02-World of Ptavvs

by Larry Niven

  Kzanol took out his variable-knife. He treated the disintegrator with supreme disregard. Perhaps he didn't think of it as a weapon. In any case, nothing uses a weapon on a thrint except another thrint. He opened the variable-knife to eight feet and stood ready to wave the invisibly thin blade through the rebellious sentient's body.

  "I dare you," said Kzanol/Greenberg. He didn't bother to raise the disintegrator.

  GET OUT, Kzanol told the pilot. Kzanol/Greenberg could have shouted. He'd won! Slaves may not be present at a battle, or a squabble, between thrint and thrint.

  The pilot moved slowly toward the airlock. Too slowly. Either some motor area had been burned out in the mind fight, or the slave was reluctant to leave. Kzanol probed.

  ALL RIGHT. BUT HURRY.

  Very quickly, the pilot climbed into his spacesuit before leaving. The family of Racarliw had never mistreated a slave...

  The airlock door swung shut. Kzanol asked, "What kind of deal?"

  He couldn't understand the answer. Feeling disgusted with himself, he said, "We'll have to turn on the radio. Ah, here it is." He bent his face against the wall so that a pair of eating tendrils could reach into the recess and flip a switch. Now the pilot could hear Kzanol/Greenberg speaking through his suit radio.

  It never occurred to either that they were circling Robin Hood's barn. The slave couldn't be present in person.

  "I repeat," said Kzanol. "What kind of deal?"

  "I want a partnership share in control of Earth. Our agreement is not to be invalidated if we find other, uh, beings like you, or a government of same. Half to you, half to me, and your full help in building me an amplifier. You'd better have the first helmet; it might not fit my brain. I want your oath, your... Wait a minute, I can't pronounce it." He picked up a bridge sheet and wrote, "prtuuvl," in the dots and curlicues of over-speak. "I want you to swear by that oath that you will protect my half ownership to the best of your ability, and that you will never willingly jeopardize my life or my health, provided that I take you to where you can find the second suit. Swear also that we'll get humans to build me another amplifier, once we get back."

  Kzanol thought for a full minute. His mental shield was as solid as the door on a lunar fort, but Kzanol/Greenberg could guess his thoughts well enough. He was stalling for effect. Certainly he had decided to give the oath; for the prtuuvl oath was binding between thrint and thrint. Kzanol need only regard him as a slave...

  "All right," said Kzauol. And he gave the prtuuvl oath without missing a single syllable.

  "Good," Kzanol/Greenberg approved. "Now swear to the same conditions, by this oath." He pulled a bridge sheet from his breast pocket and passed it over. Kzanol took it and looked.

  "You want me to swear a kpitlithtulm oath too?"

  "Yes." There was no need to spell it out for Kzanol, nor even to repress his dolphin grin. The kpitlithtulm oath was for use between thrint and slave. If he swore the kpitlithtulm oath and the prtuuvl oath he would be committed for keeps, unless he chose to regard Kzanol/Greenberg as a plant or a dumb animal. Which would be dishonorable.

  Kzanol dropped the paper. His mind shield was almost flickering, it was so rigid. Then his jaws opened wide and his lips pulled back from the needle fangs in a smile more terrible than Tyrranosaurus rex chasing a paleontologist, or Lucas Garner hearing a good joke. Seeing Kzanol, who could doubt that this was a carnivore? A ravenous carnivore which intended to be fed at any moment. One might forget that Kzanol was half the weight of a man, and see instead that he was larger than one hundred scorpions or three wildcats or a horde of marching soldier ants or a school of piranha.

  But Kzanol/Greenberg recognized it as a smile of rueful admiration, a laughing surrender to a superior adversary, the smile of a good loser. With his thrint memories he saw further than that. Kzanol's smile was as phony as a brass transistor.

  Kzanol gave the oath four times, and made four invalidating technical mistakes. The fifth time he gave up and swore according to protocol.

  "All right," said Kzanol/Greenberg. "Have the pilot take us to Pluto."

  "A-a-all right, everybody turn ship and head for three, eighty-four, twenty-one." The man in the lead ship sounded wearily patient. "I don't know what the game is, but we can play just as good as any kid on the block."

  "Pluto," said someone. "He's going to Pluto!" He seemed to take it as a personal affront.

  Old Smoky Petropoulos thumbed the transmitter. "Lew, hadn't one of us better stop and find out what's with the other two ships?"

  "Uh. Okay, Smoky, you do it. Can you find us later with a maser?"

  "Sure, boss. No secrets?"

  "Hell, they know we're following them. Tell us anything we need to know. And find out where Garner is! If he's in the honeymooner I want to know it. Better beam Woody in Number Six too, and tell him to go wherever Garner is."

  "Of course, Pluto. Don't you get it yet?" It was not the first time Kzanol/Greenberg had had doubts about his former self's intelligence. The doubts were getting hard to ignore. He'd been afraid Kzanol would figure it out for himself. But—?

  "No," said Kzanol, glowering.

  "The ship hit one of Neptune's moons," Kzanol/Greenberg explained patiently, "so hard that the moon was smacked out of orbit. The ship was moving at nearly lightspeed. The moon picked up enough energy to become a planet, but it was left with an eccentric orbit which still takes it inside Neptune at times. Naturally that made it easy to spot."

  "I was told that Pluto came from another solar system."

  "So was I. But it doesn't make sense. If that mass dived into the system from outside, why didn't it go back out again to complete the hyperbola? What could have stopped it? Well, I'm taking a gamble.

  "There's only one thing that bothers me. Pluto isn't very big. Do you suppose the suit may have been blown back into space by the explosion when it hit?"

  "If it was, I'll kill you," said Kzanol.

  "Don't tell me, let me guess," begged Garner. "Aha! I've got it. Smoky Petropoulos. How are you?"

  "Not as good as your memory. It's been a good twenty-two years." Smoky stood behind the two seats, in the airlock space, and grinned at the windshield reflection of the two men. There wasn't room to do much else. "How the hell are you, Garner? Why don't you turn around and shake hands with an old buddy?"

  "I can't, Smoky. We've been ordered not to move by a BEM that doesn't take no for an answer. Maybe a good hypnotherapist could get us out of this fix, but we'll have to wait 'til then. By the way, meet Leroy Anderson."

  "Hi."

  "Now give us a couple of cigarettes, Smoky, and put them in the corners of our mouths so we can talk. Are your boys chasing Greenberg and the BEM?"

  "Yeah." Smoky fumbled with cigarettes and a lighter. "Just what is this game of musical chairs?"

  "What do you mean?"

  Old Smoky put their cigarettes where they belonged. He said, "That honeymoon special took off for Pluto. Why?"

  "Pluto!"

  "Surprised?"

  "It wasn't here," said Anderson.

  "Right," said Garner. "We know what they're after, and we know now they didn't find it here. But I can't imagine why they think it's on Pluto. Oops! Hold it" Garner puffed furiously at his cigarette: good honest tobacco with the tars and nicotine still in it. He didn't seem to have any trouble moving his face. "Pluto may have been a moon of Neptune once. Maybe that has something to do with it. How about Greenberg's ship? Is it going in the same direction?"

  "Uh uh. Wherever it is, its drive is off. We lost sight of it four hours ago."

  Anderson spoke up. "If your friend is still aboard he could be in trouble."

  "Right," said Garner. "Smoky, that ship could be falling into Neptune with Lloyd Masney aboard. You remember him? A big, stocky guy with a mustache."

  "I think so. Is he paralyzed too?"

  "He's hypnotized. Plain old garden-variety hypnotized, and if he hasn't been told to save himself, he won't. Will you?"

  "Sure. I'll br
ing him back here." Smoky turned to the airlock.

  "Hey!" Garner yelped. 'Take the butts out of our mouths before our faces catch fire!"

  From his own ship Smoky called Woody Atwood in Number Six, the radar proof, and told his story. "It looks like the truth, Woody," he finished. "But there's no point in taking chances. You get in here and stick close to Garner's ship; if he makes a single move he's a bloody liar, so keep an eye open. He's been known to be tricky. I'll see if Masney is really in trouble. He shouldn't be hard to find."

  "Pluto's a week and a half away at one gravity," said Anderson, who could do simple computations in his head. "But we couldn't follow that gang even if we could move. We don't have the fuel."

  "We could refuel on Titan, couldn't we? Where the hell is Smoky?"

  "Better not expect him back today."

  Garner growled at him. Space, free fall, paralysis, and defeat were all wearing away at his self-control.

  "Hey," he whispered suddenly.

  "What?" The word came in an exaggerated stage whisper.

  "I can wiggle my index fingers," Garner snapped. "This hex may be wearing off. And mind your manners."

  Smoky was back late the next day. He had inserted the pointed nose of his ship into Masney's drive tube to push Masney's ship. When he turned off his own drive the two ships tumbled freely. Smoky moved between ships with a jet pack in the small of his back. By this time Atwood had joined the little group, and was helping Smoky, for it would have been foolish to suspect trickery after finding Masney.

  Not because Masney was still hypnotized. He wasn't. Kzanol had freed him from hypnosis in the process of taking him over, and had, kindly or thoughtlessly, left him with no orders when he departed for Pluto. But Masney was near starvation. His face bore deep wrinkles of excess skin, and the skin of his torso was a loose, floppy, folded tent over his ribcage. Kzanol/Greenberg had repeatedly forgotten to feed him, remembering only when hunger seemed about to break him out of hypnosis. Kzanol would never have treated a slave that way; but Kzanol, the real Kzanol, was far more telepathic than the false. And Kzanol/Greenberg hadn't learned to think of daily food intake as a necessity. So much food was a luxury, and a foolish one.

  Masney had started an eating spree as soon as the Golden Circle was gone, but it would be some time before he was "stocky" again. His ship's fuel was gone, and he was found drifting in a highiy eccentric orbit about Triton, an orbit which was gradually narrowing.

  "Couldn't possibly be faked," Smoky said when he called the Belt fleet. "A little bit better fakery, and Masney would be dead. As it is, he's only very sick."

  Now the four ships fell near Nereid.

  "We've got to refuel all these ships," said Garner. "And there's a way to do it." He began to tell them.

  Smoky howled. "I won't leave my ship!"

  "Sorry, Smoky. See if you can follow this. We've got three pilots, right? You, Woody, Masney. Me and Anderson can't move. But we've got four ships to pilot. We have to leave one."

  "Sure, but why mine?"

  "Five men to carry in three ships. That means we keep both two-man ships. Right?"

  "Right."

  "We give up your ship, or we give up a radar proof ship. Which would you leave?"

  "You don't think we'll get to Pluto in time for the war?"

  "We might as well try. Want to go home?"

  "All right, all right."

  The fleet moved to Triton without Number Four, and with half of Number Four's fuel transferred to Masney's ship, the Iwo Jima. Garner was Masney's passenger, and Smoky was in the Heinlein with Anderson. The three ships hovered over the big moon's icy surface while their drives melted through layer after layer of frozen gases, nitrogen and oxygen and carbon dioxide, until they reached the thick water ice layer. They landed on water ice, each in its own shallow cone. Then Woody and Smoky went after Number Four.

  Smoky brought the singleship down with its tank nearly empty. They drained what was left into the Iwo Jima, and followed it with the Heinlein's supply. Woody turned off the cooling unit in the singleship's hydrogen tank, dismantled the heater in the cabin and moved it into the tank. He had to cut a hole in the wall to get in.

  The next few hours were spent cutting blocks of water ice. Masney was still convalescing, so the Belters had to do all the work. When they broke off they were exhausted, and two laser cutting tools were near death; but Number Four's fuel tank was filled with warm, not very clean water.

  They hooked up the battery from Number Six to electrolyze the melted ice. Hydrogen and oxygen, mixed, poured into the Heinlein's tank. They set the thermostat above the condensation point of hydrogen; but the oxygen fell as snow, and Smoky and Woody alternated positions in the bottom of the tank, shoveling the snow out. Once they had to take Number Six up and fly her around to recharge her batteries. Always there was the flavor of time passing, of the "war" leaving them further behind with each passing minute.

  In two days they had fueled all three ships. The tanks were not full, but they would carry the little secondary fleet to Pluto, driving all the way, with fuel to spare. Number Four was useless, her tank clogged with dirt.

  "We'll be three days late for whatever happens," Woody said glumly. "Why go at all?"

  "We can stay close enough for radio contact," Smoky argued. "I'd like to have Garner close enough to tell the fleet what to do. He knows more about these Bug Eyed Monsters than any of us."

  Luke said, "Main argument is that it may take the fleet three days to lose. Then we get there and save the day. Or we don't. Let's go."

  Woody Atwood masered the fleet immediately, knowing that the others could not intercept the conversation. If they had moved into the maser beam their radio would have blown sky high.

  "Matchsticks!" Kzanol's voice dripped with thrintun contempt. "We might just as well be playing Patience." It was a strange thing to say, considering that he was losing.

  "Tell you what," Kzanol/Greenberg suggested. "We could divide the Earth up now and play for people. We'd get about eight billion each to play with, with a few left over. In fact, we could agree right now that the Earth should be divided by two north-south great circle lines, leave it at that 'til we get back with the amplifier, and play with eight billion apiece."

  "Sounds all right. Why north-south?"

  "So we each get all the choices of climate there are. Why not?"

  "Agreed." Kzanol dealt two cards face down and one up.

  "Seven stud," announced the pilot.

  "Fold," said Kzanol/Greenberg, and watched Kzanol snarl and rake in the antes. "We should have brought Masney," he said. "It might be dangerous, not having a pilot."

  "So? Assume I'd brought Masney. How would you feel, watching me operate your former slave?"

  "Lousy." In point of fact, he now saw that Kzanol had shown rare tact in leaving Masney behind. Lloyd was a used slave, one who had been owned by another. Tradition almost demanded his death, and certainly decreed that he must never be owned by a self-respecting thrint, though he might be given to a beggar.

  "Five stud," said the pilot. He sat where he could see neither hand, ready to wrap his human tongue around human, untranslatable poker slang when Kzanol wished to speak, and ready to translate for Kzanol/Greenberg. Kzanol dealt one up, one down.

  'That's funny," said Kzanol/Greenberg. "I almost remembered something, but then it slipped away."

  "Open your mind and I'll tell you what it was."

  "No. It's in English anyway. From the Greenberg memories." He clutched his head. "What is it? It seems so damned appropriate. Something about Masney."

  "Play."

  "Nine people."

  "Raise five."

  "Up ten."

  "Call. Greenberg, why is it that you. win more than I do, even though you fold more often?"

  Kzanol/Greenberg snapped his fingers. "Got it! 'When I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great. And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys.' Stevenson." He laughed. "Now what
made me..."

  "Deuce for you, queen for me," said the pilot. Kzanol continued in thrintun: "If men had telepathic recorders they wouldn't have to meddle with sounds that way. It has a nice beat, though."

  "Sure," Kzanol/Greenberg said absently. He lost that hand, betting almost two hundred on a pair of fours.

  Somewhat later Kzanol looked up from the game. "Communicator," he said. He got up and went to the pilot room. Kzanol/Greenberg followed. They took seats next to the control room door and the pilot turned up the volume.

  "... Atwood in Number Six. I hope you're listening, Lew. There is definitely an ET on the honeymooner, and he definitely has wild talents. There's nothing phony about any of this. The alien paralyzed the Arm and his chauffeur from a distance of around a million miles. He's pretty callous, too. The man in the second ship was left drifting near Triton, half starved and without fuel, after the alien was through with him. Garner says Greenberg was responsible. Greenberg's the one who thinks he's another ET. He's on the honeymooner now. There are two others on the honeymooner, the pilot and copilot. Garner says shoot on sight, don't try to approach the ship. I leave that to you. We're three days behind you, but we're coming anyway. Number Four is on Triton, without fuel, and we can't use it until we clean the mud out of the tank. Only three of us can fly. Garner and his chauffeur are still paralyzed, though it's wearing off a little. We should have a hypnotherapist for these flatlanders, or they may never dance again.

  "In my opinion your first target is the amplifier, if you can find it. It's far more dangerous than any single ET. The Belt wouldn't want it except for research, and I know some scientists who'd hate us for giving up that opportunity, but you can imagine what Earth might do with an amplifier for telepathic hypnosis.

  "I'm putting this on repeat.

  "Lew, this is Atwood in Number Six. Repeat, Atwood in..."

  Kzanol/Greenberg pulled a cigarette and lit it. The honeymooner had a wide selection; this one was double filtered, mentholated, and made from de-nicotinized tobaccos. It smelled like gently burning leaves and tasted like a cough drop. "Shoot on sight," he repeated. "That's not good."