Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - IV

by Larry Niven

  Once the Jotok had been military geniuses.

  The ancient kzin commanders, using deadly ships thoughtfully supplied by the Jotok, had been enthusiastic plunderers—the language of their teachers was destroyed, lost even to the surviving Jotoki. Nothing but the melancholic forests and foggy lakes remained. For his studies, Chuut-Riit was forced to rely on secondhand kzin texts by kzin warriors who had never mastered Jotoki five-stream grammar. Only with the aid of queuing theory, delay-prediction analysis, intent-result resolution, did the anecdotal fragments provide insight into Jotok military strategy.

  The Jotok should have won any war that pitted them against their strategically immature hirelings, except that at the time of the confrontation kzinti warriors were already the mainstay of the Jotok military. The Jotok overwhelmingly preferred commerce to military service. Why that was so was a deep puzzle to Chuut-Riit, but the records that would have answered his questions could not be found in kzin archives. If one had lifetimes to rummage in all the distant place…

  Enough reverie. He had work to do before he went planetside.

  The armada was closer now to Wunderland than it had ever been, with the Alpha Centauri binary effulgent in the heavens of R’hshssira. A very bright Man-sun was the new central jewel of the constellation the kzinti called The Water Bird. Hssin Tracker files would contain the most recent information about the Man-Hero war, even if the news was years behind the current situation. He called up everything that Hssin Central Command was willing to transmit.

  Assessing only the bulk of the material and its general nature, he began to ferret out a list of the Hssin staff responsible for tracking. He marked off five names from Chief Intelligence Officer to Spoor Level Collator, then contacted them personally, checking their answers against each other’s statements. He wanted to know that he had everything. He was polite, firm, to the point, and appreciative. That was the way to secure cooperation.

  He tapped the phone link. “Gis-Captain, give orders that I am to be disturbed by no one.”

  His youthful kzinrret, Hasha, stuck her head through the oval door, huge yellow eyes lambent with appeal, sensing that he was busy, testing her welcome. He gently purred to her a few simple words of encouragement in the Female Tongue. She did not qualify as a taxing distraction. “My Hero,” she replied traditionally, then slunk to his side where he stroked the back of her neck while he growled and spat information out of his data-link, organizing it on his spectacles. She was well trained and said nothing, but she let her tail flirt with him. Sometimes his other fingers flicked purposefully over the command plate.

  He was not here on the direct orders of the Patriarch. There was no time for that in an emergency. Because of the snail’s pace of light, the Patriarch’s awareness of what was happening on his border was more than thirty years out of date. Chuut-Riit had general orders and made his decisions without consulting Kzin-home; in essence he was a traveling Patriarch. When the diameter of the Patriarchy was a whole lifetime, field commanders had broad authority. They did what they did and reported when they could. Once an obligation was assumed, they honored it or they trained their sons to honor it.

  Chuut-Riit came to the boundary of the Patriarchy on a hunch generated by electromagnetic spoor. Rumors. Strange signals. With hardly more than hints picked up at a hunting match, he had set out from W’kkai as if his nose could read a wind of scent from across the interstellar reaches. A new starfaring species?

  Four years closer, at Ch’Aakin, he learned that his nose was good. An obscure little border fortress circling R’hshssira had mustered a fleet of irregulars, attacked and actually conquered one of their worlds. Tree-bred omnivores with ten fingers. It was a major victory. Who would have thought that a planet-grinding binary system would contain such Kzin-like richness?

  He knew then that the consequences for the Patriarchy might be immense and not all of the consequences were necessarily good. Inept military leadership on the borderlands was always a possibility and always an invitation to disaster.

  The Tracking Teams at Ch’Aakin had given him their reading of the lightbeams. He spent days with those documents. The Conquistadors of Wunderland were indeed reckless Heroes, but he already knew all about that. What interested him most was the nature of the man-animal’s resistance. The details of that campaign fascinated him.

  In his journal he made a prediction—already fourteen years out of date. He guessed that the local warriors from Hssin would settle down, become Wunderkzin, then grow restless and make a reckless strike toward the hairless-beasts’ home system—a tempting five-and-a-half years away by warship. They would fail, too. Their tactics at Wunderland had shown not the slightest understanding of logistics.

  Years passed. Chuut-Riit spent time in hibernation and brief periods of frenzy adding to his armada. The closer he came to the Alpha Centauri double system, the fresher became the scent.

  Now at Hssin he was close enough for the kill.

  (1) He already knew that the First Fleet probe into the man-system had been a disaster. That was as he had predicted, long before he had known that a First Fleet had been launched.

  (2) He already knew the numbers and deployment of the Second Fleet. He had obtained that information when he passed through miserable Fang. Given the facts about the man-system obtained by the First Fleet, he had been predicting a second disaster.

  Now he was curious to see how well his prediction had held. He began to dig into the Hssin files. These out-world kzinti might be recklessly brave, but they were poor strategists, gland-strong bunglers. An early victory would be welcome, however unlikely, but such a success would also complicate his mission—winners were more reluctant to accept help from the Patriarchy than were losers.

  Ah, there it was. With grunts and finger-waving he flicked the relevant documents over the surface of his spectacles.

  He was not surprised to read that the attack of the Second Fleet had also failed. Still the details galled him. His claws were out; his rage was such that he would have slashed to death commanders who had already died for their incompetence. Why hadn’t they attacked the laser batteries of the inner planet from below? He spent some hours doing careful calculations, but his insight was useless—the Third Fleet was long launched, already near Man-sun, and probably marked for destruction. Save the Patriarchy from these Hero irregulars!

  The news, even though it was cold meat, pressed urgency upon Chuut-Riit. His stay at Hssin would have to be short.

  With the proper timing, he could arrive at Alpha Centauri during the slump just before the formation of the inevitable Fourth Fleet. It would give him leeway to staff that Fourth Fleet with all the resentful enemies he was going to make on Wunderland and with the hot-heads who had swarmed to the battle-scream of his hastily collected armada. They were expendable.

  But the best of his Heroes he intended to hold back and discipline into a real naval threat. The hapless man-beasts, slaves-to-be, would have to wait for the arrival of the Fifth Fleet before they tangled with their first professional kzin army.

  CHAPTER 9

  (2396 A.D.)

  The excitement!

  The recruiters weren’t just taking volunteers; they were conducting tournaments and selecting the warriors who were to accompany the armada to Wunderland. Competition was in the very air that wafted through the ventilators. The warriors even smelled different. They cuffed each other and tussled. They boasted about their skill and about the number of man-animals they would own when they were their father’s age. They invented new and wonderful insults.

  “My Near-Sighted Hero!” roared a kzin youth to a myopic friend at the feast between the jousts. “You say you see yourself on an estate in Africa hunting elephants? You have selected an elephant as your prey, I presume, not for his bravery but because he is big enough to see?”

  “Will you wrestle the tusked beast to the ground with me, or will you shoot at him from a tree while he waves the tree over his head?” retorted the myopic friend, peering
, not quite sure who it was who had challenged him.

  The challenger directed his booming voice to the other orange-red tournament contenders who were devouring their Jotok arms noisily. “Let me recite to all, to this gathering of noble Heroes, the illustrious saga of my stumbling friend who is too tall to see his feet!” He stumbled in imitation, rousing a flurry of flapping ears and good-natured growls.

  “Well, don’t fall over before you’ve read me my fate!”

  “You’ll make it through the fiery battles in space. You have courage and quickness to compensate for your weak eyes! You’ll smash ships and disgorge the boiling hairless corpses to the vacuum. We know that you have blind luck and the cunning of a mole! You’ll stagger through the traps that explode in space. You’ll drop on your grav-platform to the surface of Africa, there to slaughter battalions with your broad-beam fire!” The raconteur was spitting and snarling with relish as he described the fights, purring through the compliments.

  “Get on with it!” taunted the myopic friend. “I demand the glorious day of my elephant hunt!”

  “Ah that. Hr-r. You see the elephant-beast’s gray bulk looming in the distance. You stalk him. You leap mightily! But what is this? You have dived, headfirst into a gigantic gray boulder! The boulder takes the first round. Birds land in your mane, singing. Uniformed beasts, wearing the colors of the UNSN, crawl out of hiding, intrigued by your sudden stillness. Alas, they skin you, and there you are, Conqueror of Man-home, cured and spread upon some floor in Africa to tickle the feet of monkeys!”

  The audience roared approval. Some waved Jotok bones in the air.

  Trainer-of-Slaves was uncomfortable in this crowd—there were too many of his old enemies present. He was here only because he desperately wanted to volunteer, wanted to follow Chuut-Riit to glory. His courage was not permitting it. He didn’t dare enter the tournament, even though claws were padded and no one could attack outside of the circle. In all this time of preparation for the coming of his savior, it had never occurred to him once that he might have to fight for the privilege of following!

  I’m doomed, he thought. He would have stayed longer at the meet, struggling to find a way around his fear, but he spotted Puller-of-Noses moving through the crowd.

  So he caught a jerking auto-car through the tunnels back to the Jotok Run. Back to work. It didn’t matter. Hssin would be emptied after the armada left, and most of his enemies would be gone. There was that.

  Jotok-Tender spotted his apprentice in the dome near the main entrance of the Run and moved to greet him, animation in his gait. Hssin was indeed in a state when even the giant caught its fever! The giant didn’t stop as he usually did but came right up and cuffed Trainer with force enough to half-knock him down.

  “Look at this!” He showed a golden honor card. “Chuut-Riit has commended us for our slaves! Our work groups have been overhauling some of his fleet’s worn gravitic polarizers. He is pleased. A small thing, but we have honor!”

  Trainer took the arm of his master, almost gently, and walked him through the trees and grass of the plaza. There was nothing much to say, but they made purring noises at each other. There was no question of working for the rest of the day. The old kzin fussed about, providing sparkling water and tasty hard bits to chew on. He talked quietly of his best memories. Trainer-of-Slaves listened fondly to the familiar tales.

  The next day was not so quiet. Kasrriss-As, the Patriarch of Hssin, who had never said a word in his life to Jotok-Tender, using underlings to deal with him, made a personal voice call. Chuut-Riit was interested in the response range of the man-beast’s physiology and had bought two Wunderland monkeys from Kasrriss-As which he wished to hunt. An elaborate hunting party was to be arranged immediately for the Jotok Run, which was the only really large hunting run on Hssin.

  “They don’t make good prey,” Kasrriss-As grumbled. “They’re badly designed. Weak. They can run, but not well; they can climb trees, but not well. Good to eat, though.” Sulkily he added, “I wanted them for my menagerie.”

  “Noble Hero, when shall we have the hunt ready?”

  “He hasn’t given me enough notice!” complained Kasrriss-As. “It takes months to exercise them into fit enough shape to make a good run! Terrible muscle tone! Ah well—could your kit possibly do something with them, teach them something in a day? Anything to make the hunt more interesting! I’m so distracted. I have so many things to do. Take care of everything. The honor of Hssin rests upon your accomplishment.”

  At the instant of disconnect, Jotok-Tender reached out and pulled down an enchiridion—not a data capsule or an eyewriter—but a slim, lavishly illustrated book, bound in Jotok hide and printed on the finest fiber paper in subtle colors and everlasting scent. “Read it now! Learn everything you can.” It was the most popular kzin manual on men.

  Huem-Sergeant and two of his assistants immediately brought the rare beasts around to the Jotok quarters. Trainer-of-Slaves, still with the book in his hand, saw three battle-ready kzin, so enormous that they could enter through the door only one at a time, roughly nudging two helpless charges between them. The hairless bipeds, together, couldn’t have massed as much as the smallest guard. The monkeys looked much less formidable than their pictures, and they didn’t smell like flower-water. They were far more vivid. They wore the smell of fear.

  He tried to fit on them the details he had been reading in the enchiridion. The one without facial hair was a young male? Trainer-of-Slaves stared intently; yes, that must be right. The one with the facial hair had looser folds in his tail-like skin, and tiny wrinkles—signs of age. It was the youth who was radiating the essence of fear most strongly. That must account for why his genitals were retracted.

  “Aowrrgh,” said Huem-Sergeant, “strange lot.” He was reminding Trainer-of-Slaves to relieve him of his guard duty.

  Trainer forced his eyes off the monkeys. He gave the swift transfer-of-contract sign with his hand, and the kzin warriors left him, one at a time through the door.

  Alone with his deformed charges, he felt his own fear stirring, the need for a grin. But he had a strange sympathy for the frightened young one—there was no need to frighten the doomed animal further. He suppressed his smile and kept his face as expressionless as possible under the circumstances.

  “I have a stall for you,” he hissed and spat, but they understood nothing.

  “I think he wants us to go with him,” said the bearded biped.

  “Should we resist?”

  “Don’t be crazy, Marisha.”

  They followed him through the corridors to the stall. “This is where you will sleep and defecate until the hunt. I have orders to make you comfortable.” The spits were mixed with the atonal inflections and burry rumblings of the Hero’s Tongue.

  “I think we’ve been demoted.”

  “What’s happening? Look at this place! I thought we were getting along with the Chief Kumquat?”

  “There’s a big buzz stirring up this ratcat trap. I think we’ve been sold.”

  “You have a theory that we are slaves. Are we really slaves?”

  “I don’t know anything, Marisha. Nothing at all. I’ll see if I can get us some food. Big Yellow Lineman here is just standing around staring, wondering where the football is.” He made finger motions to his mouth.

  “Long-Reach, some food for the slaves.”

  The Jotok scuttled into the stall. “Honored kzin, what do they eat?”

  “Sol’s Blazes, what is that teufel!” screeched Marisha.

  “I’ve seen them at a distance and once close up. That was in a kzin engine room. I think he has a better deal than we do.”

  Trainer-of-Slaves was consulting his book. These rotting manuals never seemed to carry what you needed in the place you were looking at! “Omnivore,” he clacked and hissed. Not very helpful. “Try one of everything. Water, too.”

  Long-Reach returned with a variety of warm, raw meats on a skewer and a bowl of leaves with a side dish of leaf sauce.
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  The older man sniffed the meat but tried the leaves first. “Tastes like eucalyptus. Same texture, too.” He spat it out and tried the meat with a sour expression. “We’re going to have to teach them how to cook all over again.”

  “It’s raw? Gottdamn!”

  “And tough.”

  Trainer-of-Slaves was impressed when he watched them chewing on the meat and rejecting the leaves.

  “Can you ask him for some clothes?” whimpered Marisha.

  “I don’t think they have our size. Maybe something in yellow lace with five arm holes?”

  Trainer-of-Slaves busied himself with professional questions—asked of himself because it was impossible to ask them anything. He examined the bottoms of their feet, clawing the sole gently, and decided that the skin was too soft. Had they been carried about by machines on Wunderland? Maybe on the two-year trip to Hssin in the hibernator their feet had grown soft? Certainly they wouldn’t be able to last out the hunt on those!

  Item: provide them with makeshift sandals. The giant was frugal to the point of insanity and had all sorts of hides around that had been softened by Jotok mastication,

  He wasn’t sure what to do about the rest of their skin. It had no fur to protect them from heat and cold, and would be useless against brambles and branches. Nor was it thick like a Jotok’s hide. Just running his claws along their skin made them flinch in pain and make noises that didn’t sound like polite conversation. Had they been shelled out of their carapace? Or was it just that Man-home was a paradise?

  Item: provide them with leggings. With their build and fragility, what they really needed was a military suit of armor.

  At first light he took them into the forest—with Long-Reach, Joker, and Creepy following in the trees. He tried to teach them the lay of the caverns, how to run and where to run, how to backtrack and hide, what to rub on their bodies to disguise their rank smell. After frustrating misunderstandings, he decided that they didn’t understand that they were going to be hunted. Were they stupid?