Tales of Known Space: The Universe of Larry Niven

by Larry Niven

  Then Telepath alone once more, Telepath stumbling over a rocky landscape, the pale tunnels ghostly and transparent, and then the pale tunnels fading, a dark stalker, whose shape could not be told, appearing and disappearing. I felt my mind dissolving, and knew I had at last seen the approach of the Shadow, the End and Last Despair that First Telepath had warned me would come like this.

  I cried out for help. To First Telepath, to Karan, to Zraar-Admiral, to Selina.

  An empty space, and then arches like a high-roofed cave. Naked sky A gigantic face. I fell into the position of supplication. It was the God. Fanged, rampant, come for Telepath’s soul, and Telepath was not the warrior to fittingly defy Him. Or was it the Fanged God. The face seemed to shimmer, and was bearded like the face of the human god? Fanged God or Bearded God, or somehow... both?

  I mewed like a kitten. Stars whirled about me, and Gutting Claw exploded.

  Angel’s Pencil

  “And those females? It’s obvious what he loaded them for.”

  “Wouldn’t you, in his position?”

  “Give you a continent to breed cats on? Selina, are you insane? A colony of Kzin to attack our colony the moment they’ve got the numbers?”

  “Hear me out.” Selina half rose, as the senior crew of the Angel’s Pencil fell silent about her. “Telepath is highly abnormal. You can see that. If he lives—and he may not—he has a chance of being the first of his kind even allowed to breed. What he breeds may be something quite new.

  “The Kzinretti are unintelligent. They can do nothing to educate their children In any real sense. I can. I know Telepath’s mind, and I know that no other human can come close to the knowledge of the Kzinti that I have. Dammit, I doubt many Kzin know as much about the Kzinti as I do! Few but the Telepaths have a multi-leveled picture of their own make-up, and the Telepaths have it only flickeringly and without proper context.

  “I think I can guide such a colony. You can keep watch on it—put a satellite above it with camera, sensors, weapons. If I fail and it becomes a threat, you’ll know in good time. You can help me guard it, guide it, trade with it, maybe. Visit it before aggression and xenophobia can take hold in the culture. Of course I can’t give guarantees. If necessary you can discipline it and if necessary you can wipe it out. Obviously with the Kzin in space the human colony must be on a war-footing always. But here we have a chance to create a Kzin society as it ought to be.”

  “A chance to play god, you mean? I don’t like that idea.”

  “What else are you going to do? Kill them here and now? Helpless prisoners? One of whom you owe? A desperately sick Telepath and two females in hibernation? Isn’t that playing god, too? I am offering the human race an asset. No-one else has it to offer.”

  “If Earth is conquered by the... Kzin, what good will having a few tame cats do?”

  “Almost certainly no good at all. But then nothing will matter anyway, unless anything from the more distant colonies can flee further into Space. And I do not think the Kzin will find Earth as easy a conquest as Zraar-Admiral imagined. Unarmed and surprised as we were, we have met them twice and beaten them twice already...“ Her voice trailed off. She suddenly understood what Telepath had meant when he spoke of the wrong cave at last.

  “I think it is likely the war will be long. I suppose there will be prisoners taken, but I doubt Earth can deal with Kzin prisoners. That’s another reason Telepath and the females are precious.”

  “Your motives sound very patriotic, Selina. But is that all your agenda? It comes down to breeding Kzin?

  “To breeding Kzin you can talk to,” she corrected him.

  “Is that really an asset?”

  “It could be a bigger asset than you can imagine. Not only for this colony... There can be interchange between the two kinds right from the start. Humans will have the advantage of numbers, and Telepath’s children will not be the Kzin of the Patriarchy.

  “When I learnt Telepaths were not allowed to breed, I wondered: when the gift is both so rare and so valuable a military asset, why is every effort not made to increase the strain, as it is among humans when even the smallest trace of such ability is found? I think I know why:

  Telepaths are introspective, empathetic—qualities that could be a deadly threat to the Patriarchy, if they became common among Kzin. Even if the proportion of Telepaths to the general population was only a little higher than it is now, they could be an intolerable influence for destabilization. So they cannot be allowed to breed.

  “And I think they would breed true. That is the First Secret of the Telepaths. My Telepath thinks the breeding prohibition is because they are too ‘shameful’. But I think the... Patriarchy.., also prohibits them from breeding because at some level it knows what a danger they could be were they not rigidly controlled. As well as needing them and despising them, I think it also fears them.

  “Kzinretti... female Kzin... usually have one male and one female kitten in a litter. You know female Kzin are morons. But the female kittens of Telepath may be a wild card, and we are going to need all the wild cards we can pull out of our sleeves. A collection of non-Conformist Kzin could be a great threat to the Patriarchy. Some Telepaths already see themselves as at war with Kzin culture, but from what I have gathered their war is pitifully confused and disorganized, almost completely futile.

  “I get a feeling there has been some kind of intervention, something inculcated in some Telepaths, perhaps an integral part of the whole syndrome that allows them to survive as Telepaths, that makes them at odds with Kzin... rigidity, but the chance and the motivation for them to actually do anything comes rarely.

  “They’re not morally better than ordinary Kzin, whether by our standards or theirs—often they are worse. They are not necessarily more intelligent. They are not happier or more stable—quite the reverse. But they are different. The actual quality of their resistance or non-conformity has a great deal of self-delusion in it. We might change that.

  “I gather from Telepath that the worlds of their empire have a great deal of local independence—I suppose that is inevitable with the limitations of light-speed— but they all conform to a pretty basic set of common values and culture. Here we have the chance to plant something different enough to make a real change. At the same time, humans can learn an enormous amount from these Kzin—things we’ll have to learn, and learn quickly, too.

  “And I can’t come back to you. Not without Telepath. There is too much cat—neurotic cat—in my brain now, and too much of me in him. You need not look disgusted. Believe me, you have no idea what an asset the human race has in that relationship.”

  “Assuming that is true,” said Steve, “how could we make the human race aware of it... if we’ve made them aware of the Kzin at all. Even if we still dare advertise our presence by signaling?”

  “We can only think in the longest term,” said Selina. Her words hung in the air a moment as the assembled humans thought upon what the longest term might be. Steve Weaver stared at the map-display with an ashen face. The controller of the Angel’s Pencil’s laser was suddenly a sick man. He swallowed, choked, then raised eyes of despair to Selina, Jim and Sue. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “Don’t you see? Nothing matters. We are dead meat.”

  “We’ve won a battle!” Jim said, “That matters! We’ve won two battles!” He jumped to his feet and struck the table. “If we meet another Kzin ship we’ll fight that too. We’re armed with knowledge now.”

  “Meet another? Oh, we’ll do that all right. Don’t you understand? It’s obvious enough, isn’t it? These maps only confirm what we should have known—what we did know” There was something twisted in Steve’s voice, “Only we haven’t let ourselves think about it because It’s so Tanj obvious!

  “Encountering one Kzin ship might have been chance. But we’ve encountered two, and Selina tells us they are part of a Navy and an Empire, and coming from— there!” He pointed forward, through a port and past the great Collector Head and fusion torus at th
e “point” of the Angel’s Pencil.

  “We are heading straight into Kzin space! We are heading towards what the ramrobots tell us is a roughly Earthlike world in order to establish a colony. There will be no colony. An Earthlike world is a world Kzin can live on. A main-sequence K2 star—of course they would seek it out! It even has handy gas-giants with their own large moon-systems for bases and mines.

  “We know they have been in Space far longer than humans. We don’t need Selina’s knowledge to tell us that apart from their aggressive instincts carnivores that size need elbow-room, territory. They will have settled all possible worlds within reach.”

  “Yes,” said Selina. “And their hibernation technology for Space-travel is at least as good as ours. Probably better.”

  “We are heading into a part of Space where Kzin ships will be more and more frequent. And even if we miss them—Space is still big enough for that, I suppose—one thing is sure: when we reach Epsilon Eridani they will be there waiting for us... We should have realized it long ago. After the first one...” He buried his face in his hands.

  There was silence as his words sank in. Military Command Psychology was a long-forgotten science among humans. There was shame now that they had not let themselves see anything so obvious. Horror as they allowed themselves to realize the implications.

  “We couldn’t have known. Not until now...”

  “I think I did know,” said Sue. There were tears on her cheeks. “I didn’t let myself think about it. The doc was treating me for depression and it was increasing my medication. Maybe that happened to us all. I bet if we checked the doc’s supplies we would find that tranquilizers and anti-depressants are way down. It’s been keeping part of our minds in a Zombie-state. Not to disable us against the immediate threat, but suppressing the symptoms in our sub-consciousness of the implications. But I had an inkling. I should have spoken before.”

  “The doc wasn’t programmed for war,” said Steve. “How could it have been? It was doing the job it was programmed to do on Earth: to identify neurosis and relieve the symptoms while the neurosis cured itself. If it identified a psychosis like paranoia it would treat it. And it had no way of telling if that neurosis or paranoia was justified. You might say its job was to unfit us for war, and we achieved what we did in spite of it. We’re not used to this. I knew we weren’t used to physical pain. We turned away from it. I should have realized we weren’t used to any kind of pain. The doc was only doing its job by deadening it. But, Selina, you didn’t see it either.”

  “You’re forgetting. Your doc gave me a going-over as soon as I got aboard. Filled me with stuff. I didn’t ask what. Like you, I’m still the creature of our culture.”

  “Another thing. Relativity. With time-dilation effects we will be there even sooner from our point of view.”

  Words like a low upon a wound.

  “Another thing. Those two Kzin ships got behind us. It’s against the odds that that would happen again. We can’t expect our weapon to be any use at the next encounter.”

  “It we had a Kzin gravity-engine we could turn and fight them. Or use the ramscoop-field, if it affects them like other chordates.”

  “If...”

  “If we had a gravity-engine we could turn and run. Head for the colonies on the other side of Space. Or head back to Earth... Warn them in person if they have ignored the messages... Pity about the physics.”

  There was no need to spell out what the physics were. They all knew that with the Angel’s Pencil’s forward velocity the turn-around time ruled it out.

  “Why talk of impossibilities? We haven’t a gravity-engine.”

  Despair filled the room like fog. It was not hard to imagine, once the obvious had been spelt out, what their reception at Epsilon Eridani would be. Think! Think! Selina told herself. Think like a Kzin! Think like Telepath.

  “We do have a gravity-engine,” she said. “The barge is a tug. It could turn us. With the delta-v we have plus the gravity-engine we could turn quite tightly and still keep enough velocity for the ramscoop to function. The Kzin use the gravity-fields to shield themselves from acceleration effects. We could do the same. The gravity-motor is damaged but we can repair it. Even with losing some delta-v that would give us the capacity to maintain constant one-G acceleration. In a year we would be back to .8 Light... or run our own drive and the Kzin engine together. If we can control the gravity-field we can accelerate as fast as may be without medical problems.”

  They looked at her as though they might not be dead meat. Then Steve said:

  “We can’t use a gravity-engine. We sent Earth all the specifications we could of the first ship’s engine. It is still stowed here in pieces.”

  “Then we have two. Even better!”

  “No. Hear me out, Selina. The engine we have was also initially damaged by our laser, although we salvaged all we could of it. We can describe most of the parts. We can film them and transmit the pictures. If Earth and the Belt believe us they can duplicate them. That’s all we can do. A steam engineer of five hundred years ago could have described the shape of the parts of a Bussard Ramjet, but do you think he could have understood it from that? I’m not saying repairing and operating them is beyond our intelligence but the technology is too different, given the time we’ve got.

  “We have two damaged engines that we don’t know how to repair. We don’t even know how to make the tools to work on them. Even if we had an engine In one piece we can’t understand it. We can’t operate it. It’s like trying to build the Dean Drive. Tanj! Maybe it is the Dean Drive, or its descendant.

  “Ours has melted parts, yours has holes in it. They have massive energy-containment fields and if we were to activate them without those fields fully functioning... well, that would be that.

  “Oh, I grant you that perhaps we could learn, given years and research facilities and skilled teams. But we are a small specialized crew, and our colonists are frozen embryos. How many years do we have? We are getting deeper into Kzin space every moment.”

  “Then it lies with Telepath and me,” Selina said. “He had Weapons-Officer’s knowledge. If he still has that, we have a chance.”

  “If he still has it?”

  “Telepathically-acquired knowledge decays much quicker than ordinary memories. Telepaths would go mad much more quickly otherwise. But he was in Weapons-Officer’s mind not long ago.”

  “I have some of it, thanks to the Bridge... Weapons Officer was working on gravity-motors. Between us we may be able to retrieve something.”

  She was speaking in a peculiar mumbling monotone now, with the grating Kzin accent surfacing in it.

  “But this makes it a bigger, harder thing than I thought. Rearranging his chemistry to cure his addiction—or to stop the withdrawal syndromes killing him—is complex enough, but it’s something the Kzin autodoc and I may be able to do, if I can give him psychic support through it. He/we knew that—Kzin reparatory medicine is good. But to do it without scrambling his addict-acquired memories as well... If I can reach him, talk him through it, you might say... but it’s much more than that... I haven’t the human words... But to cure him of his addiction without breaking the bridge... I feel it can be done—Telepaths have secrets and I know some of them now. But it’s not going to be easy.”

  “If he’s still alive.”

  “He’s still alive. If he were dead I can assure you I would know.”

  Jim suppressed a shudder. This woman’s bonding to the cat made him physically disturbed.

  Selina’s face was changing now. Color was draining from it. Her features were twisting into something like the Leonine Mask of leprosy. “But he’s sick. He’s very sick. He’s in great pain... He’s not strong enough. Urrr.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I must go back to the barge,” said Selina. “I should be as close to him as possible.”

  Admiral’s Barge

  Stars whirled above me. I entered a new space: a bowl like the arena at the train
ing-crèche. And the cliffs.

  I stood about it, and I knew they were minds to which I must cling.

  The cliff of Zraar-Admiral’s mind. I clutched it, knowing he was dead, and felt my claws pass through empty air, as when they had tried, long ago at the crèche, to make a fighter of me. But they had taken me from the other kits and let me live, like the science-geniuses and other despised ones, for they saw that I was a Telepath (“You may be the greatest of us.” First Telepath had said, one sleep-time aboard Gutting Claw).

  Something held me then. Was it something from Zraar-Admiral’s mind? Had I indeed touched the Dead?

  “You are the closest to a warrior.., hold yourself like a warrior then... fight like a warrior. Earn the compliment I paid you.”

  Was it he? What was that other mind that held me like the mind of First Telepath? Or Karan?

  “The way we were made was not the only way.”

  I could not tell. Were they all come from Telepath’s poor sick mind?

  And then, in the cliffs and tunnels, the running white lattices, and bare plain and the grass that was both the orange of Kzin and the green of Earth, I saw Selina coming towards Telepath, towards me, bending above me, and felt her holding me. And somewhere a yellow sun was rising.

  Madness Has Its Place

  Chapter I

  A lucky few of us know the good days before they're gone.

  I remember my eighties. My job kept me in shape and gave me enough variety to keep my mind occupied. My love life was imperfect but interesting. Modern medicine makes the old fairy tales look insipid; I almost never worried about my health.

  Those were the good days, and I knew them. I could remember worse.

  I can remember when my memory was better, too. That's what this file is for. I keep it updated for that reason and also to maintain my sense of purpose.

  The Monobloc had been a singles bar since the 2320s.