The Man-Kzin Wars 04

by Larry Niven

  From W'kkai it had taken Chuut-Riits caravan nineteen years to reach the outpost Hssin. From Hssin it had taken Short-Son of Chirr-Nig fifty-eight years to reach the legendary W'kkai by means of a short cut of forty-four days at the end.

  In the meantime how had the warriors of Riit and Nig fared? Chuut-Riit was dead, his sons dead, his entourage slaughtered. Chirr-Nig, who had chosen to stay at Hssin and breed sons, was dead. His brothers were fried corpses circling Man-sun or dead at Ka'ashi. His "warrior" sons had died in the Fourth Fleet or found valiant martyrdom during that final valiant cataclysm at Ka'ashi-suns.

  One son had survived. Only one. The runt, the short-son, the eater-of-grass. The coward. The lowly Trainer-of-Slaves. The survivor.

  The Nora-beast beside him was suckling her third pair of twins at milk-swollen breasts, fascinated by the heavens as she always was. She didn't like the shutters that were in place during hyperspatial travel, or the dim electric glow of the cabin. Her dimples told him that she was excited that her world had opened up again.

  There was a slight hint of human urine on Nora's fur the boy's soaker needed to be changed again. The baby girl suddenly opened up her eyes (or a burp, then closed them and went back to her obsessive sucking. She was going to grow up to be a beauty. She ought to be very marketable as a breeder if he could manage her verbal development to peak at 500 words.

  The softly furred female was thinking that she had been very patient with her Mellow-Yellow, but enough was enough! Ex-Lieutenant Argamentine wanted her big room back. With its colors and furs and its baby beds. Where were her other babies? It made her uncomfortable to see them frozen in the hold. They didn't mover

  Bad Mellow-Yellow! He'd kept them all cooped lap too long in his silly ship. Poor Long-Reach, funny Long-Reach, with no place to put his arms back there. The return of the stars was welcome but big old Mellow-Yellow had tricked her before with those. It didn't necessarily mean they were home. "We home?" asked Nora in the elementary hiss-spits of the Female Tongue. She no longer remembered any English at all.

  The kzin warrior spent a day scanning the sky. He was looking for the gravitic pulse of a UNSN ship, worried that they might have inflicted on W'kkai the same horrible fate they had delivered to Hssin. It wasn't likely. That was why he had picked W'kkai. The UNSN ships could outflank the worlds of the Patriarchy. They could lay siege to whole systems. They could disrupt trade. But siege wasn't conquest. W'kkai-system had the resources to resist siege for a dozen generations!

  His sensors detected only kzin.

  He was moving in on the system using the same careful plan that he had extracted from Lieutenant Argamentine's mind, the same maneuver she had been using to close in on a hostile Alpha Centauri.

  They jumped in, one light-day closer. It took Long-Reach half an hour to phase in the motor for that jump and fifteen minutes to arc through hyperspace.

  W'kkai! Trainer-of-Slaves was already dream-seeing his noble household. He saw the stone walls. There would be a vast Jotok Run out back, bigger than the whole Run on Hssin had ever been. He had some nice little bungalows in mind for the man-slaves. They'd need a common dormitory, too. Monkeys were communal animals.

  And the palazzo for his kzinretti: that would be a marvel of carved red sandstone and tall wrought iron walkways to let the light in, W'kkai style all laid out with cool inner corridors, and mazed plazas for the chasing and leaping games. He could almost smell the perfume of kzinrett fur. To stock his harem he'd be able to walk into the most noble of households carved woods, tapestries, trophies, ancient heirlooms and take his pick of their favorite daughters.

  Still nothing but the electromagnetic hubbub of a thriving civilization, and the characteristic gravitic signature of polarizer-driven interplanetary commerce.

  Another jump, and then he knew they were near a military base.

  He beamed out an identification code, so hoary in its use among the worlds of the Patriarchy that it was conjured in base twenty-five mathematics which probably meant that it had been invented by the ancient Jotoki and learned by the kzin while they were still mercenaries. The code was a royal tail-pain to use. But changing standard regulations in a sublight empire could be impossibly complex.

  The man-monkeys weren't any different. He had often wondered why the navigation instruments in the Shark were calibrated to odd intervals of twenty-four and sixty, translated to base ten mathematics. It was a minor miracle that he'd been able to find W'kkai using them. The custom probably reflected something that the humans had inherited from their chimpanzee ancestors.

  He wasn't expecting a fast response to his signal. The Shark was eleven light-minutes from the nearest kzin military unit, well out of "leap first and ask questions later" range. He'd have to wait twenty-two minutes for a reply.

  Eventually that reply arrived. "Kppukiss-Guardian speaking. Identification code incompatible with vessel type. You are putting out the neutrino profile of a UNSN ghostship. You are presently trespassing, I repeat, trespassing the defense sphere permitted to W’kkai by the MacDonald-Rishshi Peace Treaty of the 2433rd year honoring the torture of the Fanged Father, the Monkey Son, and the Unseen Grandfather."

  The rest of the message was unstated but the menace was there- no truce existed inside the treaty perimeter. Good. That meant that they were within kzin controlled space.

  Trainer-of-Slaves decided that now was the time to use a new name. Then he would never have to reveal his duty names and no one could ever flaunt them to insult him. Self-promotion wasn't unknown in the Patriarchy if a Hero had the swinging-claw to make it stick. And this Hero's swinging-claw moved faster than light!

  "Lord Grraf-Nig acknowledging Kppukiss-Guardian. Grraf-Nig here. Grraf-Nig receiving." In taking this name he was honoring his mentor, Grraf-Hromfi (out of affection) and his father, Chirr-Nig (out of spite). For the rest of his life he intended to spread the wisdom of Grraf, and for the rest of his life he intended to be such a fulgent Nig that all other Nigs, especially his father, would fade from the sky.

  His beamcast continued. "This servant of the Patriarch does indeed travel in a salvaged UNSN vessel, unfettered by the luminiferous bondage. We come from the wreckage of Ka'ashi-system and from the martyrdom of Hssin. Light will not yet have delivered its message of these distant woes to W'kkai, so you must only have heard the version spoken to you by the superluminal man-beasts who tell lies to suit the mood of their livers.

  "Grraf-Nig's desire is to settle upon the lush plains of W'kkai to breed a new generation of warriors for which I will need the aid of your magnificent daughters.

  "I come in poverty and lamentation from our wasted worlds. I bring with me only a superluminal drive and a functioning hyperwave receiver, neither of which I can fully comprehend without the help of W'kkai scholarship and neither of which can be comprehended by W'kkai scholarship without the fifteen years of sweat and thought given to these devices by me and my slaves.

  "I come in poverty without a warrior entourage, with only the memory of martyred Heroes. My pitiful wealth is reduced to ten Jotoki-slaves of mechanical bent who know gravitic and superluminal mechanics, and one female breeder of a new slave race and her litter of six child-slaves.

  "The Lord Grraf-Nig requests a full military escort to W'kkai. The vessel Shark is unarmed. Your Heroes are welcome aboard for inspection. Lord Grraf-Nig out. Standing by."

  Grraf-Nig was almost shaking in his fear. After fifteen years of living a Winless life he had forgotten what contact was lime. The frightened Short-Son had been impressed by the speech but appalled that it had been coming out of his mouth. Trainer-of-Slaves was just glad that the W'kkai warriors couldn't smell the fear in the Shark's cabin. He was going to have to request a talcum rubdown by Nora to get the evidence of cowardice out of his fur. Then he'd replace the entire cabin air supply minutes prior to the boarding.

  He expected the next contact to be visual. That gave them twenty-two minutes to dress. He pulled out the case from behind the box that had been made
on We Made It and held up the best kzin finery he had been able to salvage from the ruins of Hssin.

  Grraf-Nig had fresh livery for Long-Reach who was sitting on his mouth atop the hyperdrive motor, three brains asleep and two arms holding sleeping babies. That pose would have to be changed. He wanted his slaves to appear as well-groomed animals. He combed the Nora-beast's fur on her torso and legs until the soft down glimmered. It pleased him to do things for her. She was able to perform miracles upon his pelt. Then he gave her new lace garters for her video debut. She slipped them on, her dimples in her cheeks. That meant she liked them. Of course she didn't understand about the video.

  I've gone crazy from loneliness, thought Grraf-Nig. I love my five-armed sons and my wonderfully feminine man-kzinrett. It was a venal sin to become attached to slaves but that was the risk a slave-master had to take.

  The twenty-two minutes were up. The radio came to life. "Honored Grraf-Nig! This unworthy Kppukiss Guardian offers you a military escort of six Screamers. W'kkai welcomes its Rescuing Hero! Our wealth is your wealth! My only daughter will comfort your couch! A thousand of our sons will be your Warrior's Guard..."

  Though Long-Reach was mostly asleep, short(arm) had been keeping an eye on things. "Dominant Master, don't let all that sthondat excrement overheat your liver."

  "Trip over?" asked Nora brightly.

  Grraf-Nig banged the box from We Made It. "We Made It!" he exclaimed in English.

  Nora didn't understand a word. But she knew what to do. She snuggled up to Mellow-Yellow. "My Hero," she purred-spat in her charming human accent.

  THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN

  Copyright 1991 by Greg Bear and S.M. Stirling

  "I am become overlord of a fleet of transports, supply ships, and wrecks!" Kfraksha-Admiral said. "No wonder the First Fleet did not return; our Intelligence reports claimed these humans were leaf-eaters without a weapon to their name, and they have destroyed a fourth of our combat strength!"

  He turned his face down to the holographic display before him; it was set for exterior-visual, and showed only bright unwinking points of light and the schematics that indicated the hundreds of vessels of the Second Fleet. Here beyond the orbit of Neptune the humans' sun was just another star... we will eat you yet, he vowed silently. A spacer's eye could identify those suns whose worlds obeyed the Patriarch. More that did not, unvisited, or unconquered yet like the Pierin holdouts on Zeta Reticuli. Yes, you and all like you! So many suns, so many...

  The kzin commander's tail was not lashing, he was beyond that, and the naked pink length of that organ now stood out rigid as he paced the command deck of the Sons Contend With Bloody Fangs. The orange fur around his blunt muzzle bristled, and the reddish washcloth of his tongue kept sweeping up to moisten his black nostrils. The other kzinti on the bridge stayed prudently silent, forcing their batwing ears not to fold into the fur of their heads at the spicy scent of highstatus anger. The lower-ranked bent above the consoles and readouts of their duty stations, taking refuge in work; the immediate staff prostrated themselves around the central display tank, laying their facial fur flat. Aide-to-Commanders covered his nose with his hands in an excess of servility; irritated, Kfraksha kicked him in the ribs as he went by. There was no satisfaction to the gesture, since they were all in spacecombat armor save for the unhinged helmets, but the subordinate went spinning a meter or so across the deck.

  "Well? Advise me," the kzin admiral spat. "Surely something can be learned from the loss of a squadron of Gut Tearer-class cruisers?"

  Reawii-Intelligence-Analyst raised tufted eyebrows and fluttered his lips against his fangs.

  "Frrrr. The... rrrr, humans have devoted great resources to the defense of the gas-giant moons, whose resources are crucial."

  As Kfraksha-Admiral bared teeth, the Intelligence officer hurried on. Reawii's Homeworld accent irritated Kfraksha-Admiral at the best of times. His birth was better than his status, and it would not do to anger the supreme commander, who had risen from the ranks and was proud of it. He hurried beyond the obvious.

  "Their laser cannon opened fire with uncanny accuracy. We were unprepared for weapons of this type because such large fixed installations are seldom tactically worthwhile; also, our preliminary surveys did not indicate space defenses of any type. It is worth the risk to further fleet units to recover any possible Intelligence data from wreckage or survivors on appropriate trajectories."

  Kfraksha-Admiral's facial pelt rippled in patterns equivalent to a human nod.

  "Prepare summaries of projected operations for data and survivors," he said. Then he paused; now his tail did lash, sign of deep worry or concentration.. "Hrrr. It is time we stopped being surprised by the Earthmonkeys and started springing unseen from the long grass ourselves. Bring me a transcript of all astronomical anomalies in this system."

  The staff officers rose and left at his gesture, and Kfraksha-Admiral remained staring into the display tank; he keyed it to a dose-in view of the arsenal planet. Blue and white, more ocean than Homeworld, slightly lighter gravity. A rich world. A soft world, or so the telepaths said, no weapons, a species that was so without shame that it deliberately shunned the honorable path of war. Thousands of thousands squared of the animals. Unconsciously, he licked his lips. All the more for the feeding.

  The game was wary, though. He must throttle his leap, though it was like squeezing his own throat in his claws.

  "I must know before I fight," he muttered. He was the perfect spy.

  He could also be the perfect saboteur.

  Lawrence Halloran was a strong projecting telepath.

  He could read the minds of most people with ease. The remaining select few he could invade, with steady concentration, within a week or two. Using what he found in those minds, Halloran could appear to be anybody or anything.

  He could also make suggestions, convincing his subjects or victims that they were undergoing some physical experience. In this, he relied in large measure on auto-suggestion; sometimes it was enough to plant a subliminal hint and have the victims convince themselves that they actually experienced something. The problem was that the Earth of the twenty-fourth century had little use for spies or saboteurs. Earth had been at peace for three hundred years. Everyone was prosperous; many were rich. The planet was a little crowded, but those who strongly disliked that could leave. Psychists and autodocs saw that nobody was violent or angry or unhappy for long. Most people were only vaguely aware that things had ever been very different, and the ARM, the UN technological police, kept it that way, ensuring that no revolutionary changes upset the comfortable status quo.

  Lawrence Halloran had an unusual ability that seemed to be completely useless. He had first used his talents in a most undignified way, appearing as the headmaster of his private Pacific Grove secondary school, sans apparel, in the middle of the quad during an exercise break. The headmaster had come within a hair's-breadth of being relieved of duty; an airtight alibi, that he had in fact been in conference with five teachers across the campus, had saved his job and reputation. Halloran's secret had not been revealed. But Halloran had learned an important object lesson foolish use of his talents could have grave consequences. He had been raised to feel strong guilt at any hint of aggression. Children who scuffled in the schoolyard were sick and needed treatment.

  Human society was not so very different from an ant's nest, at the end of the Long Peace, a stick, inserted from an unexpected direction, could raise hell. And woe to the wielder if he stayed around long enough to let the ants crawl up the stick.

  That Halloran had not manifested his ability as an infant not until his sixteenth year, in fact was something of a miracle. The talent had undoubtedly existed in some form, but had kept itself hidden until five years after Halloran's first twinges of pubescence.

  At first, such a wild talent had been exhilarating. After the headmaster fiasco, and several weirder if less immediately foolish manifestations (a dinosaur on a slidewalk at night, Christ in a sacristy), a
nd string of romantic successes everyone else found bewildering, he had undergone what amounted to a religious conversion. Halloran came to realize that he could not use his talent without destroying himself, and those around him. The only thing it was good for was deception and domination.

  He buried it. Studied music. Specialized in Haydn.

  In his dreams, he became Haydn. It beat being himself.

  When awake, he was merely Lawrence Halloran Tr., perpetual student: slightly raucous, highly intuitive (he could not keep his subconscious from exerting certain small forays) and generally regarded by his peers as someone to avoid. His only real friend was his cat. He knew that his cat loved him, because he fed her. Cats were neither altruists nor hypocrites, and nobody expected them to be noble. If he could not be Haydn, he would rather have been a cat.

  Halloran resented his social standing. If only they knew how noble I am. He had a talent he could use to enslave people, and by sublimating it he became an irritating son of a bitch; that, he thought, was highly commendable self-sacrifice.

  And they hate me for it, he realized. I don't much love them either. Lucky for the...an altruist.

  Then the war had come; invaders from beyond human space. The kzinti: catlike aliens, carnivores, aggressive imperialists. Human society was turned upside down once again, although the process eras swift only from a historical perspective. With the war eight years along, Halloran had grown sick of this masquerade. Against his better judgment, he had made himself available to the UN Space Navy; UNSN, for short. Almost immediately, he had been sequestered and prepared for just such an eventuality as the capture of a kzinti vessel. In the second kzin attack on the Sol system, a cruiser named War Loot was chopped into several pieces by converted launch lasers and fell into human hands.