The Man-Kzin Wars 07

by Larry Niven

  Perhaps she would know for herself, if the Sun-Tzu ever reached Wunderland.

  Bruno, while Linked, had once told Carol that there was little of free will in what actions he took while Transcended. It was as if knowing the best solution to a problem removed freedom of choice — unless he intentionally chose an improper solution. Connected to a computer's vast silicon mind, Bruno had told Carol that he was driven to choose the best solution to a given problem; therefore, free will as she understood it did not exist for him.

  Carol mulled that over for a few moments. What if, she thought, the basic nature of free will was the freedom to make mistakes?

  The holoscreen flashed brightly in alert, and the buzzing electronic tones of the Battle Stations alarm broke her from her reverie.

  "Pardon me," Bruno told her calmly, eyes still closed, "but when I am part of the alarm system, I must act like the relevant component." The alarm tone halted without Carol having to deactivate it.

  "No matter. Give me a status report." Carol's fingers tensed on the edges of the console before her. The dataglove and keypads were clipped impotently to the side of the console. With Bruno in full Linkage, her commands were far too slow and crude.

  The main holoscreen window cleared, and quickly drew three separate blips, moving rapidly outward from the center of the screen, in different directions. She looked over at Bruno, whose eyes were still closed, facing forward.

  "It appears," he said, "that we have hit the jackpot, so to speak." Not waiting for orders, he displayed the observational information, data windows opening and keeping pace with the tiny red sparks, highlighting and scrolling numbers in agreement with his statements.

  "The mystery blip," he continued, "did not wait for our change in attitude, Carol." Abruptly he cackled with very unmachinelike glee, a false mirth animating his slack muscles. "Mystery, mystery!”

  She jerked back at this sudden change. His face went limp as the hypospray hissed at his neck again. The flat voice came, sibilant and precise, as though driven by air leaking out of a balloon. "It presumably became aware of our engine shutdown seven and a half minutes ago. The single blip then split into three distinct signals. Inference: three ships, previously moving in close convoy, stealthed.”

  "Finagle damn! One we might handle. But three?”

  The holoscreen windows showed relevant data as marching columns of glowing numbers and glittering diagrams. "The stealthing apparently does not stand up well to high-gee maneuvers, and I obtained an excellent remote data acquisition download. I was easily able to correct for what electronic counter-measures the targets were able to activate under high acceleration.”

  "Well?" Alien vessels for sure, Carol nodded to herself. Her hands gripped the arms of her crash couch until her knuckles turned white with the pressure. Were they ratcat ships, though? They had to be.

  "As I predicted," Bruno replied, not even the pretense of emotion in his voice. "Three Raptor-class kzin warcraft." As he spoke, a larger window opened on the holoscreen, displaying comparisons between the unidentified craft and the standard Raptor-class kzin warbird. "Engine emissions," he continued, "are consonant with slightly damaged and refurbished Third Wave kzinti space vessels. At the time our engine shutdown registered on their instruments, the convoy immediately broke up, each spacecraft moving in different directions at two hundred gees, which is the limit for Raptor-class war-craft.”

  Carol forced herself to relax, to breathe deeply. She drummed her fingers on the console. "Are they too far out to fry with the drive?”

  "That is one problem," Bruno said evenly. "If we activate the drive now, the radiation and plasma exhaust plume would need to spread across many millions of kilometers. Also, while the drive is in operation it will be almost impossible to detect any further maneuvers of the alien craft, due to drive-wash interference.”

  He paused, air wheezing in his throat. "On the other hand, the kzinti may already have fired energy weapons toward us that travel just behind our visual observations.”

  Carol leaned back into her crash couch. "Recommendations?”

  Bruno's face sketched a pale ghost of a human smile. "I recommend that we fire the antimatter drive in a random walk across the sections of space which I predict might contain the kzinti craft.”

  Unconvinced, she made a face and squinted. "But you can't really know where any of the ships are when you fire the drive at them.”

  The small but immensely powerful figure in the crash couch beside her remained unperturbed. "Naturally," he replied, "due to light-speed limitations, and the fact that all three vessels are varying their acceleration and attitude randomly. They are clearly attempting to avoid energy weapons or missiles. But I have some familiarity with deep-space kzin strategies." He didn't speak for a moment, then continued. "A hunch, perhaps you would call it. Biological minds have limited access to originality, after all.”

  Carol frowned at the last statement, unsure of who precisely was the target of that insult. "No choice, then. Carry out your recommendation, pilot," she ordered.

  Bruno settled back into his crash couch and eased open his eyes. He turned his head toward Carol, and looked at her with his alien, faraway gaze and wide pupils. "Because there may not be time to react to maneuvers made by the kzin ships, I am going to have to take control of all ship functions from the automatic subsystems. Please understand that this will take a great deal of my processing capacity. Additionally, I will be heavily accessing many preprogrammed subroutines and predicting stochastic results... " He paused. "Guessing, you would call it.”

  "What are you saying?" Carol asked, anxious to do something, anything, as she watched the red sparks of the three kzinti craft moving slowly across the starfield depicted in the holoscreen window. Blurred columns of numbers next to each red light displayed their changing velocities and positions.

  Bruno nodded slightly. "I will be running short of the dispensable processing capacity that I normally use for conversation and purely human thought, Carol. I may not be able to speak with you for a few minutes. I will post the situation on the holoscreen as data." He turned his head forward and closed his eyes again. His crash couch hummed and cradled him tightly, straps tightening automatically.

  Carol bit her lip, then said, "Tacky... I mean, Bruno... I just... “

  His eyes still closed, an almost human smile turned Bruno's lips gently upward. "I love you, too," he interrupted softly, "even Linked." The smile then turned mechanical, and began to fade away altogether. "At least a part of me does.”

  Carol felt a chill prickle down her neck.

  ***

  OUTSIDERS TWO

  Outrage. The hotworld craft maneuver dangerously as this local-node predicted. The disgusting vermin do grave damage to the flux lines and particle density of this sacred region!

  Caution. This local-node suggests that this local-and-other nodes observe and contemplate further. A quality of strangeness exists here, necessitating caution.

  Fury. This local-node demands the erasure of all such vermin! This region-geometry is sacred!

  Caution-with-worry. Such intemperate action violates the Treaty with the feral {^^^///}. Further action may lead to other abominations like the Treaty. Mark the loss in this-local-and-other-node's autonomy!

  Impatience. This local-and-other nodes took action before when such hotlife insults began to impinge upon a nearby region-geometry of sacred nature. Necessity dictated such activity.

  Mollification. Truth. This local-and-other nodes exterminated many fleets of the hotlife craft. Yet the cost! Again, it was this unfortunate action that led to the Treaty with the {^^^///}.

  Neutrality. This local-node will wait for a small interval, but no longer. If the vermin spew forth more of their disharmonious plasma-vomit...

  Concordance. This local-node is in agreement with the other-node. One. Recall that sentinels watch until action is required — perhaps soon. Observe, dissect the data collected, and learn. It is the Way.

  ·CHAP
TER SIX

  Rrowl-Captain finished picking his teeth with an intricately carved stytoch bone, sighed, then placed the heirloom back in his belt pouch, blinking in contentment. Ceremonially using the point of his right canine fang, he pierced the late Engine-Tinker's severed ear, and threaded it onto the metal trophy loop hanging from his belt. He shook the loop briskly to distribute the leathery ears, making a soft rustling sound audible over the surging mutter of the gravitic polarizers.

  Rrowl-Captain examined the crowded trophy loop judiciously, riffling the thin flaps of dry tissue with a claw tip, then released it to hang loosely from his harness belt.

  He made a mental note to make a larger trophy loop soon. There might be need for one very soon.

  There was nothing like a punishment duel, the captain reflected, to purify his Warrior Heart, and flush away in hot blood the horrifying thoughts that had recently invaded his brain. The green hell-light of the monkey lasers had finally receded from his thoughts. Until next time, he thought sourly, may the One Fanged God damn all monkeys. Rrowl-Captain's frustration had abated with the sating of his bloodlust, however, and he found himself better able to concentrate on the matters at hand.

  Like capturing the monkeyship.

  The master of the Belly-Slasher's whiskers flicked in annoyance as he settled back into his command chair. He examined the forward thinscreen display for a moment, making a thrumming sound in thought. Now that the monkeys had detected Rrowl-Captains ships, the capture of the alien vessel would be more difficult. A pity, to be sure, but the captain felt both well fed and confident.

  Feint-and-pounce, he reminded himself. It was the newest Kzinti Lesson, learned in the hard and brutal academy consisting of the debacles of the last three Fleets to Man-sun.

  Rrowl-Captain looked down at the deck in front of his command chair and blinked in surprise. He coughed a kzinti giggle at his own forgetfulness, and gestured with a languid claw at the four Jotoki slaves waiting nervously near the bridge entryway. The five-armed and -eyed creatures had muttered constantly in their barbarian slave tongue during the blood-duel, at least one eye always focused on the shrieking and slashing Rrowl-Captain.

  The creatures scampered forward immediately at his command. Three snatched up the torn remains of Engine-tinker in their warty arms and carried them away, while the other slave rapidly scrubbed the bridge deck tapestry free of stains and debris. The bridge crew watched with distaste as the plant-eating slaves went about their business.

  Rrowl-Captain rumbled disapproval deep in his throat. He was not as prejudiced as his crew. A Jotok could be useful. The five-armed slaves were swift and intelligent. Significantly, they could cooperate among one another far better than most Heroes. And it was well known that feral Jotoki could be dangerous beasts indeed. Yet educated kzin did not fear Jotoki slaves when properly raised, as the ugly creatures were biologically imprinted by slave-tenders into unbreakable loyalty toward their masters. Rrowl-Captain mused on the unfathomable capaciousness of the One Fanged God, for making such clever creatures so pitifully subject to their innate biology.

  The One Fanged God had clearly created the Jotoki to be slaves of the kzin. This regardless of what the digitally stored lessons of unblooded historians from Kzin-home, with their blunted claws and thinscreen-damaged eyes, might teach in kitten-school. It was ludicrous to think that these servile and ugly beasts had once been technologically superior employers of sword-wielding kzinti mercenaries!

  Rrowl-Captain yawned his outrage at the very thought, baring sharp carnivore teeth. Unlike the kzin, Jotoki did not feed from the summit of the Great Web of All Life, nor did they concentrate and glorify the Life Essence of all creatures below them. The kzin had their place at the Apex of the Great Web, as ordained by the Teachings of the One Fanged God. So the fangless priests said, and so common sense agreed.

  No matter who bickered to whom many light-years distant, one thing remained clear: Jotoki ate plants.

  The captain dismissively spat onto the deck with a snarl. A Jotok leaped forward instantly to clean up the mess with eager fingerlets. Rrowl-Captain sat back and grunted as he watched it scrub the deck until it gleamed, one eye-tipped arm glancing surreptitiously up at him from time to time. It had taken many centuries to properly domesticate the ugly little five-armed slaves, but the Jotoki now fit seamlessly into their proper place in the Empire of the Riit Patriarch.

  As eventually would fit these troublesome human monkeys, he thought, absently sheathing and unsheathing his claws in anticipation.

  The monkey-humans at Ka’ashi were settling down, at least those living on the planetary surface. Pacification was almost complete, according to the tightbeam reports. Heroes would soon complete the conquest of the cowardly spacefaring feral monkeys in the asteroid belt, as well.

  And Heroes would eventually prevail at Man-home, he was certain. How long had the kzin been expanding their Empire compared to these monkeys?

  Rrowl-Captain ignored the green hell-light flaring at the back of his thoughts as if in rebuke. It was the destiny of kzinti to rule everywhere their spacecraft traveled, he knew in his Warrior Heart, as the favored sons of the One Fanged God.

  Rrowl-Captain inserted a clawtip into a slot on the arm of his command chair, and twisted. The thin-crystal action matrix moved up from the side of the chair, unfolding a thinplate screen and console at the captain's eye level. The screen quickly lit with command functions. Rrowl-Captain purred roughly in his throat, impatient to begin the hunt.

  "Communications-Officer," he rasped.

  A young kzin, clearly full of liver and a naive image of the Warrior Heart, jumped to attention. "Command me, Dominant One!”

  "Set up tightbeam laserlinks with both Pouncing-Strike and Spine-Cruncher. Full encryption, in case the monkeys can intercept data traffic and have learned our codes.”

  Unlikely, but the green hell-light in Rrowl-Captain's mind suggested caution. He unfolded an ear at the communications officer in question.

  "At once!" the other kzin replied, hands moving rapidly over his thinplate displays.

  Rrowl-Captain waited impatiently, working the tip of his pointed tongue between two of his ripping teeth. A piece of Engine-Tinker still lodged there, and was proving difficult to remove. He coughed a chuckle in sudden amusement; the nameless blunt-tooth was an irritation even after he became food!

  He studied his thinscreen carefully, noting with approval the prearranged course changes and varying accelerations the captains of Pouncing-Strike and Spine-Cruncher used to avoid becoming targets for monkey weaponry. The ship movements must not become predictable. All three kzin vessels were maneuvering to encircle the human spacecraft, making certain that each kzin ship had a clear zone of attack to carry out its individual mission.

  Rrowl-Captain yowled suspiciously when he observed the alien vessel under extreme magnification. The tapered end of the great iceball-spacecraft, source of the now-silent but still fearsome reaction drive, had swung away from its original orientation. It was pointed threateningly toward the position where Rrowl-Captain's ships had been in convoy not long before. Blurring slightly on the screen with the magnification, he noticed that the drive section of the spacecraft was moving slowly in different directions, as if questing for a target.

  "Acknowledgment pings have returned from Spine-Cruncher and Pouncing-Strike, Leader!" said Communications-Officer crisply.

  The captain licked the fur on the back of his hand with his tongue, and slicked back his facial pelt meditatively. The intership laserlinks were now frequency locked, allowing burst telemetry and messages from each kzin vessel to flow to the others at prearranged points, provided there were no unplanned maneuvers. Gravity polarizers and distance made even light-speed communication difficult, particularly in times of battle.

  His claws clicking and tapping across the console matrix pad, Rrowl-Captain prepared to initiate his plan to capture the alien vessel. Baring his teeth, he looked balefully into the fiber-optic pickup, and let the s
nap and slash of command enter his voice.

  "Tchaf-Captain," he growled to Spine-Cruncher, "you will lead your Heroes against the monkeyship according to the second part of contingency plan Krechpt." He paused, then added grudgingly, "May you show Honor to the Riit and the One Fanged God." With a flick of a claw, the burst message was encrypted and sent. Many seconds later, there was a ping-return, signifying receipt of the message.

  Rrowl-Captain then informed Cha'at-Captain of Pouncing-Strike that it was time to carry out his own orders. The master of Belly-Slasher grinned widely after sending that particular message. He had no doubt that the wild-eyed captain of Pouncing-Strike, a smallish kzin with much bravery in his liver and little sense in his brain, would carry out his orders. Sure enough, the ping-return of acknowledgment arrived as swiftly as he had expected.

  Cha'at-Captain had been a problem for Rrowl-Captain several times during the convoy's long voyage away from Man-sun and the ignoble fate of the Third Fleet. It was only a matter of time, he knew, before Cha'at-Captain challenged him to combat, for control of the three spacecraft and their mission.

  The master of Belly-Slasher preferred to spill kzinti blood to higher purposes than advances in rank.

  For now, however, Rrowl-Captain still led, and chose orders for the aggressive little master of Pouncing-Strike that would remove the problem neatly. Cha'at-Captain could not refuse the orders of his superior, of course. Discipline was the litter-brother to Honor, according to the Teachings of the One Fanged God; Rrowl-Captain had reminded Cha'at-Captain of the specific verses himself.

  Not coincidentally, Cha'at-Captain was a fundamentalist follower of the Traditionalist sect of Hs'sin. The Teachings of the One Fanged God were inspired works to the uneducated little Hero. Brave, but unlettered.

  Rrowl-Captain cynically knew that the Teachings could be quoted by any kzin, regardless of rank or blood, even by the rare atheist Hero. It was simply an ancient book, after all, handed down generation to generation by the priests of the One Fanged God. It was darkly amusing to him that the troublemaking captain had acquiesced so tamely to his fate.