Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - XIII

by Larry Niven

  “Who knows? Perhaps they are more extensively ‘hard-wired’ than we are, less dependent upon cultural shaping.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Yang, “but I suspect we will find that they actually have a very carefully controlled cultural environment.”

  “Why?”

  “Because what little we have learned thus far suggests that the females of the species are not merely protected and hidden, but sequestered from their own male cubs within mere months of giving birth to them.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Let me put it in familiar terms: if you take humans away from their parents when they are toddlers or younger, they will not develop as most other children. This would be particularly true if they are put in an environment filled with daunting physical requirements, harsh discipline, and rich rewards for properly focused violence.”

  “So you’re saying that, without their current upbringing, kzinti would be just big, cuddly, housecats?”

  “Nothing could be further from what I mean. They are what their evolution has made them: superb killing machines. But as in all successful societies, adult kzinti will shape their young by amplifying their optimal traits with behavioral training and encouragements.”

  “Perhaps all this is true, Dr. Yang, but tell me: why do we need to know what they’d be like without the cultural shaping? It’s not like we’re ever going to meet a kzin without it.”

  “No, but we might create one ourselves.”

  “To use in further experiments?”

  “No: to use as a political liaison. Either this will be a war of extermination, or it will eventually end, through victory or exhaustion. And when that moment comes, it would be most helpful to have a kzin who considers us its mentors, its parents, its family.”

  Yang leaned forward, tilted the teapot toward Dieter’s cup: nothing came out. “And so,” she finished, putting down the pot and folding her hands in her lap, “that is why I must stay here and not flee to Sol. I must remain to perform the research that can only be performed here. And that is why you must take the details of the research agenda back to Earth: so that we may isolate and identify the key features of the kzin nature.” She looked meaningfully at the handgun that was still resting on the table.

  Dieter picked it up and returned it to its holster. “It seems you are needed here after all, Dr. Yang.”

  She nodded, her eyes unblinking once again. “We all serve different needs, Lieutenant. Do be so good as to help me prepare another pot of tea.” She rose, hips swaying slightly more than necessary.

  Dieter, shrugging, rose and followed her.

  2396 CE: Sol System, Rearguard of the Third Kzin Invasion Fleet

  Thrarm-Captain panted in open-mouthed hatred: the viewscreen showed yet another spray of glittering sparks that sought out and then converged upon the dim mote that marked the location of the rearguard’s last Slaughter-class battle cruiser. After a moment of darkness, there was a flicker, a flare, and then a white-blue sphere, expanding sharply from a brief, pin-point brilliance, a radiant halo chasing outward before it.

  “Thrarm-Captain, Defiant Snarl is confirmed lost. The van continues to pull ahead of us, and—”

  “—And that is a good thing, zh-Sensor. The van of the Fleet is supposed to gain more distance. We are the rearguard: we are accomplishing our task.”

  “Without question, Thrarm-Captain, but were we not told to detach from the rearguard and rejoin the van when it had attained a distance of thirty light-seconds from the human flotillas?”

  Thrarm-Captain’s ears became more rigid but pushed downward: zh-Sensor was correct. Of course, they should never have been in the rearguard in the first place. The unexpected arrival of the second half of the human fleet, converging as scores of cannily hidden squadrons, had made a ruin of the kzinti’s penultimate attack formation. The human surprise had put them swiftly and entirely off-balance: the kzin left flank had become the front, and the front had become the far right flank. Auxiliaries were suddenly in the line of battle; dreadnaughts were occluded by their own craft, unable to bring their firepower to bear with maximum effect. The third kzin fleet to attack Sol had studied and learned the bitter lessons the monkey boys had taught them during the two prior invasions. And this time, the kzin had been on the verge of defeating the spindly leaf-eaters—or so it had seemed.

  Now, in the few spare moments between coordinating anti-missile fire and swatting away single-ships equipped with crude equivalents of kzin gravitic polarizer drives, Thrarm-Captain reflected upon how the outcome of this battle recalled the human martial art known as judo. The monkeys had not defeated this third invasion of their homesystem by meeting force with force, but by using the kzinti’s offensive momentum against them. The Heroes of the Fleet had broken the first human formations and had pressed on, eager to bring their weapons to bear upon the great prize: Earth itself. But that had been a baited trap. The real human defenses—smaller, lighter, unthinkably numerous craft—had materialized from various points of the battlesphere, and in so doing, caught the kzinti off balance. The kzin firepower was all on the line, which is precisely where the humans did not strike. And by the time the Fleet’s deployment could be altered, and the weapons of its battlewagons brought to bear, the regrouped heavy elements of the human main fleet had returned, and the rout of the kzinti had begun.

  Thrarm-Captain wanted to call it a retreat, but that would have merely been a self-flattering fiction. True, the kzin had been able to throw together a rearguard to cover the withdrawal of the most important Fleet assets. And true, they had inflicted horrible losses upon the humans. But there were so many of the small enemy ships, and they spent themselves so freely, that there had been no chance to reform properly. The situation was so chaotic and fluid that it was no longer a true battle: it had devolved into a scattered collection of desperate brawls.

  Thrarm-Captain knew zh-Sensor was waiting for his response and, gallingly, also knew that zh-Sensor was right: it was time for them to abandon the rearguard. The terrible strength of Thrarm-Captain’s hull was not intended for hunting or attacking, but for protecting. Only chance and dire need had put his ship, Guardant Ancestor, in direct engagement with the enemy. His job, and his hull’s very design, dictated that he keep his precious passengers out of harm’s way. But, today, the humans had made nonsense of everyone’s supposed missions: now, simple survival would be accomplishment enough.

  “zh-Sensor, I need a close sweep of surrounding space. Helm: plot a course—shortest possible—to rejoin the main van. Communications, open a channel—”

  “Thrarm-Captain.” It was zh-Sensor again, but his voice sounded different. Intrigued. Maybe puzzled. Possibly both.

  “Yes, Sensor?”

  “There is a Raker-class escort approaching from our aft port quarter low. It seems to be heavily damaged, Thrarm-Captain. It is venting volatiles and its energy output is irregular.”

  A Raker-class? Well, there still were some in the Fleet, but not many. They had been far more numerous in the formations of the Second Fleet, but very few of them had come back. Designed for stealth and swift action, they had been optimal hulls for conducting operations within the peripheries of the Sol System’s asteroid belt. Unfortunately, their speed and diminished radar signature had been acquired at the expense of armor and protective screens: the Rakers had ultimately proven far too vulnerable to the humans’ weaponry. “Can you establish communications with it? What is its transponder code?”

  zh-Sensor shook his fine-boned head. “No response to our hails, Thrarm-Captain. Their transponder is only transmitting intermittent characters.”

  “Can you verify that the characters are in the Heroes’ Script?”

  “Yes, the symbols are clearly Kzanzh’ef, but the sequence is too broken up for us to know if they are part of an authentic Third Fleet identification sequence.”

  Thrarm-Captain felt a tinge of caution war with the stronger desire to save any of the other true Heroes of this fleet, par
ticularly those who had fought a delaying action with weak ships against an overwhelming enemy. “How badly damaged are they?”

  “Unclear, Thrarm-Captain. But energy spikes indicate thermal flares, probably from internal fuel explosions. There have been several combustion plumes—hydrogen, we presume—that support this analysis.”

  “And other than the transponder signal, no communication whatsoever?”

  “None, Thrarm-Cap—wait.” zh-Sensor’s ears stood up rigid, like wind-filled half-parasols. “They have shut down their fusion plant and are running off capacitors. Which they are turning on and off. Repeatedly.”

  “So?”

  “Sir, the pattern of the on-off sequencing: it is the Scout’s Tapping, Thrarm-Captain!”

  The Scout’s Tapping? Thrarm-Captain’s lower jaw hung slightly; his angry, tooth-lined maw reflected faintly in the glass of an inert display screen. The humans had rarely, if ever, encountered the archaic code known as the Scout’s Tapping, so it seemed increasingly likely that he stood in a position to rescue Heroes who had fought well from ships that were outgunned and outdated. But until the other ship could officially prove its identity, he had to ignore it. He knew he should not feel a simmering rage against those protocols—the monkeys’ tendency toward guile and deception had made these precautions necessary—but still, they were now keeping him from doing what his instinct and the Hero’s Creed told him to do: save a ship that was obviously manned by his brothers.

  zh-Sensor cleared his throat. It was a sound like a small motor starting. “Thrarm-Captain, are we to return the Raker’s signal?”

  “What are they Tapping?”

  “That their hunt is over, Thrarm-Captain. They must abandon their ship; they ask us for lifeboats.”

  “Lifeboats? Why?”

  zh-Sensor’s voice was low. “Because their commander knows that, with his transponder damaged, we cannot authenticate his vessel as belonging to the Fleet.”

  The gesture was either the mark of a truly brave Hero—willing to take his chance among the leaf-eaters in lifeboats—or of a truly audacious deception. Maybe, reasoned Thrarm-Captain even as he recoiled from the implicit weakness of the act, it would be best to simply send over some lifeboats…

  “Thrarm-Captain, human small-boats inbound.”

  Thrarm-Captain swiveled toward the targeting screens. “Where?”

  “Approaching us from the lee side of the Raker, Thrarm-Captain. Our firing solution lies directly through it.”

  “Fire self-guiding seekers,” Thrarm-Captain yowled, but knew it would not be enough. The defensive batteries of three human smallships, coordinated in interlocking fields of fire, would certainly defeat his anemic missile attack. At most, he was buying the Raker some time.

  zh-Sensor swallowed. “The Raker is turning about to engage them, sir. It is re-starting its fusion plant, but it seems to be having trouble.”

  Well, of course; they had to shut down the fusion plant so that their on-off power pulses would come through as the Scout’s Tapping. The output of a live fusion plant would have drowned out the fluctuations in the smaller energy signature, much as the roar of nearby waterfalls had, in primeval times, made the original Scout’s Tapping useless. But, from a cold restart, that same fusion plant would take some time before rebuilding to optimal output.

  On the main plot, the small vermillion speck of the Raker was gamely trying to come about and intercept the three, leaf-green lancets bearing down on Guardant Ancestor. Thrarm-Captain felt his gorge rise in frustration: frustration at not turning to fight, at failing to lend his aid and firepower to the stricken Raker, and above all, at not having immediately offered to rescue his fellow Heroes.

  zh-Sensor started: “The Raker is firing beams and missiles—many missiles! Large-warhead drones, evidently. Two human craft have slowed their approach, and one has been damaged and broken off. The drones are slowing, though—”

  Thrarm-Captain narrowed his eyes, felt his vocal chords vibrating, quaking, as he held back a scream of impotent rage. “Those are not drones. They were his lifeboats.”

  “Thrarm-Captain, the lead human craft has been hit and destroyed. The second is damaged, but now reapproaching.” zh-Sensor blinked at his relays. “And—and you were correct, Thrarm-Captain; the Raker discharged its escape pods and lifeboats along with its missiles—”

  “—thereby making it look, for a moment, like it had superior armament. Which disrupted the coordination of the human attack. Buying more time for us, but dooming themselves when the humans resume their attack. And see, they do so even now. This time, the leaf-eaters will finish the job. And the crew of the Raker has no way left to escape.”

  But the Raker’s fusion drives surged to life and it discharged its beam weapons in the same moment that two human missiles hit the spindly hull, along with a brace of x-ray laser bursts.

  The lasers hit the Raker’s tankage sections, but without any free oxygen, the result was simply a profound out-gassing of most of the remaining fuel. The human missiles, however, hit the gunnery decks, which fell suddenly and ominously silent. The interior explosions seemed a bit smaller than Thrarm-Captain might otherwise have expected, but for all he knew, the Raker’s racks were dry, and one of the human warheads might have been a dud. Either way, the Raker was now all but dead: fuel already low, and its systems evidently failing, the fusion plant died out again.

  But the brief fire by the kzin ship’s full-powered beams had destroyed one of the two persistent attackers, the last of which now the last flinched back, withdrawing along with the first one the Raker had injured. Powering its gravitic polarizer drive from capacitors only, the Raker struggled to come back about and keep up with the rearguard—but would clearly not be able to do so much longer.

  “More Scout’s Tapping in power pulses,” zh-Sensor murmured. “They send ‘Hsna’zhao.’”

  The ancient Kzanzh byword of resolve, even in death, hsna’zhao meant, roughly, “on with the hunt!” It was the exhortation of a dying Hero to his living companions: to fight on, to not risk themselves by tarrying beside one who was already as good as dead.

  Thrarm-Captain growled: he could take no more of this. “Helm, distance to the van?”

  “Twenty-two light-seconds, Thrarm-Captain.”

  Good: they could afford a little time. “Reduce acceleration to one-half. Hold steady so the Raker can come alongside.”

  zh-Sensor looked up: contending emotions warred in his eyes. “Thrarm-Captain, I mean no insolence. I simply remind you of the protocols.”

  The kzin captain reared to his full height. “Since the Raker appeared on our screens, I have chased my tail around that very issue, zh-Sensor. I can abide these overcautious dictates no longer. This is clearly one of our own craft, crippled, but brave in our defense. The humans attacked it and they destroyed one of the leaf-eaters’ smallships: we saw it with our own eyes. And they speak our language, know our Tapping, act as we would ourselves.”

  “A clever foe might learn all these things.”

  “Yes, they might, but to squander such a ploy here, in the midst of this chaos? No. That is not possible. And they have no way of knowing what we carry on board Guardant Ancestor, so we may safely set aside suspicions that this is a trap laid especially for us. Which leaves only one reasonable explanation: that every second we waste debating the obvious, our brothers remain in mortal danger of another attack like the last.”

  zh-Sensor’s hide rippled sharply, once. Clearly, he had wanted to go to the aid of their fellow Heroes every bit as much as his captain. The captain turned toward his Helm and, as he gave instructions for allowing the Raker to dock, thought it is good to lead Heroes worthy of their title.

  The kzin troopers, beamers held in a comfortable assault carry, straightened when Thrarm-Captain came around the bend in the main passageway. The squad leader made the stylized submission gesture that was a salute among them. “Thrarm-Captain, we had no word that you would be joining—”

  “I
sent no word: I did not wish to disturb your preparations. But I wish to see the Raker’s crew for myself.”

  The squad leader’s eyes narrowed. “Uncertainty persists regarding their identity?”

  “Uncertainty will persist until I have seen their commander, have accepted his salute, and have had you search every cubic meter of his ship. Which we will evacuate and then scuttle. But I am equally eager to be the first to welcome him: if it was mine to bestow upon him, I would give him a Name.”

  “Sir!” The squad leader stood very straight, almost presented arms.

  The floor jarred softly under their broad, well-padded feet. “Hard dock completed,” announced the junior squad leader, who checked his wrist comp. “The hardwire links are mated, but still no coherent data, and no video-feed from the Raker’s airlock. Their commo system is down, apparently.”

  Reasonable, thought Thrarm-Captain, but in no way reassuring. “Visual check?”

  The junior squad-leader had undogged the inner hatch of the Guardant Ancestor, entered its airlock, hunkered down to peer through the small, thick-paned porthole that should have looked through a similar window into the airlock of the Raker. “Again, no visuals, Thrarm-Captain. The glass is smoke-smudged, and it appears that their airlock has only one emergency light functioning.”

  “Are they sending anything through the docking hardwire?”

  “Yes, sir. They are pulsing it in the Scout’s Tapping. They are asking if our side is secure, sir. They have no sensor function to determine that the hard dock is complete, or that we stand ready on our side.”

  Again, perfectly reasonable, given the circumstances. And again, not in the least bit reassuring. “Seal for vacuum ops.” Thrarm-Captain’s own actions suited his orders. “First Squad, force manual entry into the Raker. Stand ready to attack or assist.”

  The kzinti so instructed loped into Guardant Ancestor’s airlock, worked at the manual access to the Raker’s outer airlock door, gave up, popped an access plate in its surface, revealing, among other things, a simple hand-crank. The largest of them spun the crank while the others waited. The door eventually gapped a bit, allowing the others to wedge in pry-bars and open it fully.