minuteman was capering around the cages, shouting in glee. After a moment, Ruth said, “Ruth like go back with Locklear.”

  “The hell you will! No, Ruth like push-push with many gentles. Locklear no like.” And he twisted a vernier hard, the scooter lifting quickly.

  Plaintively, growing faint on the breeze: “Ruth hurt in head. Like Locklear much…” And whatever else she said was lost.

  He returned to the hidden kzin lifeboat, hating the idea of the silent cabin, and monitored the comm set for hours. It availed him nothing, but its boring repetitions eventually put him to sleep.

  For the next week, Locklear worked like a man demented. He used a stasis cage, as he had on Kzersatz, to store his remaining few hunks of smoked goat. He flew surveillance over the new encampment, so high that no one would spot him, which meant that he could see little of interest, beyond the fact that they were building huts of bundled grass and some dark substance, perhaps mud. The stasis cages lay in disarray; he must retrieve them soon.

  It was pure luck that he spotted a half-dozen deer one morning, a half-day’s walk from the encampment, running as though from a predator. Presently, hovering beyond big chestnut trees, he saw them: men, patiently herding their prey toward an arroyo. He grinned to himself and waited until a rise of ground would cover his maneuver. Then he swooped low behind the deer, swerving from side to side to group them, yelping and growling until he was hoarse. By that time, the deer had put a mile between themselves and their real pursuers.

  No better time than now to get a few things straight. Locklear swept the scooter toward the encampment at a stately pace, circling twice, hearing thin shouts as the Neanderthals noted his approach. He watched them carefully, one hand checking his kzin sidearm. They might be gentle but a few already carried spears and they were, after all, experts at the quick kill. He let the scooter hover at knee height, a constant reminder of his great magics, and noted the stir he made as the scooter glided silently to a stop at the edge of the camp.