Man-Kzin Wars III

by Larry Niven

  Yet humans must be in the loop, constantly monitoring, gauging, making judgments. Theirs was the intuition, the instinct and creative insight, that no one has engineered into any machine. The Saxtorphs were the two best qualified. Carita could handle the less violent hours. The main burden fell on Dorcas. Ryan and Tyra kept them fed, coffeed, medicated. Often she rubbed a back, kneaded shoulders, ran a wet washcloth over a face, crooned a lullaby at a catnap. Mostly she did it for the captain.

  From dead Sherrek, the cannonball that held the living shot free. Unseeable amidst the light of lethal radiation, a force-beam reached to lay hold. Almost, the grip failed. Needles spun on dials and Dorcas cast her man a look of terror. Things stabilized. The hook was in.

  Gently, now, gently. Itself a comet trailing luminance, the capsule fled. The grapnel field stretched, tugging, dragging Rover along, but how slowly slowing it. As distance grew, precision diminished. The capsule plunged about. The Saxtorphs ordered compensating boosts. Ideally, they could maintain contact across the width of a planetary system. In fact, the chance of losing it was large.

  They played their fish.

  Hour by hour, day by day, the haste diminished, the gap closed. Worst was a moment near the end, when the capsule was visible in a magnifying screen, and suddenly rolled free. Somehow Dorcas clapped the grapnel back onto it. Then: “Take over for a while, Bob,” she choked, put head in hands, and wept. He couldn’t recall, at that point, when he had last seen her shed tears.

  Ship and sphere drew nigh. A cargo port opened. The catch went in. The port shut and air roared into the bay. Some time yet must pass; at first that metal was too cold for flesh to approach. When at length its own hatch cracked, the warmth and stench of life long confined billowed out.

  A man crept after. He rose unsteadily, tall, hook-nosed, bushy-bearded, going gray, though still hard and lithe. He climbed a ladder. A door swung wide for him. Beyond waited his daughter.

  Chapter XVI

  The song of her working systems throbbed through Rover, too softly for ears to hear anything save rustles and murmurs, yet somehow pervading bones, flesh, and spirit. In Ryan’s cabin Carita asked, “But why are we headed back to the black hole? Add a week’s travel time at least, plus whatever we spend there. I’ve seen the damn thing. Why not straight to Wunderland?”

  She had been asleep, exhausted, when her shipmates made the decision, and had only lately awakened, to eat ravenously and join her friend. The rest had spent their remnant strength laying plans and getting on hyperspatial course. Ryan took the first mass detector watch. Tyra had it now, drowsily; when relieved, she would doubtless seek her bunk again.

  “We thought you’d agree, and in any case wouldn’t appreciate being hauled out to cast a vote when the count could just go one way,” Ryan answered. “Wherever we picked, it was foolish to linger. Nothing else to gain, and a small possibility that a ratcat moku might suddenly pop up and shout, ‘Boo!’ Care for a drink?”

  “You know me. In several different meanings of the word.” Carita propped a pillow between her and the bulkhead and lounged back, her legs twin pillars of darkness on the gaudy bedspread. Ryan stepped across to a cabinet above a minifridge. He’d crowded a great deal of sybaritism into his quarters. In the screen, a barely clad songstress sat under a palm tree near a beach, plucked a ukulele, and looked seductive as she crooned. He did esoteric things with rum and fruit juices.

  Meanwhile he explained: “Partly it’s a matter of recuperation. Nordbo’s served a hitch in Hell, and we visited the forecourts of Purgatory, eh? When we return, the sensation and the official flapdoodle are going to make what happened after the red sun business seem like a session of the garden committee of the Philosophical Society. We’d better be well rested and have a lot of beforehand thinking done.”

  “M-m, yes, that makes sense. But I can tell you pleasanter places to let our brains simmer down in than that black hole. You know what the name means in Russian?”

  Ryan laughed. “Uh-huh. So they call it a ‘frozen star.’ Pretty turn of phrase. Except that this one never really was a star, and is anything but frozen.”

  “It’s turned into a kind of star, then.” For a moment they were silent. The same vision stood before them, a radiance more terrible century by century, at last day by day, until its final nova-like self-immolation. For the most part spacefarers speak casually, prosaically about their work, because the reality of the universe is as daunting as the reality of death.

  “Well, but we’ve got a reason,” Ryan continued. “Nailing down a claim of discovery. The kzinti examined the artifact as thoroughly as they could, much more than our quick once-over. Especially, of course, with an eye to the military potentials. Nordbo was there. He knows fairly well what they learned. But as you’d expect, he needs to refresh his memory. He told us the kzinti ship beamcast a full description till he got control and shut it off. But we aren’t equipped to retrieve it. Think how much trouble we had communicating with him. We could waste weeks, and not be sure of recording more than snatches. Let Nordbo revisit the actual thing, repeat a few measurements and such, and he can write that description himself, or enough of it to establish the claim.”

  Carita raised her brows. “What claim? The government’s bound to swarm there, take charge, and stamp everything Incredibly Secret.”

  Ryan nodded. “Does a shark eat fish? They’ll be plenty peeved at us for telling the hoi polloi that it exists at all. We’ve got to do that, if only as part of Nordbo’s vindication, but I’ll concede that it’s probably best to keep quiet about the technical details. However, he’ll have priority of discovery. For legal purposes, the kzinti and their beamcast can be ignored. They shanghaied him, among numerous other unlawful acts; they’ve forfeited any rights, not to mention that there is no court with jurisdiction. He’ll be entitled to a discoverer’s award. In view of the importance of the find, and the fact that public disputes would be very awkward for the government, that award will be plenty big—and we’ll share it with him.”

  “Ah-ha!” Carita exulted. “I see. You were right, there was no need to roll me out of the sheets to vote.”

  “Same thing should apply to the kzinti ship, if the Navy elects to go recover it for intelligence purposes,” Ryan said. “Not likely, though. My guess is they’ll simply read the message and then jam it. The black hole is our real jackpot.” He finished mixing the drinks and gave her one. “Pōmaika’i.”

  “Into orbit.” Rims clinked. He sat down on the edge of the bunk.

  Carita turned thoughtful. “That poor man. He will be, uh, vindicated, won’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. If necessary, he can take truth tests, but the story by itself, with the corroboration we can give, should do the trick. His name will be cleared, his family will be reinstated in its clan, and he’ll get back the property that was confiscated, or compensation for it if reversion isn’t practical. He won’t need any award money. I suspect he’s forcing himself, for our sake.”

  Carita stared before her. “How’s he taking all this?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Too early to tell. Excitement; exhaustion; the last scrap of endurance that stimulants could give, spent on making plans. But surely he’ll be okay. He’s a tough cookie if ever I bit into one.”

  Compassion gentled her voice. “He met his little girl-child, and she was a not-quite-young woman. She told him his wife has died.”

  “I think I saw grief, though he was fairly stoic throughout. However, it can’t have been a huge surprise. And he wouldn’t be human if, down underneath, he didn’t feel a slight relief.”

  “Yes. She’d have been old. I bet he’d have stuck loyally by her till the end, but— Well, sheer pride in his daughter ought to help him a lot, emotionally.”

  “A rare specimen, her.” Ryan let out an elaborate sigh. “And sexy as Pele, under that brisk, sprightly, competent surface. I’d give a lot to be in the path of the next eruption. No such luck, though. In a perfectly pleasant fashion, she’s made that cl
ear. It’s the single fault I find in her.”

  Carita drank deep, frowned, and drank again. “Her eyes are on the skipper. And his on her. They can’t hide it any longer, no matter how hard they try.”

  “I know, I know. I’m resigned. If anybody rates that fling—more than me, that is—Bob does.”

  “Dorcas.”

  “Aw, she shouldn’t mind too much. She’s as realistic a soul as our species has got.”

  Carita’s lips tightened. “I’m afraid this wouldn’t be just a fling.”

  “Huh? Come on, now.”

  “You’ve been giving Tyra your whole attention. I’ve paid some to him.”

  “You really think—?” Flustered, Ryan took a long drink of his own. “Well, none of our business.” He relaxed, smiled, leaned over, laid an arm across her waist. “How about we attend to what does concern us, firepants? It’s been a while.”

  For a little span yet Carita sat troubled, then she put her tumbler aside, smiled back, and turned to him. The ship sailed on through lightlessness.

  Chapter XVII

  “No, I must speak the truth,” said Chief Communications Officer. “We will continue trying if the commander orders, but I respectfully warn it will be a total waste of time and effort. The commander knows we have beamed every kind of signal on every band available to us. Not so much as an automaton has responded. That vessel is dead.”

  Or sleeping beyond any power of ours to disturb, thought Weoch-Captain. He stared into the screen before him as if into a forest midnight. At its distance, the runaway was a thin flame, crawling across the stars. Imagination failed to feel the immensity of its haste and of the energy borne thereby.

  “I concur,” he said after a minute. “Deactivate your apparatus and stand by for further orders.” Rage flared. “Go, you sthondat-licker! Go!”

  The image blinked off. Weoch-Captain mastered his temper. Chief Communications Officer did not deserve that, he thought. This past time, locked in futility, has made me as irascible as the lowliest crew member.

  What, do I regret taking it out on him? I am thinking like a monkey—also by looking inward and gibing at myself. No other Hero must ever know. Yes, we are badly overdue for some action.

  Weoch-Captain cast introspection from him and concentrated on the future. Not that he had a large choice. He could not overhaul Sherrek, board, and learn its fate. He had repeatedly suppressed an impulse to have it destroyed, that object which mocked him with silence. The Patriarchs would decide what to do about it. He could return directly to them and report. A human shipmaster would do so as a matter of course, given the circumstances.

  The High Admiral has granted me broad discretion. If I come back with my basic mission half-completed, someone else may take it from me and go capture the glory. Also, I do not think like a monkey.

  He summoned Astronomer’s image. “Does analysis suggest anything new about the perturbation you noticed?” he inquired without expectations.

  “No, or I would have informed the commander immediately. The data are too sparse. Something roiled the interstellar medium besides Sherrek, a few light-days aft of where we found it, but the effect was barely noticeable. The commander recalls my idea that a stray rock encountered the screen fields, too small to penetrate but large enough to leave a trail as it was flung aside in fragments. Further number-crunching has merely reinforced my opinion that a search would be useless.”

  Yes, thought Weoch-Captain. The overwhelming size of space. And if we did retrieve a meteoroidal shard or two, what of it? An improbable encounter, but not impossible, and altogether meaningless. Whatever happened to Sherrek happened a light-year farther back, two years in the past, which is when we established that it ceased communicating.

  And yet I have a hunter’s intuition—

  A cold thrill passed through him. He dismissed Astronomer and called Executive Officer. “Prepare for hyperspace,” he said. “We shall proceed to our primary goal.”

  “At once, sir!” the kzin rejoiced.

  “En route, you will conduct combat drill with full simulations. The crew have grown edgy and ill-coordinated. You will make them again into an efficient fighting machine. Despite what we have learned from the beamcast, there is no foreseeing what we will find at the far end.”

  “Sire.”

  Humans? thought Weoch-Captain. Maybe, maybe. According to our information, the black hole was not their principal objective; but monkey curiosity, if nothing else, may hold them at it still. Or—I know not, I simply have a feeling that they are involved in Sherrek’s misfortune. They, the same who destroyed Werlith-Commandant and his great enterprise.

  Be there, Saxtorph, that I may take the glory of killing you.

  Chapter XVIII

  Stars crowded the encompassing night, wintry brilliant. Alpha Centauri was only one among them, and Sol shone small. The Milky Way glimmered around the circle of sight, like a river flowing back into its wellspring. Rifts in it were dustclouds such as veil the unknown heart of the galaxy. Big in vision, a worldlet hilled and begrown with strangeness, loomed the black hole artifact.

  Rover held station fifty kilometers off the hemisphere opposite the radiation-spouting gap. “Below” her, Peter Nordbo, with Carita Fenger to help, examined a structure that he believed could throw the entire mass into hyperspace. Elsewhere squatted the robot prospector, patiently tracing a circuit embedded in the shell substance.

  Aboard ship was leisure. Dorcas kept the bridge, mostly on general principles. If the robot signaled that it had finished, she would confer with Nordbo and order it to a different site. Ryan watched a show in his cabin; some people would have been surprised to know it was King Lear. Saxtorph and Tyra sat over coffee in the saloon. When Carita relieved him on the surface and he flitted back up, he had meant to sleep, but the Wunderlander met him and they fell to talking.

  “Your dad shouldn’t work so hard,” he said. “Three watches out of four, daycycle after daycycle. He ought to take it easier. We’ve got as much time as we care to spend.”

  “He is impatient to finish and go home,” Tyra said. “You can understand.”

  “Yes. Home to sadness, though.”

  “But more to hope.”

  Saxtorph nodded. “Uh-huh. He’s that sort of man. Not that I have any close acquaintance, but—a great guy. I see now why you laid everything on the line to buy a chance of having him again.” He paused before adding in a rush: “And with you once more in his life, he’s bound to become happy.”

  She looked away. “You should not— Oh, Robert, you are too kind, always too kind to me. I shall miss you so much.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “Hey, there, little lady, don’t borrow trouble. You know I’ll be detained on Wunderland for a goodly spell, like it or not.” He grinned. “Want to help me like it?”

  Her eyes sought back to his. The blood mounted in her face. “Yes, we must see what we can—”

  Dorcas’ voice tore across hers. “Emergency stations! Kzinti ship!” Coming from every annunciator, it seemed to roll and echo down the corridors.

  “Judas priest! To the boat, Tyra!” Saxtorph shouted. He was already on his way. His feet slapped out a devil’s tattoo on the deck. As he ran, the enormity of the tidings crashed into him.

  At the control cabin, he burst through its open door and flung himself into the seat by Dorcas’. In the forward viewport, the shell occluded the suns of their desire. Starboard, port, aft gleamed grandeur indifferent to them. The communicator, automatically switched on when it detected an incoming signal, gave forth the flat English of a translator: “—not attempt to escape. If we observe the neutrino signature of a hyperspatial drive starting up, we will fire.”

  Sweat shone on the woman’s scalp, around her Belter crest. Saxtorph caught an acrid whiff of it, or was that his own, running down his ribs? Her fingers moved firm over a keyboard. “Ha, I’ve got him,” she whispered. A speck appeared in the scanner screen. She magnified.

 
Toylike still, the other vessel appeared. Saxtorph followed current naval literature. He identified the lean length, the guns and missile tubes and ray projectors, of a Raptor-class warcraft. The meters told him she was about half a million klicks off, closing fast.

  “Acknowledge!” the radio snapped.

  “Message received,” he said around an acid lump in his gorge. “What do you want? We’re here legitimately. Our races are at peace.” Yah, sure, sure.

  “Oh, God, Bob,” Dorcas choked while the beam winged yonder. “The call was the first sign I had. She may have emerged a long distance away. If we’d spotted her approaching—”

  He squeezed her arm. “We didn’t keep an alert, sweetheart. We didn’t. The bunch of us. What reason had we to fear anything like this?”

  “Weoch-Captain of Hero vessel Swordbeak, speaking for the Patriarchy.” Now, behind the synthetic human tones, were audible the growls and spits of kzinti. “You trespass on our property, you violate our secrets, and I believe that in the past you have been guilty of worse. Identify yourself.”

  Saxtorph stalled. “Why do you ask that? According to you, no human has a real name.”

  Can we cut and run for it? he wondered. No. The question shows how kicked in the gut I am. She can outboost us by a factor of five, at least. Not that she’d need to. Even at this remove, her lasers can probably cripple us. A missile can cross the gap in a few minutes, and we’ve nothing to fend it off. (Grab it with our grapnel, no, too slow, and anyway, there’d be a second or a third missile, or a multiple warhead, or—) She herself, at her acceleration, she’ll be here in half an hour. But how can I think about flight? Carita and Pete are down at the black hole.

  It had flashed through him in the short seconds of transmission lag. “Do as you are told, monkey! Give me your designation.”