The Man-Kzin Wars 04

by Larry Niven

  When a little girl studied war, odd things stuck in her memory. Now she was remembering the fragment of a twentieth century Frenchman's letter from a hospital near Reims describing how he had spent four days buried with eight dead comrades on top of him in a shell-destroyed trench.

  The duty of a soldier is to wait. And while one is waiting, paralyzed, life goes on. Three Jotok raced around the corner, chattering in their pseudo-Hero's Tongue. Efficient hands rolled the kzinti over, removed their helmets and slit their throats. They stripped the corpses of weapons, piled the armored bodies in a neat barricade for Nora, reloaded her launcher, and propped her up facing down the L. Two of the beasts skittered away. The third remained just long enough to give her a shot of paralysis antidote effective for a kzin but no better than a bee sting for a human. Hands rearranged her trousers, and then he, too, was gone.

  The duty of a soldier is to wait, soaked in the blood of an enemy, fingers unable to fire, praying that the fingers will come back to life before it is necessary to kill again.

  Daddy had been burned alive.

  Eventually Long-Reach arrived, arguing with himselves about how to help Nora. Three Jotoki carried her away for a bath by multitudinous arms. While her mouth was still only able to make the noises of a baby trying to discipline its tongue, she learned of their impossible victory.

  Lieutenant Argamentine couldn't speak her joy but her eyes could leak. If General Fry could see me now, naked and being bathed by monster slaves!

  Long-Reach was coming out her hair with three hands, caressing the auburn richness of it, fluffing it, adding proteins to it to give body. He knew how to take care of a pelt!

  "Did ... Mellow ... Yellow... survive?"

  "Slept through it all. Like a kit."

  Nora grinned to herself. One to go! A half an hour later, when she could speak coherently, she suggested the deliberation of Mellow-Yellow.

  Long-Reach was uneasy. The other Jotoki became somber in their fear. "Not now. First we clean up ship. Blood! Dents! Awful mess!"

  Big(arm) added somberly, "He must never know."

  Freckled(arm) shivered. "The rage if he finds out...."

  "Lie to a kzin, and it's the torture chamber for you," said Nora knowingly.

  "The mutiny never happened!" said Long-Reach adamantly. "All is as it was."

  The Jotoki knew enough about gravity polarizers to alter course. They were almost at turnover by the time of the revolt and were doing a quarter of the velocity of light. They didn't try to decelerate. They just changed direction with deep space as their only destination.

  One team spaced the kzin corpses. Each corpse was ejected violently by the polarizer field in a transient restabilization of the ship's energy and momentum balance. Other teams cleaned and scrubbed and repaired. Long-Reach slaughtered all Jotoki who were bonded to deceased kzin, dressing and storing them for Mellow-Yellow's table.

  For the first time in millennia, the ancient conquerors of the barbarian warlords of Kzin-home commanded their own warship.

  CHAPTER 24

  (2420 A.D.)

  Hibernation did damp the immediacy of the thoughts and rages with which one went into hibernation, but there was no memory loss upon revival. Waking up and expecting to confront Grraf-Hromfi and possible death, to find oneself instead the master of a kzinless lumbering drydock headed off in the general direction of kzinspace was a disorienting experience. At the minimum he should have rated a navigator and crew.

  Trainer-of-Slave’s first assumption had been that Grraf-Hromfi had undergone a drastic change of liver, had seen the reasonableness of the request to flee the battle with the superluminal motor and had simply sent him on his way. It was the only logical assumption. Everything was in order. The Shark was still in the hangar the first thing he checked and the Bitch was shipshape.

  But Grraf-Hromfi didn't trust Jotoki to massage his pelt, let alone take command of a ship. Something else had happened. Trainer didn't have the time to ponder.

  He was new to ship command and priority tasks kept cropping up and demanding his attention. noticed things.

  The record of orders was absent. The log file was too clean. The transfer of command was broken. When had his Jotoki been forced to take command? He couldn't even locate information about how the developing battle at Alpha Centauri had ended. The last he'd heard it had been chaos UNSN superluminal vehicles winking on, Grraf-Hromfi foaming at the mouth about mythical green-scaled monsters trying to take over his mind, a feral flotilla of animal rock-Jacks converging on the monster, and a massive mobilization of the Fifth Fleet to the wrong rendezvous at the wrong time.

  Now not a word of that. Not a sniff of kzin fur. Not a trace of kzinti hierarchy. Almost, a discontinuity..

  In all this pastoral calm no battles, no emergencies serenity should have been master. But his Jotoki, who had clearly been in command of the ship in violation of standing admiralty orders, were terrified that's what was wrong.

  His slaves were honest. If Grraf-Hromfi had found himself in a hopeless situation and had ordered the Bitch to flee under Jotoki control, they would have said so and been proud of Grraf-Hromfi's trust. But they were all running around, tripping all over their arms, trying to please him, inventing orders to be obeyed and keeping their mouths shut.

  It was plain that they were expecting their mild-mannered Mellow-Yellow to murder them all. Each of them had the fear of the Fanged God in all of their five hearts. Trainer couldn't bear to question them. He insisted, absolutely, upon the truth from his slaves but sometimes the truth was better left unsaid. He had never, ever, questioned Long-Reach or Joker or Creepy about the death of Puller-of-Noses. The subject had always been taboo.

  Murder in the service of loyalty.

  Jotok-Tender had mumbled about Jotok loyalty as if it were a sin when he was drinking too deeply of his contraband sthondat blood. The rumors about their treachery were true but Trainer had always put that down to poor slavecraft. Was it more? Did a threatened bond sometimes lead to a murderous frenzy?

  He examined the ship for evidence of murder, and found not a mark. His suspicion was absurd, of course. He knew his Jotoki very well. Perhaps they were capable of well-meaning murder, but they were not capable of organized mutiny. Their education had been standardized for ages. Military prowess was not part of it. Indeed, military prowess had been systematically bred out of their root stock.

  But there was something else he was noticing. His Jotok slaves were carefully shielding him from that she-man Lieutenant Argamentine. They were taking care of the cages all too well. He purred at such a revealing insight. In the mystery surrounding his revival, he had forgotten her, and no one had reminded him.

  He had pity for his Jotok, but he had no scruples about questioning a man-beast. She must be healthy by now.

  While he thought about it, he spent time in the Command Center checking the Bitch's course towards faint R’hshssira. Navigation was not his specialty, but he'd spent half his life out under the interstellar heavens absorbed by the majesty of the celestial sphere. He had the lore of perhaps twice octal-cubed stars etched into the passion lobe of his liver. Finding his way was no problem. It was avoiding the treacherous shoals of mass that was the navigator's art and pride and nightmare- and at that Trainer was an amateur.

  Nora Argamentine was in a sullen mood when he found her in the cages. His Jotoki had exceeded their authority by merging four of the barred boxes into one large space for her and the children, but he had to agree that the new arrangement was a better one. The three children cried when they saw him.

  "Silence, slaves"" he said, and they were silent.

  "So, your little tricksters let you out of the cold box, did they? They had the command of a whole warship to themselves, and they let you out."

  "I trust my Jotoki in all things. But Grraf-Hromfi would never have trusted this vessel to any Jotok without a wide-awake kzin on hand," he said. "I'm curious how that happened."

  "Ask them!

 
He unlocked the cage, and turned to the apprehensive children to reassure them. "I'll only be questioning her for a short while. She'll be right back."

  He pulled her out by the arm, and kept her more or less at arm's reach so that she couldn't attack him, thus propelling her to the inter-floor capsule station. She tried to shake off his arm. "I'm not fighting." But she was resisting every Patriarch's toe-length of the way.

  In the kzin-sized chair of the torture chamber, he strapped her down and attached the instruments. He set up the vocoder to monitor their conversation so that there would be no misunderstandings. "Tell me the truth and there will be no pain," he said gently.

  "I've been here before and I killed my torturer."

  The muddled situation was beginning to clear. Female acumen could only be a tiding of vast troubles. "Hr-r, this is the truth?"

  "Why should I cover for your perfidious little tricksters?"

  "They betrayed you?"

  "They tranquilized me and put me back in the cages. They betrayed themselves."

  "What happened? I can't question them their fear produces an agony of pity in my liver regions. My shame is that they are my friends."

  "Friends? Together we cleaned you ratcats out of this ship in half an hour. They took a positive pleasure in the mayhem. I made one mistake."

  She spat at him. "I let you live."

  There was a low growl in his voice despite himself. Here was the leader of the mutiny.. Now events made sense. "Details!" he insisted.

  She told him where he could stuff his tail.

  He turned on the nerve-slim.

  "All right, all right. Why should I cover for your monsters?" There was no way for her to withhold the story of the mutiny but she could make him work for it. She described the attack as if it were a spontaneously lucky uprising, careful not to mention the nerve gas, steeling herself to resist "offering" its chemical structure if he pressed her but he didn't ask for details. He was too appalled by the total picture. She sensed, surprised, that he didn't want to see his Jotok as haulers. He even released her restraints as a way of telling her that he wanted no more answers.

  "I should space them all!" he roared.

  "Why don't you? I'll helps"

  "I've had that dilemma before. Then who would cover my back? Kzin who hunt alone are vulnerable." He whacked his tail against the bulkhead in annoyance. "You led them astray," he accused.

  "Will you execute me?"

  "Females are not responsible for their actions.. It is not your fault that you are intelligent. The Fanged God has his jokes."

  "I can see you on my living room rug by the fireplace," she snarled, twisting her curl.

  He did not reply. Her story of massacre had sobered him. What other terrible consequences of female intelligence were there? A thinking, talking female could severely disturb a household by teaching what she knew to her litter. His mind reeled at the thought of female military genius within a kzinrett palazzo! They would steal the younglings! They would turn youth against wisdom!

  How unlucky for a race to have been cursed with such a cruel twist of evolution. He felt his first stab of pity for mankind. In the last two hundred generations, just on Man-home alone, there had been more wars than in all the expanse of Kzinspace and more death by war on that one planet than in all of the wars waged by Heroes to protect the Long Peace. What else could arise while female quickness sowed dissent between father and sons?

  Such a waste of the feminine essence which could be better employed in play with kits and on the mating couch with males.

  He put the torture implements away. A black-fingered paw touched her auburn tresses. He was missing his long lost Jriingh. "Do not be afraid of me. I am a strange kzintosh, known for the unwarlike feelings I have in my liver for my slaves. You have beautiful natural hair. I shall see to it that you grow a fine pelt over your nakedness. You have your feral flaws, but your intelligence can be improved."

  This female was perfectible. No hurry. It was a long journey home.

  CHAPTER 25

  (2421-2423 A.D.)

  The Nesting-Slashtooth-Bitch was sluggish but her cruising velocity was as high as any large kzin warship. Three and a half years was the estimated trip-time to Hssin, which was 2.6 light-years from Alpha Centauri. Detection was unlikely even though they might now be traveling through hyperdrive infested space. Hssin lay 5.6 light-years to the north of Man-sun. Nobody could patrol that much volume any more than an acorn could patrol an ocean.

  He was going to have problems with his female. Keeping experimental animals caged was expedient, but a cage would not do for slave breeding and he was anxious to begin his breeding program. He had a sufficiency of frozen sperm. He probably did need to do more experimentation, but without a source of experimental animals, that was no longer an option. He'd have to use what he already knew.

  But if he gave the Nora-beast the breeding room a female needed, even built her a kzinrett palazzo with enough space for her children, he was leaping into trouble. He picked the larger of the crew dormitories for her, but left her in her cage while he refitted the room think before you leap!

  The original dorm layout was not sabotage-proof. If he were building an ordinary palazzo, that would not matter. But he knew very well that she was dedicated to destroying the Shark and would give her life to do so. Next on her priority list was killing the one kzin she'd missed when she'd used his Jotok against the Patriarchy. Feral intelligence in a female was a captivating nuisance. He dare not underestimate her.

  The walls he had his Jotoki armor-plate. He built in monitors to watch her for dangerous behavior. They weren't the most intelligent of monitors but they probably wouldn't gas her too frequently if she was careful.

  When her chambers were ready, he took her for a visit. She was wearing clothes again, he noted disapprovingly. They weren't decorative but they did cover her tail-like baldness.

  "I like it," Nora said laconically. "It reminds me of the Alabama. The munitions room."

  "The Alabama?"

  "You wouldn't know the war. The USN Alabama was a seagoing battleship with a steelclad munitions room that could take an internal explosion hopefully without sinking the ship."

  He listened and then ran her words through his vocoder to make sure of what he'd heard.

  Dangerous memories. For all he knew, she could make high explosives out of paper and spit. Her memories would have to be replaced, and her emotions would have to be altered, and her facility with language crippled. While she had her memories and her full repertoire of skills, she was dangerous. Perhaps he could add some aesthetically pleasing fur. Then he would be able to relax and enjoy her.

  In the meantime he needed her memories.

  To please the Nora-beast he let her design the furniture for herself and the children.

  "You're going to let me have whatever I want?"

  She looked at him with a whimsical smile that he knew was amusement, but which he couldn't help but read as a subliminal warning of attack. Her fingers were twirling with that long curl of hers.

  "No weapons," he admonished.

  "I want a big stuffed pillow that I can Hop into."

  His mind worked on that one. How could a pillow be turned into a weapon to kill him when he least suspected it? This was a nerve-racking game. He imagined himself being smothered. His mind's eye watched her soaking the stuffing’s in nitric acid to make high explosive, while she wove a noose out of the shredded covering. None of the scenes were plausible. "All right," he said.

  He was astonished at the ornate furniture she designed. A bed with a satin roof and adjustable gravity? Golden man-babies with wines, dancing on the headboard? He grumbled but had his Jotoki make them for her, scrounging substitutes for satin and wood. They had to reprogram the weavers and the plastic molders.

  The time went quickly because there was so much to do. Deciphering the superluminal drive was top priority. Trainer-of-Slaves couldn't be reckless with the device, couldn't test it to destructio
n because it was the only one he had.

  He developed a two-pronged approach.

  (1) Analysis. Isolate the sub-units. Attempt to craft a duplicate of the subunit. Test. The Bitch was a repair facility that could make any part in the kzin arsenal. He practically owned a prototype factory and he had the slave power to utilize it.

  (2) Explore the military memories of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine.

  Trainer-of-Slaves had had many years with his experimental animals to determine that human memory was very plastic, approximately five times as plastic as the kzin memory.

  Torture could get at gross detail quickly, but it didn't work well with nuances. Every time a human memory was recalled, it was altered in some way. If the memory was recalled to relieve pain while the brain was saturated in the chemical stew brought on by agony the memory trace was drastically mutated. Torture gradually obliterated the nuances it was meant to recover. He had to veto the use of torture.

  Slowly, he worked out other methods. Trainer-of-Slaves got his best results with Lieutenant Argamentine when he doped her into a sleep state from which she couldn't waken, but in which she remained on the verge of dreaming. He strapped her into a mock-up of the Shark's cockpit and fed her dreaming-mind virtual images of combat conditions in which she was being attacked by kzin warcraft. Winning kept up her interest in the dreams and reduced her anxiety.

  While she was dreaming, he read off her motor responses. That told him what she was doing to counter the images he was feeding to her eyes. From that he learned the combat characteristics of the Shark. For one thing, he discovered that phasing into hyperspace took half an hour to set up. For another thing, he learned that the Shark had only been captured because of an engine malfunction.