The Man-Kzin Wars 06

by Larry Niven

  “Mmmpf. Yah.”

  “You haven’t proposed to me,” she accused.

  He moved his head between her breasts and went back to sleep.

  “Men always propose to me before they make love to me whether they are sincere or not. How come you haven’t proposed to me?”

  “Formality... protocol... etiquette... propriety,” he muttered.

  She crawled over him and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m not feeling secure. We could get married right now” She was looking down at him. “Hey, you’re awake! I woke you up!” She switched on the glow light

  “Hey, you’re beautiful. You look like a woman. What’s happening to my mind?”

  “Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about marriage.”

  “Never tried it.”

  “Did you like my rabbit stew?”

  “Yah.”

  “It went very well with your pie so we should get married right now”

  “Our wedding guests would be appalled by our dishabille!”

  “Are you going to propose to me?

  “I don’t know how”

  “You’re supposed to propose to a woman before you make love to her. Don’t they teach you any manners on Earth? I’ve never been treated so inconsiderately in my life.” She lifted the chain from her neck and stared at the ring. The iron had been formed under high pressure and it was full of bright little diamond crystals. She liberated her talisman from its chain. “Do you want to by it on?”

  “It wouldn’t fit”

  “It’s a Swiss precision telescoping ring. It will fit any finger.” She slipped it on his special finger. “See. It fits. Now we’re married. And oh, I forgot... it has an inscription that reads ‘forever.”

  “It must have been made before boosterspice.” He held up his hand to look at it “You’re supposed to wear one of these things, too, you know”

  “Then I couldn’t flirt with the boys.” She crawled back in bed, hip-whacking Yankee in order to make some room for herself ‘love, I forgot to ask you—do you snore? If you snore I’m getting an abortion right now”

  “With you around I just stop breathing. How about a trip to Kzin for our honeymoon? I’ve got the tickets.”

  “No, thank you! If you want a honeymoon on Kzin I’m filing for divorce in the morning.” She kissed him good night and went to sleep happier than she had ever been.

  Chloe dreamed about a wedding feast on Kzin in an ancient manorial hail with Major Yankee Clandeboye as the main course and Nora Argamentine and her children as dessert. She was watching from a cage that sing from the ceiling. Yankee dreamed of Earth and the ancient Royal Navy He was being keelhauled across the barnacles of a ships bottom by a very irate British admiral.

  · Chapter 19

  (2438 A.D.)

  It was very difficult for Hwass-Hwasschoaw to manage the rescue from W’kkai. The signals sent from his UNSN-supplied beamer to the UNSN patrol vessel had to be masked by the normal electromagnetic radiation from W’kkai. He had his beamer set up on a mountain in his hunting range among the cluttered equipment of an amateur astronomical observatory. Still he dared not fire it at a low angle.

  Worse, he had to receive redundantly generated signals broadcast by the UNSN along the vector of an interstellar radio source. It was no easy task to clean away the camouflaging noise from the weak carrier.

  Then each of the outgoing messages had to be acknowledged by the UNSN and each incoming message had to be acknowledged by a burst from W’kkai. Tedious.

  His political skills were taxed. He had to make judicious use of the Patriarch’s Eye, its amateur astronomers, its spies among the priests and government and navy. He had to seduce loyal warriors to arrange safe transportation to the singularity boundary. If it had been just himself and Grraf-Nig, there would have been no problems. But he also had to smuggle out his bait, the Nora-beast and her six whelps.

  A crippled kzin, whose two sons had been killed years ago in combat with Si-Kish, designed Hwass a container cleverly outfitted for human hibernation. Grraf-Nig, their expert on human physiology, was consulted. More arguments. More snarling. But they had to get it right. There could be no tricks here, if Hwass did not deliver the Nora beast alive, he knew there would be no transportation to Kzin; indeed, the Yankee-beast would then try to kill him. There was no sense in provoking premature suspicion.

  Endless petty knots had to be curried from the plan’s fur. Originally Hwass hoped that many years of W’kkai observations could be smuggled past W’kkai and human eyes inside the “diplomatic” pouch Interworld Space Commissioner Markham had given him at Tiamat. The contents of the pouch were, after all, intended for Kzin. But in one of his messages the Clandeboye-animal instructed him to destroy the old pouch. A duplicate would be supplied and delivered to him as he left the UNSN vessel at Kzin. So much for that. Interstellar mail was too precious to allow time for argument with monkeys.

  Outlook spawned the biggest carcass of contention in this adventure. Hwass was a bold strategist, willing to take high risks because of his great skill and fleet feet. Grraf-Nig was by nature a coward. He did not like risks. Unfortunately he was essential to any plan to capture Clandeboye’s mercy ship. Grraf-Nig knew how to pilot a hyperdrive vessel; Hwass did not. Grraf-Nig understood hypershunt construction; Hwass did not. Grraf-Nig knew the poisons that would destroy a monkey mind; Hwass did not.

  They snarled and yowled at each other over the details of their planned theft but the coward always prevailed because he knew his worth. Hwass tried importing exotic animals for their hunts. He tried playing scent-ball with this eater-of-grass on the local meadows—and letting him win. No amount of flattery penetrated this coward’s fur. Exasperating. Hwass had to workout his rage during the dinner chases.

  It was fifteen light-years from W’kkai to Kzin. That distance couldn’t be covered in one hyperspace jump. Hwass craved to release the nerve gas after the first jump, killing the crew instantly, then to broadcast false hyperwave distress signals. If the UNSN suspected a lethal drive malfunction, blame would not fall upon Kzin.

  Grraf-Nig, in his cowardly mien, argued that some unforeseen event might strand them—losing both the ship and whatever service they could provide the Patriarch. Timidly he pleaded that the gas be released after they had reached Kzin, after the exchange of slave for warrior had been completed. Then if bad luck befell them, Grraf-Nig’s precious brain (and neck) would have survived.

  Dealing with this robber-of-names filled Hwass’s stomach with rotten meat. His partner did not understand the strategic importance of a gas that could kill a human crew instantly without touching any kzinti on board. In the forest Hwass practiced twisting the bark off trees with his bare hands. Boulders came apart when he smashed them against stony outcrops. Rodents were squashed to a pulp in his grip.

  ***

  But Grraf-Nig remained adamant: if the gas did its job at Kzin, warriors could board the hypership, and take it, no one the wiser; if the gas failed, and the man-beasts became enraged, the whole of the Kzin fleet would be there, alert and ready to protect Kzin-home. It had already been proved that a human fleet could not take a major system of the Patriarchy. All the advantages were with the defense. And it was ninety days by hyperdrive from Man-sun to Kzin. Kzinti were adapted to slow supply lines; humans were not.

  Grraf-Nig had his own way of handling his rage at the wasted time invested in argument with his liver-driven co-conspirator. He was absolutely sure that, unarmed, he could kill Hwass probably quickly. His instructor in Heroic Combat and name-sake, Grraf-Hromfi of the Black Pride, had given him years of personal training—and in the end had trusted the martial training of his Sons to Grraf-Nig. It was not strength that counted in combat. But killing Hwass would strand him on W’kkai.

  He took out his anger in controlled combat—by exercising the rules of tournament. He had a student. Monkeyshine liked to fight. It gave the outcast kzin away to use up his rage and learn to control it at the same time. The old tra
iner-of-slaves in him was still curious about the limits of slaves. His ears wiggled to see the tiny boy charge him with a full-faced grin.

  Part of Grraf-Nig was still furious about the fate of his own male kits. He had daughters but the sons were dead, murdered, probably devoured, by the scarless kzin who had taken over his harem. Monkeyshine was probably the only son he’d ever have. Was there any harm in teaching him a few fancy tricks? The little slave would be dead himself soon enough. He would die for the Patriarch. Sometimes fathers had to sacrifice their Sons for the triumph of the Patriarchy.

  It was a day of heavy wind. The final batch of nerve gas was being synthesized under less than ideal conditions. There was no threat to kzinti but Grraf-Nig took the whole family of man-beasts upwind for a picnic to keep them out of possible danger. Almost tenderly he spent the time with Monkeyshine in the dry orange grass of the field, teaching him how to sidestep an oncoming blow, then reverse-kick for a deadly riposte.

  ***

  In time the whole operation was in place. A UNSN vessel arrived to patrol the singularity—a flea of a ship that aroused no passionate feeling on W’kkai. Friends of the Eye were ready with a small kzin corvette. Its captain requested—and was given—the mission to shadow the new ghostship. His cargo of human slaves were first tranquilized (while sleeping) and each administered a sealed suppository of nerve gas. They were drugged with the metabolic retardants Grraf-Nig had developed during those long gone days when an adequate supply of man-beast experimental animals were coming to him from the Wunderland orphanages. Suspended, the slaves were stored in their specialized container and smuggled to the spaceport.

  To Grraf-Nig’s immense relief, the enterprise went smoothly. There was no wild chase by Si-Kish’s elite units. Hwass was a superb organizer—just as he boasted—a hunter who could pass silently over twigs in the driest of summers. Even the transfer from W’kkai corvette to UNSN flea was a model of smooth cooperation. Only the mistrust made it uncomfortable. Grraf-Nig, allergic to prisons, was outraged at their prisoner status. Hwass, who had been caged before by Major Yankee Clandeboye, delighted in his associate’s discomfort. He knew how to use the formidable weaponry afforded by the Mocking Tense of the Hero’s Tongue. A murderous Grraf-Nig decided that it was fortunate for Hwass that there were two cages.

  They were in no danger. As arranged by Hwass, they were allowed a “dead-kzin” switch; the death of a kzin would trigger the explosive death of the slaves. It amused Grraf-Nig that Hwass hadn’t counted on a “dead-man” switch rigged by the efficient Captain Jay Mazzetta. If any of the slaves died, the UNSN’s kzinti guests would be administered a lethal injection. Grraf-Nig wiggled his ears in slow fan-like waves, which was his own way of retaliatory mocking. The gesture plainly said, “I told you so!”— Hwass’s original plan to take over the UNSN’s vessel would not have worked.

  It was a tense journey. Three humans; two kzin; seven sleeping slaves. It lasted forty-five days. The time wasn’t altogether unproductive. Yankee taught his kzinti gin rummy. Since they had no common currency, the winnings were paid off in ethnic jokes. The Hero’s Tongue is the richest language for insults in Known Space and so the caged ratcats never ran out of monkey putdowns. Translated into butchered English, the odor of the jokes was sanitized but at the same time turned into a bizarrely hilarious travesty of which the kzin could not be aware.

  Hwass enjoyed showing off his knowledge of man-beast history “Iss German monkey self-named Hitler-Führer. Iss think to win thousand-year victory on Jewish slaves by mustache and salute.” Hwass imitated Hitler with a black finger under the nose of his muzzle and an outstretched furry arm. His German accent was atrocious, the point of his story incomprehensible. Still, Yankee and Jay and Beany cracked up in helpless laughter. Hitler-Führer had his Germans by the tens, by the hundreds, by the thousands, and then by the millions marching off into the stupidest of monkey adventures imaginable.

  The kzinti, in turn, taught their simian chauffeurs how to play a pentagonal card game called tournament which they were convinced no mere animal could master because no money or lies exchanged hands, only honor. The Heroes became very good at gin rummy. The humans never won a single game of tournament. They had to listen to much humor at their expense.

  When it was Grraf-Nig turn to tell an ethnic joke he was more impressed by human technical stupidity than by their sorry history. He loved simple observations about the intelligence of man-females. Once he had observed, he said, a blond woman (one of his experimental animals) repair an electrical appliance. She carefully joined the severed power-source wires, input to input, output to output. She pressed the input and output wires together because she didn’t like lumps. Then, because she knew about insulation, she wrapped everything in tape until no copper was showing. She plugged it in. Grraf-Nig imitated the female scream that followed the explosive vaporization of copper. His ears flapped at the jolly memory.

  Yankee and Jay and Beany enjoyed Grraf-Nig’s blond “manrret” jokes but they didn’t really find his admiral-monkey jokes very funny at all. The jibes were impossibly unfair—human admirals were always jumping into battle without doing their homework, or drinking kzin piss out of bottles labeled as boosterspice, or seducing young lieutenants.

  ***

  The terms of reception at Kzin had been coordinated by hyperwave and electromagnetic haggling. Grraf-Nig set the strategy, Hwass the tactic. Hwass cleverly suggested to the incorrigibly naive monkeys, and the UNSN accepted, a protocol that might sound friendly to a human but would inevitably sound hostile to a kzin. It was a protocol evolved over thousands of years of interstellar squabbling to settle disputes between rival Conquest Commanders of different star systems. After an exchange of prisoners—the exchange more desired by one side than the other—the carriers were expected to admit wrongdoing in the Dominated Tense—or accept a boarding party and a fight to the death.

  Hwass knew, and Grraf-Nig conceded, that this particular protocol would make no sense to the Heroes of Kzin—the UNSN was enemy not rival, animal not warrior. But the elite warriors of Kzin were the best in the Patriarchy. They would smell the wind while listening to the words—and know what the protocol was telling them across the light-years. A boarding party would be hidden in the Heroes’ exchange ship, ready for Hwass to command when he was no longer a prisoner.

  The barter was carried out in Kzin space with the efficiency of a demolition team disassembling a time-bomb. Kzinsun was the brightest star in the sky Kzinhome invisible in its glare. Kzin’s great gas giant Hgrall was brilliant by reflected light, but to find it a kzin had to know where it was against the backdrop of the Fanged God’s constellations. Grraf-Nig was in a state of fear he hadn’t felt since his failed escape from W’kkai. The tiny craft shuttling between warships was too small, too vulnerable. These critical moments after the disarming of the “dead-hand” switches were the most dangerous. He could smell his own fear inside his suit.

  ***

  Hwass-Hwasschoaw was feeling no such alarm; he who believed in the God of the True Shape had nothing to fear from these divine pets. God needed the cuffing skills of the kzin to control His pets’ disloyal impiety With a Kdapt reformation, He would get just that. All was going according to plan.

  Their shuttle gracefully docked with the kzin ship. Free, Hwass sent the shuttle back out into space, pilotless, car-lying the replacement diplomatic pouch and whatever treachery it might early besides whinings about peace. He thrust his grass-eating companion into the maw of the airlock. Machinery cycled. The inner entrance dilated. Before he was out of his suit, Hwass was ushering a black-spotted captain toward his command center, leaving Grraf-Nig to fend for himself

  “Do we have warriors trained in boarding?”

  The captain, striding to keep up, hissed qualified agreement, even enthusiasm. The war against the ghostships had been going badly for too long, the humiliation of being member to a treaty roared out the need of vengeful retaliation—but he was a professional who wanted to kn
ow more than Hwass had been able to tell him.

  “Communicator!” Hwass motioned the crewkzin out of his seat; the comm equipment was standard over the whole of the Patriarchy and he was too impatient to explain his needs. He punched in a signal from memory and beamed it at the distant UNSN ghostship. Then he counted heartbeats. Now! The gas would be erupting from the suppositories of the slaves in a flatulence of death. In the null-gee human ships, air supply was circulated by machine. It was a small ship. Grraf-Nig’s test-animals from the Wunderkind orphanage had died within seconds after exposure to the gas.

  When there was no response from the ghostship, he rose from the communicator’s station and turned to the captain. “They are dead. The entire crew, slaves, all. Send your boarding party! Instantly! We have captured a hyperdrive!”

  Sixteen warriors, in readiness for hours, swarmed out of the kzin warship, angry wasps. Cautious at first, they were deployed so they couldn’t all be slaughtered at once. They were ready to return fire with a fire that would surgically remove any weapons that the ghostship might use. But there was no return fire. Two warriors were about to open their prey like a can of rations when... it disappeared. Fourteen warriors had nothing to attack.

  Hwass-Hwasschoaw reacted in stunned surprise. At that moment, Grraf-Nig took control, almost as if he were a trainer-of-slaves again and these warriors were suddenly his by right of a higher bid. “Honored Captain! I know what has happened! Call the navy. Bring up support! In the meantime, full acceleration perpendicular to the hyperboundry. Down!”